Florence McGinn, the CEO of Insynthesis LLC, an educational
and writing consulting firm, consults as Senior Executive
Vice President for GKE (Global Knowledge Exchange).
Florence McGinn is a former United States Commissioner
on the Congressional Commission on Web-based Education
during the Clinton administration. She was appointed
to that 16 member national commission by then US Secretary
of Education Richard W. Riley. The Web-based Education
Commission was charged by legislation to make policy
recommendations and to provide a full research report
to the President and Congress. Florence McGinn
served as the chairperson of the Commission's National
K-12 Education Issues.
Florence McGinn is the recipient of the United States
National Technology and Learning 1998 Teacher
of the Year award, and she has been honored as Princeton
University's Distinguished Secondary School Educator.
She has received a New Jersey Teacher of the
Year award and a United States Eastern Region
Teacher of the Year award. She is the recipient of several,
New Jersey Best Educational Practices awards
and an Association of School Curriculum Development
award.
Mrs. McGinn is Vice President of the Mediatech Foundation.
She serves on the Board of Trustees of the GKE Foundation.
Mrs. McGinn has served on advisory boards with Cisco
Learning Institute, PBS (National Public
Broadcasting Service) OnLine, Washington, DC-based SchoolTone
Alliance, Raritan Valley College, and Technology
and Learning magazine. Mrs. McGinn, as a former
English teacher, developed pilot projects through support
from AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Liberty Science
Center, Lucent Technology, the United States Department
of Education, Bose Corporation, COMWEB, GKE, and the
Hunterdon Foundation. As a former educator, her learner-centric,
innovation-focused English language and writing pilot
projects were cited as one of NJ's best web sites
by NJ Monthly and as one of the Internet's
ten best educational sites by LearninginMotion.
Florence McGinn presents widely throughout the United
States and internationally on technology-assisted
learning policy, design, and methods. She presented
as keynote/spotlight speaker at the Global Learning
Initiative in Bologna, Italy; at Australia's
Change and Challenge Conference; Singapore's
Conference 2000 and 2001 E-Learning Conference at the
invitation of Singapore's Ministry of Education
and National Institute of Education; at SchoolTech,
at venues in China, Japan, Italy,
and Korea, on Shanghai television and
on NJ Network television; at NECC, TechSpo, SchoolTech,
and at the international AMC Conference; for the US
Dept. of Education, for the NJ Dept. of Education,
for the NJ State School Board, and for groups
including AT&T, NJASA, PBS, National Teacher
Training Institute, and IBM. She has designed
and taught innovative learner-centric English and emerging
technologies courses, offered professional training
at The Academy and in New Jersey Educational Teacher
Training Centers as well as in a televised, ten part
series produced by NJ Network.
Florence McGinn has published on technology-assisted
learning policy and strategies in publications including
Singapore's Association of School Curriculum Journal,
Technology and Learning, Media
and Methods and on-line for associations including
AT&T, The Milken Foundation, the
Asia Media Information and Communication Center,
PBS OnLine, SchoolCity.com, Amnesty International,
and ClassroomConnect.
Florence McGinn's award-winning pedagogies and projects
are embedded in the internationally recognized GKE
Innovative Learning System. A GKE Innovative
Learning Center in Beijing, China, opened in
2003 adjacent to Peking University's campus. The GKE
Innovative Learning System is being deployed
by the prestigious Peking University Allied Elementary
School with plans in place for further distribution
into 3,000 schools in China's Shanxi province.
Mrs. McGinn has held an appointment as Off-Campus Poetry
Professor to Dianye School in Beijing, China. CD-ROMs
on "Educational Digital Velocity" featuring
Mrs. McGinn's innovative educational methodologies,
her essays, articles,
and poetry, as well as educational
support materials are published and distributed
in China by Shanghai-based Centrix Technology, Nankai
University, and GKE. Additionally, Mrs. McGinn's
innovative learning strategies and educator materials
have been published as supplementary materials in alignment
with China's National English Language textbook.
Mrs. McGinn is a published poet. Her
full-length collection of poetry, BLOOD
TRAIL, is published in America and reflects
her Asian American heritage. Elements
of her book BLOOD TRAIL were utilized for an
on-line poetry slam, are integrated into
web-based collaborative creative writing activities,
and are integrated into educational
materials for eBook distribution in Taiwan.
One reviewer indicated, "She paints with the ease
of Chinese brush strokes to place the archetypes and
lush metaphors of human existence in her reader's hearts."
Florence McGinn has published poetry
widely in journals that include Midwest Poetry
Review, Modern Haiku, Voices International,
and Parnassus. She has published children's
poetry in Cricket and Clubhouse.
One of her children's poems is utilized by McGraw-Hill
in its standardized tests. Another poem won a
Peet's Coffee Poetry Prize in California and
was utilized for advertising. Florence
McGinn has given poetry readings, writing workshops,
presentations on creative process, and creative writing
pedagogy and writing project keynotes throughout the
United States and internationally.