PD-ROM Staff

• Victoria Costa, Project Co-Director and Course Developer
• Harris Shultz, Project Co-Director and Course Developer
• Marty Bonsangue, Project Co-Director and Course Developer
• Grace Cho, Course Developer (English Learners Strand)
• Debra Ambrosetti, Course Developer
• Mark Ellis, Course Developer
• Kristin Stang, Assistant Professor

• Shari Bithell, Online Facilitator
• Debbie Ambrosetti, Online Facilitator

• Sandra Lapham, Project Co-Director
• Vivian Goldschmidt, Project Specialist
• John Ittleson, Consultant
• Harry Powell, Technology and Media Administrator
• Gary Finkel, Project Liaison-LAUSD

Victoria Costa, Project Co-Director and Course Developer
Professor, Secondary Education, California State University Fullerton
Since 1980, Victoria Costa has taught science and mathematics at the secondary, community college, and university levels. She earned a Texas credential in chemistry and mathematics and has taught in Texas and Massachusetts. Her involvement in university teaching began at CSUF in September, 1984, as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and she has also taught adolescence, multicultural education, methods, educational technology, and graduate courses in general, math, and science education. Dr. Costa' research interests include teacher training and the use of technology-embedded curriculum, instruction, and assessment in secondary classrooms. She consults with local school districts on technology management and use; directs university grants and projects in educational technology; and consults internationally as a Senior Trainer for Intel® Teach to the Future. Dr. Costa has received state and national awards for her research and innovative teacher education projects, including the 1996-1997 National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and the 1997 Best Practice Award, American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education. She has been published in highly respected journals, including the Journal of Curriculum Studies, International Journal of Science Education, and Journal of Research in Science Teaching.
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Harris Shultz, Project Co-Director and Course Developer
Professor, Mathematics, California State University Fullerton
Harris S. Shultz received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Purdue University in 1970. He is the author of over ninety published papers and two books and has been a speaker at over one hundred conferences and colloquia. In 1988 he was named Outstanding Professor at California State University, Fullerton and in 1989 he was one of two recipients of the Trustees' Outstanding Professor Award for the then nineteen campuses of The California State University. In 1991 Dr. Shultz was the recipient of a Mathematical Association of America George Polya Award and in 1992 he received the Southern California Section of the Mathematical Association of America's Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching. Dr. Shultz has directed institutes for mathematics teachers in Orange County, in The Northern Mariana Islands, and in American Samoa. He has supervised student teachers, has conducted professional development programs for mathematics teachers in school districts throughout the United States, and has served as mathematics consultant for numerous school districts, professional development institutes and publishing companies.
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Marty Bonsangue, Project Co-Director and Course Developer
Professor, Mathematics, California State University Fullerton
Marty Bonsangue has taught mathematics at the junior high school, high school, community college, and university levels. In 1992 his dissertation research on the effects of calculus workshops on minority achievement was reported in articles in The New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as having received the Phi Delta Kappa award for outstanding dissertation in education at The Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Bonsangue has published more than forty articles in mathematics and mathematics education, and has presented at more than one hundred conferences and workshops nationally and internationally, including the Northern Marianas Islands and American Samoa. In addition, he has received more than 2.5 million dollars in grant monies to help strengthen mathematics education in and around Orange County, CA. In 2001, Dr. Bonsangue received the Outstanding Teaching Award in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at CSUF.
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Grace Cho, Course Developer (English Learners Strand)
Assistant Professor, Secondary Education, California State University Fullerton
Grace Cho received her Ph. D. in Education from the University of Southern California in 1998. She specializes in language, literacy and learning. Dr. Cho has a great deal of experience in teaching courses in the area of cross-cultural language and academic development, English as a second language, bilingual education and multicultural education. She received an outstanding faculty recognition award from CSUF in 2000. She was also a three year recipient of a Title VII fellowship from the U. S. Department of Education. Dr. Cho, has numerous publications and conference presentations in the areas of bilingual education, culture and curriculum, and heritage language development. Dr. Cho is a former school teacher and cross-cultural specialist. She is trilingual in Korean, Spanish and English.
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Debra Ambrosetti, Course Developer
(Instructional Strategies Strand, Unit 2.1), Assistant Professor, Secondary Education, California State University Fullerton
Debra Ambrosetti received her Ph. D. in Education from the State University of New York, Buffalo in 1998. She specializes in adolescence development and middle school education. Dr. Ambrosetti has taught courses in adolescent psychology, middle school curriculum, the middle school student, multicultural education and the General Pedagogy of Secondary School Teaching. She served as an Advisory Board member of the California League of Middle Schools for three years and on the Rhode Island Middle Level Educators (RIMLE) research association. Dr. Ambrosetti was a Holmes Group Scholar at SUNY-Buffalo for three years, as well as a Schomberg Fellow from State of New York for four years. She also received an outstanding faculty service award from CSUF in 2003. Dr. Ambrosetti has published articles and given conference presentations in the areas of adolescent development, middle school curriculum, culture and curriculum, and multicultural diversity. Dr. Ambrosetti is a former middle school teacher.
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Mark Ellis, Course Developer
Mark taught mathematics in grades 6-12 in northern California public schools for six years, becoming a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Adolescence Mathematics in 1999. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2005 with an emphasis on mathematics education. Mark has taught a mathematics content course for elementary education students, designed and taught an introduction to teaching course for secondary education students, and was the director for a three-year NSF-funded research project examining middle school mathematics teaching practices and student learning outcomes (including conceptual understanding, motivation toward mathematics, and students' mathematical identity). He is a member of the Praxis Middle School Mathematics regeneration committee and serves on the editorial panel for a forthcoming series of books from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics focused on strategies for mathematics instruction that make meaningful learning accessible to diverse groups of students. His publications have appeared in Mathematics Teacher and The Mathematics Educator . Throughout his teaching career, Mark has been driven by a desire to create opportunities for all students-particularly those from groups historically underserved by traditional practices of schooling-to learn important mathematics concepts and skills. In his position at CSU Fullerton, these efforts are continued and extended through his work with pre-service and experienced teachers of mathematics in southern California .
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Kristin Stang, Assistant Professor
Dr. Kristin Stang is in her 4th year in the Department of Special Education at CSUF. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Communication Disorders, with an emphasis in Learning Disabilities. Prior to coming to CSUF, she was a public middle school special teacher in Colorado for 7 years, where she also served as department chair. She is an active presenter at secondary school professional development workshops and presents yearly at national special education conferences. Dr. Stang serves on the Professional Advisory Board for the Learning Disability Association of America and has published a variety of articles, many of them dealing with co-teaching and middle level learners.
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Shari Bithell, Online Facilitator
Shari Bithell has been a 6th Grade teacher at Mariposa Elementary School in the Brea-Olinda Unified School District for the last seven years. Ms. Bithell earned her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at California State University Fullerton, and her Professional Clear Multiple Subject Credential, CLAD certificate, and MA in Education from Whittier College.

Twice selected to represent Orange County at the California State CUE Conferences as a Student Technology Showcase winner, 2003 and 2005, Ms. Bithell readily incorporates technology into every subject area she teaches. In one such program, students participate in online Literature Circle discussion blogs with partner preservice teachers from a California State University Fullerton Reading Methods class. Ms. Bithell also uses this form of online communication for individual Math Logs, an online after-after school GATE class, and her award winning Parent Child Book Club.

Teaching math is Shari's first love, and she takes pride in expanding the depth of the learning through technology and project-based teaching. Ms. Bithell is a trained Renaissance Math Instructor, utilizing authentic assessment and a hands-on approach to the teaching of mathematics.
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Debra Ambrosetti, Online Facilitator
(Instructional Strategies Strand, Unit 2.1), Assistant Professor, Secondary Education, California State University Fullerton
Debra Ambrosetti received her Ph. D. in Education from the State University of New York, Buffalo in 1998. She specializes in adolescence development and middle school education. Dr. Ambrosetti has taught courses in adolescent psychology, middle school curriculum, the middle school student, multicultural education and the General Pedagogy of Secondary School Teaching. She served as an Advisory Board member of the California League of Middle Schools for three years and on the Rhode Island Middle Level Educators (RIMLE) research association. Dr. Ambrosetti was a Holmes Group Scholar at SUNY-Buffalo for three years, as well as a Schomberg Fellow from State of New York for four years. She also received an outstanding faculty service award from CSUF in 2003. Dr. Ambrosetti has published articles and given conference presentations in the areas of adolescent development, middle school curriculum, culture and curriculum, and multicultural diversity. Dr. Ambrosetti is a former middle school teacher.
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Sandra Lapham, Project Co-Director
Administrator of Instructional Services, Orange County Department of Education
Sandra Lapham is the Administrator of Instructional Services with a focus on Instructional Technology at the Orange County Department of Education. In this capacity, she provides the leadership for professional growth, student achievement, partnerships, and communication leveraged through technology. She is responsible for all facets of Instructional Technology, Media Production, Professional Library, and Learning Resources Display Center. A videoconference network; virtual and lab based technology proficiency and instructional applications training; live and video satellite and cable productions; Internet communications; corporate partnerships; and state and national technology initiatives are among her areas of expertise.

Sandra is the former Consultant-in-Charge of the Technology For Learning initiative at the Los Angeles County Office of Education, a five year initiative which exponentially increased infrastructure, hardware, instructional resources, and training in 82 school districts. With the Educational Telecommunications Network, she headed the Instructional Materials Development Center, co- anchored the national Math for All telecommunications series, developed and anchored telecasts to train a national facilitation network, and managed the Regional Educational Telecommunications media project.

Sandra is a former program specialist in mathematics, science, and English language arts and has taught kindergarten, first, and seventh grades.
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Vivian Goldschmidt, Project Specialist
Orange County Department of Education
Vivian Goldschmidt serves as Project Specialist for PD-ROM, coordinating all aspects involved in the development of the project. She has worked as a consultant to Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) since 2002, managing a variety of projects including a virtual field trip to the Galapagos (involving more than 200 Orange County 4th and 6th grade students) and an annual Student Technology Showcase where teams of students demonstrate and present their exemplary technology projects to a county-wide and statewide audience. She has contributed articles for OCDE's "Promising Practices", a quarterly publication reaching all county educators.

Ms. Goldschmidt retired from Pacific Bell in 2000, having worked in a variety of technical design positions in Sales and Marketing, with an emphasis on videoconferencing. She spent the last six years at Pacific Bell with the Education First Initiative, managing the award winning Knowledge Network Explorer website and its developers, twelve K-12 and library demonstration sites, Education Advocates (teachers training educators and librarians on the effective use of the Internet and videoconferencing in the classroom and library), and all education related conferences and activities. Ms. Goldschmidt has since built a small, successful consulting business focusing on education projects and videoconferencing training. Her projects have included managing the development and launch of the Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies website, creating and delivering Videoconferencing Fundamentals training to California libraries, coordinating and evaluating videoconferencing surveys, creating videoconferencing policy and marketing guidelines, and managing KOCE's (Orange County's Public Broadcasting station) 2003 National Teacher Training Institute for over 300 K-12 educators.
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John Ittleson, Consultant
Professor, Information Technology and Communications Design, and Director, Interactive Design and Educational Applications (IDEA) Lab, California State University, Monterey Bay
In addition to his teaching schedule, Dr. Ittelson directs the IDEA Lab, an R&D center for technology innovation. Ffor the past three years Dr. Ittelson has served as the CSU Liaison to the Digital California Project (DCP), designed to build the network infrastructure to serve the entire K-20 education and research community. In addition, the IDEA Lab collaborates with The Monterey County Office of Education to help put in place a broadband network to provide last mile connectivity so local schools can take advantage of the statewide infrastructure.. Between 1999 and 2003, Dr. Ittelson served as Principal Investigator for a Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant program. During the 2001-2002 academic year, Dr Ittelson was selected to be one of two National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) Fellows Conference. In 2003 he was selected by the CSU Chancellor to be one of twenty-five winners of the distinguished Bautzer Award.He has also chosen by Apple to be Distinguished Educator (ADE), in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and 2004. Dr. Ittelson serves on the Boards of the CSU Virtual Language Lab project and Access Monterey Peninsula Cable Consortium and on the Program Committee for The Digital Stream.

Dr. Ittelson received a Bachelors degree in Radio-Television-Film, a Masters Degree in Instructional Television, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Instructional Design from Northwestern University.
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Harry Powell, Technology and Media Administrator
Monterey County Office of Education
Harry Powell has been Technology and Media Administrator for the Monterey County Office of Education for nine years and a California educator for thirty-six years. His current responsibilities include designing professional development activities related to the implementation of the Monterey Bay Distance Learning Network (MBDLN); managing the deployment of the MBDLN; providing videoconference and videostreaming training assistance to districts; supervising the deployment of MyIRT, an educational web portal of resources; managing technology based grants; and supporting staff development activities for AB 75 and other school administrator and teacher professional development programs.

He has served as an educational technology consultant, community college and university instructor, and District Resource Teacher in educational technology, science, and social studies. He has extensive experience in grant writing; technology planning and instruction; and facilitating the implementation of school/district networks (Local and Wide Area networks) for instruction. He has planned, implemented and coordinated numerous workshops, courses, and trainings for the general public and educators. Since 1982, he has held a variety of leadership positions in Computer-Using Educators (CUE), one of the largest education-based technology organizations in the United States.
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Gary Finkel, Specialist
Division of Special Education, Los Angeles Unified School District
Gary Finkel is an administrator with the Los Angeles Unified School District Division of Special Education's, Policy, Planning and Monitoring unit. He received his teaching credential from USC and a Master's Degree in Education Administration from CSU Dominguez Hills. Gary has taught elementary, middle school, and community college classes since 1985. He has been active in the design, implementation and utilization of various internal and web-based applications for data collection, monitoring, reporting and professional development. He is presently involved with the implementation a web-based Individualized Education Program system, an integrated student information system and other technical and instructional projects.
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