Session Presenters

Sherri Briggs

Sherri-Lynn Briggs is the Data Manager and Aspen System Administrator for North Kingstown Schools. She has been working with Student Information Systems since 2006 and led the conversion to Aspen in 2008. Sherri continues a collaborative effort with the Aspen Districts in RI in order to best utilize Aspen for North Kingstown School Department and teacher's needs.

Christina Broomfield

Christina has been a elementary classroom teacher in North Kingstown for 8 years. She has taught grades 1-4 and served as her school's Technology Lead Teacher where she facilitated school- and district-wide technology based professional development opportunities for teachers and support staff. This year, she is working as a Teacher-in-Residence with the GEMS-Net team at the URI Bay Campus. Her passion for STEM education and blended learning is evident in her professional development workshops and daily classroom culture.

Dorothy Frechette

Dorothy’s professional career has covered a wide range of experiences, starting at Rhode Island State Library Services on the bookmobile, and moving on to cataloging, audiovisual, reference, children’s services, planning and development, and administration. For the last 17 years she has served as RILINK’s Executive Director, working with member schools on interlibrary loan and school library automation. After an initial post-graduate year teaching seventh and eighth grade, Dorothy continued to gain valuable teaching and professional development experience both on the job and at the Graduate School of Library and Information Services, where she developed and taught a course on public relations for libraries. Her primary joy is sharing what she knows to help meet the needs of the people with whom she works.

Brian Garrepy

Brian Garrepy is a fifth grade teacher at Forest Park Elementary School. He has taught fifth grade for 15 years. He is also a coach for the NKHS volleyball team and Johnson Wales volleyball team. He also teaches robotics at Forest Park.

Colleen Kenyon

Colleen Kenyon is the Coordinator of Education Services for Rhode Island PBS. She received a B.A. in Psychology and Elementary Education from Roger Williams University and taught for thirteen years. In 2018, she became the Coordinator of Education Services and now supports the department's efforts to develop and deliver instructional media content. She currently holds a certificate in Elementary Education and is a Level 2 Google Certified Educator.

Janice Kowalczyk

Janice began her career as a middle school science teacher, transitioned to Computers in Education mid-career and finally landed in mathematics education where she directed the Leadership Program in Discrete Mathematics Program at Rutgers University until her retirement in 2009. Presently, working in partnership with CS4RI, she serves as the Director of the Creative Computing with Scratch (CCS) and as a Computer Science Fundamentals facilitator for Code.org. In 2018, Janice was the recipient of Rhode Island’s Jefferson Award for accomplishments in the area of STEAM education and was recognized as a one of Newport Life Magazine’s Top 10 Groundbreakers. Follow her on Twitter @JaniceKowal and follow the CCS project @RIScratch.

Stephanie McKiernan

Stephanie McKiernan has been an educator in the North Kingstown School Department for 28 years. She taught grades 2, 3, and 4 before becoming a Reading Specialist at Quidnessett Elementary School. In 2016, she was proud to become the Technology Lead Teacher at Quidnessett and enjoys collaborating with her colleagues to integrate technology and literacy into the classrooms.

Andrew Propatier

Andrew has been teaching English at the high school in this district since 2003. He has been “online” since he started teaching and volunteered to be a test Chromebook class and has since gone paperless in his teaching. His favorite author is the graphic novelist, Alan Moore, and favorite character is Paul Atreides from Dune, and his hero, whose example he uses to navigate the world, is Martin Luther King Jr.

Jon Rubin

Jon Rubin, Director of Education Services for Rhode Island PBS, is responsible for supervising departmental efforts in developing and delivering video and multi-media content for instructional use in PreK-12 education. He received an M.A. in Teaching of English (Secondary) from Columbia University Teachers College.

Dina Santos

Dina Santos is a first grade teacher at Quidnessett Elementary school. She has been teaching for 6 years and has experience in special education, 1st, 2nd, 5th grade. She enjoys using digital tools to help differentiate in her classroom.

Stephen Skaggs

Stephen has been an elementary teacher for 21 years. In 2014 he became the technology lead teacher for Stony Lane Elementary. Stephen has wide knowledge of Google Applications for Education and has presented in past summits on Google Sites, Google Slides and Google Forms.

Richard Sweetman

Rich has been a teacher for 9 years. In 2016 he came to North Kingstown High School to teach science/chemistry for the North Kingstown School Dept. He likes to collaborate with colleagues to develop multiple options for student learning in and across content areas .