Jennie Magiera

Jennie Magiera is the Chief Program Officer for EdTechTeam, working on diversity and equity in education initiatives and the author of Courageous Edventures. Previously, she was the Chief Innovation Officer Des Plaines Public School District 62, the Digital Learning Coordinator for the Academy for Urban School Leadership and a Chicago Public Schools teacher. Jennie uses her classroom experiences to inform her work supporting educators to create new and better opportunities for their students. She believes that despite the many challenges facing schools today, every classroom can be a place for “edventures”: student-centered, passion-based experiential learning. Her work centers around acknowledging problems and finding innovative ways to navigate them so as to allow teachers and students dive into these classroom edventures.

Jennie is also passionate about reimagining professional learning to facilitate more relevant teacher support. She has served on the Technical Working Group for the US Department of Education’s National Educational Technology Plan and co-founded various new conference concepts such as PLAYDATE. She has been recognized for her work as a White House Champion for Change, Chicago Public Schools Innovator of the Year, TEDx Speaker, Golden Apple Teacher of Distinction, Apple Distinguished Educator, Google for Education Certified Innovator, and featured on various programs such as NBC’s Education Nation, C-SPAN’s Reimagining Education and NPR.

Jennie shares her experiences taking risks in the classroom and helping others to feel comfortable doing the same in her book, Courageous Edventures. You can follow her on Twitter at @MsMagiera and learn more about her work and her book at bit.ly/edventuresbook.

Jennie is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and has earned a BA in psychology and history from Columbia University and a MS from University of Illinois at Chicago in Mathematics Education.