About Florence McGinn @ Insynthesis.com

Florence McGinn, the CEO of Insynthesis LLC 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.

Florence McGinn provides services as Vice President for GKE (Global Knowledge Exchange) and Vice President of the Mediatech Foundation. She serves on the Boards of the Mediatech Foundation and 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 keyno te/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. 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.

Florence McGinn is a published poet. Her full-length collection of poetry, BLOOD TRAIL, is published byPennywhistle Press (1st printing 2000, 2nd printing 2004) 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, are part of creative writing activities prepared for professional development training in China, are in use in multicultural and English literature high school classrooms in the United States, 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.

Florence McGinn's award-winning pedagogies and projects are embedded in the international 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.