Melissa White

Melissa White was an early adopter to the Discovery Educator Network. She became a Discovery Educator when there were less than ten Discovery Educators in Michigan. (Today, there are over 170 Michigan Discovery Educators.) Melissa has worked in education for the past 24 years and has often been ahead of the curve. She has wore many hats over that time including K-12 Media Specialist and Spanish teacher, K-5 Media and Technology Coordinator, and 9-12 Media Specialist. Melissa currently works as Supervisor of Media and Technology for REMC 13 ( http://remc13.org/ ) (Regional Educational Media Center) and Ingham ISD ( http://isd.ingham.k12.mi.us/ ) just outside East Lansing, where she supervises Media Services including online resources, journals, books and videos. In addition, she is in charge of collection development and professional development.

Like many Discovery Educators, Melissa spends much of her time training teachers and administrators in software applications, such as unitedstreaming and Blackboard. She has coordinated several large professional development events including the annual Regional Technology Academy (RTA) training over 1,000 educators and the Tech4kids Camp with over 75 students attending the weeklong tech camp each summer. Melissa also partnered with Discovery to offer her region A Day of Discovery which focused on digital storytelling, blogging, copyright, and differentiated instruction.

Melissa continues to be an educational leader in Michigan earning Runner's Up for the MACUL ( http://macul.org/ ) Outstanding Educator award in 2002. She has also been the Program Chair for the MAME ( http://www.mame.gen.mi.us/index.htm ) annual conference for the past six years. Melissa is definitely an educator in the spotlight.