| Upon graduating from undergraduate school, David Grandison Jr. decided to take on
the challenge of community service by teaching science in an inner city
school. He was fortunate to obtain a position with Teach for America
(TFA), and spent the next 2 years polishing his teaching skills and
honing his educational technology skills in an inner city middle
school. At the end of his TFA contract he was invited by the school
district to collaborate with successful teachers in the district to
create the district's first "School of Choice". David Grandison Jr. was gratified
that his hard work and interest in enhancing the effectiveness of
education by utilizing technology was recognized. As a new teacher,
he was pleased to lead a team of educators in developing an innovative
technology-based curricula that encouraged students to focus their
minds beyond traditional courses to the new horizons of environmental
sciences. The program was named the Ronald H. Brown School of Global
Issues, after the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Witnessing the
awakening of inner city students to learning with computer technology
has continued to shape his interest in exploring the use of
instructional computer technology in schools and in business.
His interests in teaching with computers and multimedia technology
led him to begin working with an experimental Internet television
program called "A Semester Online", which was sponsored by Levi Strauss
and the Pseudo Online Network (Pseudo.com). This was one of the first
online "reality shows". The premise of the show revolved around a group
of college students who were challenged to live an entire semester
making all purchases online (a tough task back in 1999). As a result
of his contributions to this show, he was hired by the Pseudo Online
Network and eventually became a Producer. While working at Pseudo.com
he developed a variety of educational social networks and multimedia
"communities of interest", on the Pseudo Online Network, examples being
SpaceWatch.com and LiveFromMars.com.
His next challenge was as the key educator for the Global Education
Network (GEN). This was a project that was incubated by Allen and Co.
with a goal of launching it as the first, online, "Ivy League"
institution. He was responsible for designing interactive multimedia
university courses. He developed course pedagogy, organized production,
and supervised a team of Flash animators, editors, camera people and
video engineers in the creation of these courses. As a leader of the
development team, he produced courses ranging from Calculus to U.S.
History. Most courses included over 100 hours of Flash animation,
thousands of historic images, and 20-30 hours of historic video
footage, which was combined with the featured Ivy League professor's
footage and narration.
In 2005 David Grandison Jr. completed a Masters Degree in Instructional
Technology and Media from Columbia University's Teachers College. While
completing his Masters Degree, he was awarded a Technology Fellowship.
As a Technology Fellow he was challenged to train professors in the
implementation of educational technology in the classroom and online
multimedia portfolio development. Immediately following the completion
of his M.A., he was hired as the Instructional Designer for BMW Group
University Studios (Team Productions), located within the BMW Group of
North America's (BMWNA) national headquarters. As the Instructional
Designer for BMW Group University Studios, David led producers in the
development of training videos and wrote scripts and instructional
information for various types of video programming. These videos ranged
from consumer programming for BMWNA's website to internal training
programs delivered through BMW University's online portal.
David Grandison Jr. was recruited to consult at Sundance Channel, as Senior Producer of The Green,
presented by Robert Redford. While at the Sundance Channel, he led the
development of a sustainable lifestyle-oriented web portal. As a part
of this project he implemented and developed the online community in
an innovative manner. He chose to create a site around an "Eco-mmunity"
(a map-based social network), to enable the users to share information
on sustainable living. This innovative idea became the first Google location (map) based social network.
This community was developed to highlight environmental issues that
were the focus of Sundance Channels' programming, while realizing the
goals of the project's sponsors, Lexus and Smith Barney. As leader of
this project, David also supervised the development of all online
videos for the site (The Green Online). Examples of the videos David
has produced for the site can be seen on this site's VIDEO page.
In his most recent staff position, as the Senior Producer of the Teacher Channel at Scholastic.com, David Grandison Jr. was challenged to develop a thriving teacher community, utilizing multiple forms of social media. He was also a member of the development team that earned a Webby
Award for redesign of the Scholastic Teacher channel website. Later, as the Senior Producer at Scholastic.com I developed their
thriving teacher community and earned a Webby Award. He specializes in dynamic interactive website and app
development utilizing social media and video. David has consulted on a variety of web-based interactive projects like
games, apps, e-learning tools, Facebook applications as the Executive
Producer of The Learning Collective.
David is currently Executive Producer for BrainPOP.com an award winning educational
animation studio where he manages production teams in the UK, Mexico,
Israel, and France.
[See his PORTFOLIO page for more information on many of the project's highlighted in this bio.]
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