Education Leaders Program / Kathryn Riley

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
— Albert Einstein

Kathryn Riley teaches computer media to middle school students, helping them create videos, web pages, and more using Adobe® Flash®, Fireworks®, and Dreamweaver® software. She also works with students to produce an all-digital, all-color yearbook and a video-based campus news magazine. Riley is the schoolʼs webmaster. In addition, she shoots and creates videos for the school, consults with various universities and associations, and trains other teachers in her school and district to create and maintain websites. She has been teaching since the late 1970s.

For an international virtual classroom competition, Riley's computer media class created a web page with a school from Russia and India, finishing in the top eight worldwide. Her classes have successfully competed in Multimedia Mania and ThinkQuest Junior, and her school once won Cool School of the week from Education World. With her students, Riley participated in Project Venture for five years; the class, the first to use advanced technology in its district, was considered a model. Riley herself won a Cox Excellence in Technology and Education award two years in a row, received a technology grant from (and was featured in) Family PC magazine, and has been interviewed by PC World magazine for her use of technology in the classroom.

Riley is a National Board Certified Teacher for Career and Technical Education/Early Adolescent through Young Adulthood.

She is a participant in the Intel Teach to The Future program, has consulted with Arizona State University in four programs, taught MESA (mathematics, engineering, science education) teachers, and created curriculum for high school teachers in computer science engineering. She also works as a subject matter expert for Certicorp, helping the organization develop international standards for digital communication.

Riley will be participating for several years in a grant program at ASU, called Prime the Pipeline (P3): Putting Knowledge to Work, funded by the National Science Foundation. The grant is designed to increase high school students' interest in studying science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business and better prepare them for college programs in these areas.