The People

The #Kinderchat Network       

Click on the Rainbow to see a listing of the 2012-2013 #Kinderchat Moderators by topic!



Founders:
@hechternacht : Heidi Echternacht has worked with Young Children for over 20 years. She teaches Kindergarten in Princeton, NJ, USA. She has taught PreSchool, been a Summer Camp Director, gymnastics teacher and camp counselor starting her lifelong work with children at age fifteen. She loves the fields of social networking, learning online and global education (which she never even knew before creating Kinderchat!) In addition to her regular work for Kinderchat, her Projects include the Kinderchat Wiki Reference Library and The Play Project. Her creativity and big thinking continuously push the boundaries in the realm of teaching and learning. 


@happycampergirl: Amy Murray (B.Ed., M.S.) is the Kindergarten Curriculum Coordinator and a full-time classroom teacher at a private French immersion school in Calgary, Canada. She has also taught first and second grades, in English. In addition to teaching, she has been a preschool director, summer camp director, child development worker, and a youth leadership director. Her graduate research on children's social skill development has been published and presented at conferences. Amy writes about her classroom experiences at missnightmutters. She has a wonderful balance of people skills and writing skills, both of which are solidly grounded in her classroom experiences.


The Hood:


@MattBGomez: Matt Gomez (B.S. Texas A&M) has taught full day Kindergarten in Plano, TX since 2001. Despite his dislike for glitter he has found Kindergarten to be the perfect place to work and play. He is confident that building relationships is the key to success in the classroom and has made it a mission to find ways to better engage parents in the class. Matt created and manages the Twitter and Facebook accounts for his school and continues to look for new ways to use social media in the school and classroom. He helped organize the first #edcamp in Texas (edcampPlano) and created the hashtag #pukealert. Matt enjoys making others laugh, pushing the boundaries, and lets his passion for learning lead him in the classroom. Matt blogs here.




@mathmurd Mardelle Sauerborn has been "teaching" for 24 years, in small towns and public schools in Canada that require long drives and flying in planes. She has taught in the north, the south, on the prairies, and now calls  "between two mountain ranges" home. Her career spans  Kindergarten to grade 7, technology, library, but Kindergarten calls her back. She had the privilege of teaching multi-aged groups, moving with a group for 4 years, but Kindergarten calls her back.  She has been a team teacher, Collaborative Librarian, District Tech Helping Teacher, District Literacy Support, but ..... well, you get it. She now sees that listing all of these things in one place makes her feel old. But Kindergarten makes her feel young. It must be all that play. 


@blamehound Nicola Fitzpatrick is a Foundation, Early Years Educator from South Yorkshire, England. She has worked with little people for more than twenty years. She loves play, child led learning, blogging and being outside. She quad blogs with other classrooms through her blog here. Nicola came to Kinderchat in September 2012, quickly turned into an official #Kinderchat addict and now Co-Moderates the European and African time zone of Kinderchat, affectionately called "Kinderchat 2". Nicola's dedication, passion, style and love of learning and life are evident in everything she does!