Evergreen Education Group

Tami McSweeny

Evergreen Education Group — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:41:30 +0000

Tami McSweeny has over 20 years in business consulting and accounting systems technology. Most recently, she is providing accounting, bookkeeping and accounting systems expertise for businesses in Evergreen, Colorado. Prior to owning her consulting practice, she worked as an SAP implementation analyst for a titanium metals company in Denver. While serving as a systems implementation specialist at an accounting software company and a Big 8 accounting firm, she acquired her experience of implementing, training and supporting end users on various software packages, business process reengineering projects and software selections. Tami has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego.

Amy Murin

Evergreen Education Group — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:42:56 +0000

Amy Murin brings 15 years of education, nonprofit management and technology experience to the Evergreen Education Group. She started her career in AmeriCorps in the Sheridan School District as a corps member and then the program manager. Amy then spent six years at eCollege, first working with K-12 and higher education clients to launch and grow their online programs, and then managing their administrative product line. Most recently she has been writing for the fundraising team at National Jewish Health; and consulting with nonprofits, virtual schools and charter schools on best practices, donor management databases and proposal writing. She received her undergraduate degree in Elementary Education and Social Sciences from Vanderbilt University, and a master of Nonprofit Management from Regis University.

Chris Rapp

Evergreen Education Group — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:34:23 +0000

Chris Rapp has spent over 20 years in online education, digital publishing and educational technology. Most recently, Chris served in executive roles for statewide virtual schools in Colorado and Idaho. As Executive Director for Colorado Online Learning, Chris led the organization to a 50% increase in enrollments, while maintaining a student completion rate of over 88%. While serving as Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, Chris managed the development of dozens of new online courses, while also implementing a thorough review and revision process for over 150 existing courses. As a pioneer in internet-based online learning, Chris was the founding Director of the Center for Internet Technology in Education (CiTE) at eCollege and served as a Senior Consultant working with universities such as Seton Hall University, the University of Montana and Drexel University to set up their first online programs. Chris has also served as an Editor of digital media for Prentice Hall and Manager of Showcase Schools for TCI Educational Technologies. Chris has a B.A. in Television Journalism from the University of Georgia – Athens and a M.S in Telecommunications/New Media from Indiana University – Bloomington.

Additional Projects

Evergreen Education Group — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:10:34 +0000

Many of our projects don’t fit neatly into any of the above categories, although they are no less important to us. Examples of these projects include:

State Virtual School Alliance

We are facilitating a collaborative group of state virtual schools working together to share information around best practices and common challenges.

Trujillo Commission

The Trujillo Commission was formed by the Donnell-Kay Foundation in response to the Colorado state audit of online schools. The commission held public hearings, interviewed online learning leaders, and created recommendations that formed the basis for the subsequent law that was passed in Colorado to allow the expansion of online learning. We provided support to the Commission’s research and reporting efforts.

Wyoming Department of Education

In Wyoming we held a similar role with the Wyoming Distance Education Task Force, which proposed recommendations that subsequently were passed by the legislature to create the Wyoming Switchboard Network.

Advisory Services

Evergreen Education Group — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:07:37 +0000

Some of our projects are less defined with a concrete deliverable; we sometimes take on a role as advisors to organizations that want to better understand K-12 online learning. At various times we have taken on this role for the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, Angel Learning, LearningMate, and others.

Driving Directions

Evergreen Education Group — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:52:43 +0000

If you’re visiting us in Colorado, you’ll find our office on the second floor, above Cactus Jack’s Saloon, on the corner in downtown Evergreen. From Denver take I-70 west to the Evergreen exit (#252), then head south for about eight miles until you pass Evergreen Lake and then reach the corner in the middle of town. Make a right, and then a second quick right into the Cactus Jack’s parking lot. Take the outside stairs to the second floor; we’re the first office on the left.

Butch Gemin

Evergreen Education Group — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:25:24 +0000

Butch Gemin has over 20 years of marketing, sales and business startup experience in educational publishing, online learning and educational software. Butch has recently held executive positions in marketing, member development, and sales management with two innovative educational nonprofit organizations, the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) and Prometheus, a software startup within The George Washington University. As Director of Marketing and Member Development, Butch developed and implemented the promotional plan for the MITE’s cornerstone project, the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), a library of multimedia-based online course content. He co-founded the organization, helping to define the product, services and operational strategies, while establishing relationships with educational institutions to ensure the successful introduction of the NROC project. At Prometheus, Butch was responsible for positioning the company as one of the premier course management software providers in the higher education marketplace. He led a marketing and sales effort to build strategic alliances with Prometheus users to expand the role of IT administrators and faculty in the product’s community source software development model. Prometheus became one of the three premier course management enterprise software products in higher education within 18 months of its introduction and was purchased by Blackboard, the leading commercial competitor. Prior to his positions in educational multimedia, Butch held key editorial, marketing and sales management positions at Archipelago Productions (an internal startup at Harcourt Brace College Publishers and Thomson), and Harcourt College Publishers. Butch has a BA from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

John Watson

Evergreen Education Group — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:23:05 +0000

John Watson, founder of the Evergreen Education Group, started consulting in 2000 after serving as director of business development and consultant for eCollege, where he helped educational organizations launch their online programs and was instrumental in developing the company’s K-12 strategy. John and Evergreen’s work has been cited in the New York Times, Education Week, and eSchool News, he has appeared on NBC Nightly News, and he has presented numerous times at the Virtual School Symposium of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, Technology and Leadership Conference of the National School Boards Association, and other conferences. Prior to online learning, John worked in environmental consulting, environmental education, and a variety of other education, environmental, and travel-related fields. John holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MS and MBA from the University of Michigan.

Online schools’ evaluations and strategic planning

Evergreen Education Group — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:19:49 +0000

Many online schools hire external evaluators to help them understand what they are doing well and where they might improve. We have conducted evaluations of the Illinois Virtual High School, Idaho Digital Learning Academy, (IDLA) and Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (the last two in conjunction with Tom Clark and TA Consulting). Evaluations typically include a combination of surveys of students, teachers, and parents; interviews and surveys of school administrators; and review of test scores and other measures of student success. We have also helped IDLA with a strategic planning process that was undertaken with IDLA’s board; helping IDLA staff with planning, leading on meeting facilitation, and helping IDLA’s directors understand how IDLA relates to other programs nationwide. We played a similar although more limited role with strategic planning for Florida Virtual School, helping to write the strategic plan.

Our projects are as varied as our clients.

Evergreen Education Group — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:02:28 +0000

We seek to understand the national landscape of K-12 online learning and apply our understanding to the challenges that schools, agencies, legislators, and others face. While most of our work focuses on K-12 online learning, it also extends beyond online learning to other areas of educational technology, and beyond K-12 to post-secondary education and lifelong learning. While much of our work is national in scope, we also work with individual states, schools and companies as researchers, advisors and evaluators.