edSocialMedia started in the winter of 2008 as the natural evolution of a conversations about the direction of social media in schools among four friends: Ernest Koe and Steve Ritchie of The Proof Group, Peter Baron of AdmissionsQuest and Antonio Viva, at the time the Associate Head of School at Worcester Academy.
Since those early conversations, edSocialMedia.com has become a destination for people writing and reading about the role of social media in education, particularly in independent schools and colleges. edSocialMedia the company has held a Summit, a dozen hands-on social media Bootcamps around the country, spoken at numerous conferences, hired our first full time director, and expanded our services to include social media strategy and consulting.
Who we are:
Peter Baron is the founder and president of AdmissionsQuest, an online resource for families who are working through the independent school admission process. Peter attended Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, NH. He earned his BA from Skidmore College and MAT from Tufts University. Peter’s teaching experiences include Historic Neighborhoods, Pine Ridge School and Wolfeboro, The Summer Boarding School. Peter blogs at AQ’s Boarding School Blog and edSocialMedia.com, and hosts the regular podcast series, Boarding School Podcast.
Ernest Koe is the President and co-founder of The Proof Group and edSocialMedia.com. Ernest has over ten years of experience with database and web technologies. He started his professional career in the classroom at the Loomis Chaffee School as a history and foreign language (Chinese) teacher. Ernest blogs at ProofGroup.com and edSocialMedia.com
Steve Ritchie is the Chairman and co-founder of The Proof Group and edSocialMedia.com. Steve has spent more than ten years working and consulting with schools on administrative technology and prior to that was a teacher, coach and dorm parent at two New England independent schools. He brings an independent school alum perspective to social media strategy as a graduate of St. Paul’s School. Steve blogs at ProofGroup.com and edSocialMedia.com
Jesse Bardo is the Director of edSocialMedia. Jesse joins edSocialMedia after serving as Admission Counselor & Communications Coordinator at Northfield Mount Hermon School. As leading practitioner of social media in the independent school world, Jesse worked with NMH’s communication team to weave facebook, blogging, twitter, Youtube & flickr into NMHBook- a cutting edge social media & communications aggregator site that greatly enhanced the school’s admission outreach and contributed to record admission yields. Jesse is a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Wesleyan University.
William Stites is Blogger in Chief of edSocialMedia. In addition to keeping the edSocialMedia.com content fresh and the contributors motivated, Bill is the Director of Technology for The Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, NJ. He has been at MKA since 1994 and has taught Third Grade and as well working in the Technology Department the entire time, serving as Director since 1999. Bill has also served as an advisor for the New Jersey Educational Computer Cooperative (http://www.njecc.org) since 2001 and has been a presenter at the NAIS conferences over the years, winning the Leading Edge Award for Technology in 2004 for MKA’s online faculty development program. Bill blogs at edSocialMedia.com.
For inquiries about this site or edSocialMedia Bootcamps, please send an email to info@edsocialmedia.com or phone (617) 855-5106 .
