A New Intersection: Digital and Lifelong Learning for the Future of Work

Lea Downing is an educator and writer dedicated to transforming traditional educational models for adult learners. She has over 15 years of experience in adult education and helped build eLearn, a fully-online adult education program for students at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, LA. In 2019, the eLearn model was recognized as the COABE State Innovation of the Year. Lea is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College (B.A.) and the University of New Orleans (M.F.A.), serves as a project manager for ISTE's SkillRise initiative, and lives in New Orleans, LA.

Joey Lehrman is an advocate for innovation in learning and teaching. As an experienced educator, speaker, and writer, Joey focuses on how to use technology to create more accessible, relevant, and effective educational opportunities for adult learners. In his primary role in the Adult Education Program at Delgado Community College, Joey helped to launch the first fully online adult education program in the state that led to the program receiving the 2019 COABE State Innovation of the Year award. Joey also serves as a project manager for ISTE's SkillRise, a national non-profit dedicated to helping educators use technology to transform adult learning.

Caroline McKinnon has worked for over 20 years with refugees, immigrants and survivors of torture and trafficking. She built and implemented programs to provide equitable, free education and work skills services for low income workers in the US, Africa, Europe, South America and the Middle East. She is the Senior Program Manager, Adult Education and SkillRise at ISTE, and a passionate advocate for equity and belonging in curriculums, workplaces and digital training.

Brandon Olszewski, Ph.D., ISTE’s director of research, leads many of the organization’s program evaluation and research efforts, as well as projects that focus on educational technology, product usability and design, the learning sciences and adult learning. He’s passionate about making research and science practical. Olszewski has over 15 years of experience in program evaluation and applied social science, and specializes in edtech and digital age skills, STEM instruction, social psychology and mixed-methods evaluations that leverage quantitative and qualitative methods. He has managed the implementation and evaluation of innovative projects funded by the National Science Foundation (including ITEST, Cyberlearning, IEECI and Noyce), the U.S. Department of Education, state departments of education (including Oregon’s Earning for a Lifetime program and Alabama’s ACCESS), and private foundations (HP, the Verizon Foundation, Walmart Giving, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative). He has published on topics including program evaluation, educational technology, sociology, special education, workforce development, and social science methodology and psychometrics. His dissertation focused on the relationship between the politics of small schools reform and changes to teachers’ work. He has also been an adjunct instructor in the University of Oregon Department of Sociology.