Key Staff & Advisors

Erma Anderson – STEM Curriculum Specialist in U.S. Schools Abroad - Erma Anderson is a science/math consultant with the Office of Overseas Schools and has worked as a consultant for a number of organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Project 2061, the Education Trust, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the National Science Teachers Association, and she has presented at conferences for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the National Science Teachers Association, the Education Trust, and the National Staff Development Council.

Ms. Anderson is a former high school mathematics and science teacher. She was an Albert Einstein Congressional Fellow and worked in the U.S. Senate as a legislative assistant in the office of Senator Arlen Specter. She was a Christa McAuliffe Fellow with the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. For the last 12 years, she has worked closely with the National Science Teachers Association on a number of projects including the Scope Sequence and Coordination curriculum project, the Teacher Center professional development project, the development of sciLINKS, and the Mathematics Science partnership eMentoring project.

She also has served as standards specialist with the Council for Basic Education’s Schools Around the World and standards review projects. She worked with the National Research Council in the final development of the National Science Education Standards.

Ms. Anderson earned a B.S. in biology and mathematics from Shippensburg University, an M.S.T. in chemistry and mathematics from the College of William and Mary, and has done graduate work in physics through Marshall University and Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Patricia Heydet-Kirsch – Director of Assessment and Program Evaluation in the College of Education at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Dr. Patricia Heydet-Kirsch is a science content advisor and researcher for Time4Learning. She is the Director of Assessment and Program Evaluation in the College of Education at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). She is a Presidential PAEMST, was named Florida Science Teacher of the Year, and has served as Content Editor at Allegro Productions creating educational science videos.

Cory T. Forbes – Researcher of Teacher Training and Inquiry-Based Elementary School Science Methods. Dr. Cory Forbes is an Assistant Professor of Science Education in the University of Iowa, College of Education. Dr. Forbes is active in helping with Science4Us’ methodology for embedded teacher professional development and reviewing the implementation of the 5Es educational model.

Dr. Forbes earned a BS and doctorate from the University of Michigan, the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science. He earned a BS and a first MS from the University of Kansas. As a research assistant, he worked at the the Kansas Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation. Cory Forbes has two years experience teaching science at the middle school level.

Catherine Christopher – Content Specialist, K8 Science Curriculum Specialist. She has been an Adjunct Professor of “Methods of Science K-9” at FAU and of “Science in the Elementary School” at Lynn University since 2008. Catherine was the NFS Science IDEAS Project Coordinator for FAU 2005-1010 working with the Broward and Palm Beach Counties to implement best practices for teaching elementary school science within the IDEAS framework.  She has classroom teaching experience and started her career working as an environmental scientist. She has a BS in biology from Bowling Green, a MS in biology from FAU, and is working on her EdS from FAU.

Production and Creative Staff:

• John Edelson – Executive Producer
• Kris Craig – Producer
• Multimedia Artists
• Multimedia Programmers
• 3D Artist
• Video motion developer
• Flash programmers
• LMS programmers
• Science Content Specialists
• Testers

The founder and president of Vkidz is John Edelson. Vkidz is  dedicated to improving education through pioneering the use of technology to apply time-proven educational techniques in new ways. He is the founder of Time4Learning.com, Time4Writing.com, and VocabularySpellingCity.com.