IDEAL Institute

Dr. Mary Gaston, Ed.D., has been an educator for over twenty years, serving as director of a local South Carolina Adult Ed program, director of a Regional Adult Education Technical Assistance Center, and coordinator of Family Literacy. Mary played an integral role in the development of the Digital Skills Library and Glossary, free and open resources that have been widely disseminated and relied upon to increase digital resilience in adult education. Her leadership of the OCTAE-funded EdTech Maker Space through which it was greatly expanded has made a tremendous impact. As an EdTech Maker Space facilitator, she has tirelessly supported educators, offering round-the-clock feedback, tech support, and guidance. In this work she relentlessly ensures that end products suit the needs of adult learners by going above and beyond in the preparation and “clean-up” before and after each project. Thank you, Mary!!

Tom Cytron-Hysom has provided the visionary leadership that took Northstar Digital Literacy from a grassroots community-based project in St. Paul, MN to the most widely-used digital literacy assessment and learning platform in adult education. In 2011, he was instrumental in securing the initial funding to create the first Northstar assessments, and has quietly shepherded the project through 12 years of rapid growth and evolution.Today, Northstar is used in all 50 US states and in multiple countries – an accomplishment that can be directly attributed to Tom’s steady and values-driven leadership. Tom’s leadership is also evident in the Minnesota statewide Distance Learning Support Team. Since 2010, Tom has contributed adult education policy expertise that has shaped Minnesota distance learning policy and significantly scaled distance learning throughout the state. His extensive knowledge of distance learning and digital literacy work has informed the development of reporting tools in the Minnesota Student Information Database (SID), the creation of a Minnesota ABE Distance Learning website, and the approval of over 50 distance learning platforms for statewide use. Tom was also a founding member of the COABE Technology Integration and Digital Literacy Conference Strand. Congratulations, Tom!