Bio

I have worked in education for 20 years, first as a K-12 teacher and later as a software trainer and instructional designer. I taught overseas at U.S. schools in Saipan, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia. When I returned to the U.S. eight years later, I put my classroom experience to work as a software trainer and administrator with ExecuTrain of Chicago. My success earned me the Circle of Excellence Award in 1998, a national award which recognized the highest rated trainers.

Moving to the D.C. area in 1999, I joined Clearly Gottlieb’s IT department, where I designed and administered the software and hardware training materials and programs for over 200 employees of the highly respected international law firm.

In 2001 I joined K12 Inc. in McLean, Virginia leading a virtual team of Instructional Designers, Content Specialists (SMEs), Lesson Developers, Visual Designers, and Editors developing nine yearlong e-learning courses. I personally created over 300 storyboards and wrote specifications for over 500 pieces of interactive media. As the Lead Instructional Designer, I also prototyped new courses, managed lessons in a proprietary LCMS, reviewed and incorporated customer feedback, planned usability testing, handled quality assurance, trained new instructional designers and lesson developers, planned future lesson changes, and managed team documents.

I joined Professional Solutions in Alexandria, Virginia in 2005 and worked on the Joint Knowledge Development and Distribution Capability (JKDDC). As part of the JKDDC virtual team, I created SCORM and ADA 508 compliant e-learning modules for military training.

Currently I create interactive and print educational materials for our two sons with special needs, one with an autism spectrum disorder and another with ADD.

I have worked out of my home office since 2002 and consulted since 2005. I am a member of DC Web Women, The eLearning Guild, and BlogHer. I hold a Bachelor of Music from Butler University, a Master of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of Alabama, and an Information Technology certificate from the University of Virginia. My professional interests include e-learning design, special needs education, K-12 education, virtual learning communities, simulations, and performance improvement.

In addition to my work in e-learning, I writes and manage a cooking blog (Andrea Meyers: cooking, gardening, & four hungry guys), which gets about 60,000 page views a month. My blog posts have been picked up by Reuters, USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, and IBS, with local news affiliates in 65 cities around the country. I founded the international blogging event Grow Your Own, which promotes cooking with the foods that people grow themselves. I am also a contributing author for FoodieView and the DC Metro Moms Blog. I reside with my family in Northern Virginia.