Frank B. Withrow

[First published 5.16.11]
Frank B. Withrow, Ph.D.
President
Able Learning Company
A Better Learning Experience Company
108 High Ridge Drive
Stafford, VA 22554
540-659-3722; 202-270-7148
FrankWithrow@FrankWithrow.com

Dr. Withrow has been a classroom teacher, elementary supervisor, researcher, and an educational administrator. As the Director of Research and Clinical Services in The Department of Children and Family Services in the State of Illinois he developed a parent pupil program for deaf infants and their parents. His research includes electro-physiological testing of hearing in infants, paired associate learning, immediate visual memory spans, and the uses of programmed 3-D computer generated lessons.

Dr. Withrow was the Director of Development  for the NASA Classroom of the Future from 1996 to 1998. He served in the U.S. Department of Education from 1966 to 1992 as the Senior Learning Technologist. He administered technology programs for the disabled including Captioned Films for the Deaf where he developed captioning techniques for television. In addition he funded the development of reading machines for blind people. He was the Executive Director of the President’s National Advisory Committee for Handicapped in 1975 at the time P.L. 94-142 was passed. He served as the Secretary’s Liaison for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute for Technology, Gallaudet University, and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf.

As a Senior Battelle Memorial Fellow he studied the influence of electronic media on child growth and development. He developed a demonstration of interactive cable television programs and edited a book on the influence of television on child growth and development.

He was the program manager for the U. S.Department of Education’s television series including Sesame Street, Footsteps a series on child growth and development for parents and The Voyages of the Mimi, a multiple media elementary science and mathematics series. He also directed bilingual television programming that included Hispanics, French, Native Americans, Asians, and Afro-Americans themes. All programs included captions.

He was the Director of Technology for the Young Astronaut Council where he developed an on-line series of lessons for students and teachers.

He developed and managed the Star School distance-learning program for the U. S. Department of Education. He represented the United States of America as a learning technologist at a number of world conferences, i.e. OECD, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe.

Dr. Withrow has worked as an adjunct professor at Washington University, St. Louis, MO, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, and Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

He has received many honors and awards including the United States Distance Learning Associations Leadership award. He is a member of USDLA’s Hall of Fame. He has edited several books and written more than 300 professional articles. He has made numerous presentations and speeches including keynote addresses at professional conferences. He has more than 200 video and film credits.

He was on the Board of the Northern Panhandle Head Start Program, Wheeling, WV. He was a member of the National Board for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at the Rochester Institute for Technology. He was a Board member of the Consortium on School Networking (CoSN). The CoSN annual educator award is named the Frank Withrow Award for Excellence.

He was the Program Manager for two one-hour television specials on the “World of Work” which were designed to help youth and other people seeking employment understand the modern clusters of jobs and the training required to obtain such jobs. He was an advisory to the District of Columbia Public Schools multimedia project on developing employability skills for youth. He served as an advisor to a District of Columbia School Board Member.He is the Chairman of the Board of the Total :earning Research Institute.

He received his BS in Education of the Deaf, MS in Speech and Hearing and a Ph.D. in Audiology from Washington University in St. Louis. He holds Advanced Clinical Certification in both Speech and Hearing from the American Speech and Hearing Association.

ETC Publications

Review: ‘The New Digital Age’ by Schmidt & Cohen
To Teachers — From a Grateful Nation
Public Education Raises the Quality of Life for the Entire Nation
Talk With Your Children
Can Technology Expand the Reach of Great Teachers?
Language Is the Key to Community
Technological Advances for the Disabled Benefit Everyone
Retirement of Your Elementary School Students: Keeping in Touch with Facebook
My Vision for the 21st Century School
‘For Each and Every Child’ – A Strategy for Yesterday’s Child
Impact of Facebook on Deaf Language Users?
What Can a Mind Do?
What the Deaf Blind Have Taught Us About Thinking and Communicating
The Future Is in Team Learning
Congressman Miller’s Tech Legislation Misses the Mark
What Happens to Schools and Teachers in the Digital Age?
Are Schools Ready for Today’s Five-Year Olds?
Education in the 21st Century: The World Is Our Classroom
Technology Has a Long History in Learning — and It’s Getting Even Better
Year-Round Schooling for the 21st Century: We Can’t Afford to Waste Summers
Learning and Teaching in the 21st Century: The Potential for Social Media Such as Facebook
Education for All Children: An Imperative for the 21st Century
A Radical Rethinking of What Learning Can Be
The Huge Void in Quality Multiple Media Programs for Upper Grade Levels
Visions of Greatness
A Proposal for a Digital Braille Decoder of Spoken Speech for Deaf-Blind Students
A 21st Century Scenario for Project-based Learning
The US Needs a Federal Learning Technology Program
Seniors and Mobile Devices Cruise Together
Longer Lives and Questions of Quality
Thoughts on Thinking in the Digital Age
The Digital Promise: Bringing People Together to Ensure Learning for All
The Digital Promise Must Be a Total Learning Experience
The Emphasis on 21st Century Schools Will Be on Teamwork
It Still Takes a Village: Social Media
Challenges for Schools in the Digital Age
Profiles of Inspiration for All of Us
Tactile Learning: Italian and US Experiences
Technology Makes Home Schooling a Viable Alternative
A Vision of Blended Learning in 2013
How the Non-Disabled View the Disabled
Computers Can Help Language-Disabled Learners
Distance Learning Gives Many Students a New Lease on Learning
The Need for High DL Standards Will Raise Standards Across America
Mildred A. McGinnis: A Pioneer in the Treatment of Aphasia
Skeptical About Left- and Right-Brain Learning
The Arts Engage Students and Encourage Learning in Other Subjects
Diversity and Cultural Heritage via Technology
Captioning Films and TV: A Brief History
The Arts and Digital Technology
A Multimedia Standard for Educational Videos
Technology Is the Magic That Changes Our Lives
The Digital Challenge for Educators
Technology Can Help Deaf-Blind Infants
Samuel Y. Gibbon, Jr. – Setting a Standard for Educational Media
A Proposal for a U.N. Global Internet School
The Creative Use of Technology Can End Hunger and Illiteracy
Judah Schwartz: Through the Lens of the Computer
Social Media for Imaginative Solutions to Exciting Problems
An Isolated World of His Own Creation
The White House Is Calling
Excellent Teachers Engage, Inspire, and Empower
Dale’s Three-Legged Stool: The Power of Rewards
Social Media Should Not Be Banned from Classrooms
Technology As a Prosthetic: Opening New Educational Doors for Disabled Children
A Vision of Education in the Next Ten to Twenty Years
21st Century Schools: Bridging the Gap Between Traditional and Digital Learning Resources

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