Al Conant Email & Phone Number

My most important role in life has been being a dad. Finding creative ways to explain complex ideas to my son gave me an organic introduction to the importance of learner-centered, bottom-up teaching and the power of building upon prior knowledge. Long before studying these topics, I realized that by knowing my son’s references (the books, movies, and tv shows that he likes), I could use those references to make analogies and explain anything he was having trouble with understanding. These experiences with my son dovetailed well with what I would study at both Umass Amherst and Umass Boston. Being a volunteer teacher at Blue Hills Regional Technical School has allowed me the opportunity to put the educational theories I’ve been learning into practice. As a 30+ year broadcast professional, my personal technical interests, and my more recent education and experience as an educator, I bring together both the knowledge of the content required to design learner-based instruction and the technical skills to bring high production quality to that content.I have a professional background in video production, broadcast television, and photography. I’m currently pursuing a Master of Education in Instructional Design at the University of Massachusetts – Boston and have a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (Video Production and Media Literacy) from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. I’ve been a technical director and crew chief at Ch. 5, WCVB, since 1998, and a volunteer teacher of video production, video editing, photography, and photo editing at Blue Hills Regional Technical School since 2017.I’m a lifelong learner with passions for education, technology, photography, and design. In 1996, I co-founded, with my longtime friend Jim Johnston, one of the first browser-based internet chatrooms called CyberSalem. Though the site is long gone, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine still has our front page frozen in time. (https://web.archive.org/web/19980126133344/http://cybersalem.com/) In 2011, my son and I planned a trip to Alaska, and I decided to invest in a Nikon D5100 DSLR to take on the trip. I took 2,500 pictures on that trip. 11 years later, I’m on my second camera, a Nikon D7200, and have taken over 160,000 photos, and some of the best can be seen at www.alconantphotography.com.

Listed skills include Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Video, Video Editing, and 15 others.