Who We Are
tms people
Rhys Daunic, Co-Founder
Andy Hieb, Co-FounderStaff
Rhys Daunic, Co-Founder, Program Director
Rhys has been promoting media literacy through multimedia production since 1999. He has developed and collaborated on TMS productions in various learning environments in Atlanta, GA, Gainesville, FL, and New York City. Rhys developed the TMS pedagogy through his experience in the field and research while earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School University.
In addition to his work in schools through TMS, Rhys works with Australian United States Services in Education (AUSSIE) as an educational consultant helping educators integrate 21st Century standards and tools of communication into public school curricula throughout New York City. Rhys was also a consultant with Teaching Matters, Inc. from 2004 to 2006.
In 2009 Rhys was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), and was appointed to the editorial board of the Journal for Media Literacy Education.
Rhys is also a co-founder of Dtek Digital Media where he has collaborated on web design, and video productions with partner Andy Hieb since 1999.
Andy Hieb, Co-Founder, Director of Internet Development
Andy has been an Internet Developer since 1997. He co-founded Dtek Digital Media with Rhys in 2000 and has developed web applications, streaming media, and other online resources for a variety of clients. In addition to providing creative input and media analysis, Andy manages the web component of The Media Spot, maintaining themediaspot.org and other web sites and online collaborative tools.
Daniel Kahn Gillmor, Technical Coordinator
dkg has been working on information engineering projects for over a decade. He has designed and contributed to a wide range of projects including machine learning, signal processing, database design, user-interface engineering, and political organizing. He is a Systems Administrator and Technology Advisor for a New York high school, and develops open, free web databases and applications for a variety of groups. He's always thinking about ways to break things. dkg has been working with The Media Spot since 2004.
Consulting Educators
Casey Ash, Middle School Teacher
Casey is the 5th grade Social Studies teacher at The Equity Project Charter School in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. He has spent more than a decade in the classroom and has taught in both North Carolina and the Bronx, New York. Casey has collaborated with The Media Spot on several successful video projects in the past, and he has witnessed his students develop both their language skills and their awareness of media-related concepts while integrating the video topics into his regular curriculum
Joe has taught high school English since 1997 in Missouri, North Carolina and Colorado, actively integrating media studies into his classroom since 2001. While earning his Masters in Instruction and Curriculum, he completed an action research project focused on helping his school more consciously and effectively utilize technology in the classroom.
Jennifer Garey, Middle School Teacher
Jennifer has been a school administrator since 1998, and a teacher at The Atlanta School since 1987. She has been collaborating with The Media Spot since its inception. Jennifer helped plan and coordinate video productions with TMS in her classroom for two years, and brought a group of middle school students from Atlanta to the Bronx, NY to participate in a TMS collaborative video production with Community School 211 in 2002. Jennifer currently sits on the board at 7Stages Theatre where her work is primarily devoted to the further development of their theatre education program.