Bill Bass leads one of three Middle School cohorts. This cohort will create materials for immediate use in middle school classrooms, identifying high-need materials and producing them quickly.
Meet the Cohort
Bill Bass is an award-winning educator who currently serves as the innovation coordinator in the Parkway School District in St. Louis where he leads the district library program, instructional technology, grants, and innovation. He is Past President of ISTE Board of Directors and has served on a number of educational governance and advisory boards including the NCTE Executive Committee. During his twenty-plus-year career in education, he has also held positions as a middle and high school English teacher, technology integrator, instructional coach, graduate level adjunct professor course designer, and an educational consultant. He has written numerous articles, book chapters, and has authored four books.
Comfort Agboola is an award-winning educator and educational consultant based in Chicago and recognized as the 2025 Cook County Co-Regional Teacher of the Year, 2023 Milken Educator Award recipient, and the 2024 Distinguished Alumni of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She teaches middle school English language arts in Chicago Public Schools, centering writing and storytelling as pathways to identity. She is the founder of Lit and Love, LLC, an organization committed to providing writing enrichment to underserved communities and coaching educators to better serve those same communities. She has hosted student writing workshops across Bronzeville, Roseland, Pullman, Englewood, and East Chatham, and has designed and facilitated AI literacy workshops for teachers, helping educators use technology ethically and in service of students. She brings to this cohort a deep belief that AI in ELA must expand access, preserve student voice, and serve the communities that need great literacy instruction most.
Wanda Dyer is a mom, educator, and learner of as many things as possible. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Northeastern State University and a Master of Science in Education from Walden University. She takes great pride in being the first educator in her family. Over the past 16 years, Dyer has taught in three states—Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kansas—and across five different school districts. Her passion for loving what she does each day remains, as has her belief that middle school is the greatest adventure. She believes all students, from her daughters to the sons and daughters of others, deserve teachers who stay current with technology and innovative classroom practices that prepare them for an ever-changing workforce. Dyer loves sharing her message that knowledge is power and that we should all join forces to empower the next generation to do great things.
Angela Hardin is an innovative educator at Model Laboratory School in Richmond, Kentucky, where she serves as department chair for the English and social studies departments. Her love for rhetoric and communication theory shines through in her media and information literacy class, where she teaches students how to critically engage with media, analyze rhetorical situations, and create research-based projects such as podcasts and magazine articles. As a professional development leader, she presents her pedagogical research practices at state and international conferences and holds workshops that teach educators how to integrate writing practices across content areas. She has won several awards including the Model Laboratory School ROCKSTAR Award (her school’s version of Faculty of the Year), and the Kentucky Society of Technology in Education Impact Teacher of the Year. Her favorite part of teaching is helping her students develop confidence in writing and take ownership of their learning journey.
Shawn Towner serves as the Secondary ELA Content Specialist for the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System in Savannah, GA. Before becoming a district office person, Shawn spent 10+ years teaching at the secondary and collegiate levels in Arizona, Hawai’i, and Georgia. Shawn currently lives in scenic Pooler, GA, with his two cats, Duffy (a good boy) and Seahawk (a li’l goblin).