San Francisco, CA – July 10, 2008

Creative Commons (CC), a global non-profit focused on the preservation and growth of a openly shareable and remixable media landscape, officially announced today that education innovator Esther Wojcicki has joined its Board of Directors.

Wojcicki has been a prominent figure in American education. As the leading mind behind the creation of the country’s largest high school journalism program, she has won numerous awards, including the prestigious title of Teacher of the Year from the California State Teacher Credentialing Commission. Most recently, she received special recognition for her work from the National Scholastic Press Association.

“We’re truly excited to have Esther on board. Her presence marks an important step in the developing role Creative Commons seeks to play in supporting open educational content” commented Joi Ito, CEO of CC, “Her experience and advice will be an invaluable part of shaping our future in that arena.

Esther Wojcicki said, “I am thrilled to be joining the talented team of directors, advisors, and staff at Creative Commons, whose collaborative efforts are supporting the expansion of the public domain. I look forward to applying my experience in education and technology, and am eager to work closely with the Board as this pioneering organization continues to grow.”

Wojcicki has also been a key pioneer in exploring the emerging interface between education and technology. She helped lay the groundwork for the design of the Google Teacher Outreach Program and Google Teacher Academy, a professional development event which trains teachers to leverage innovative technologies to enhance their classrooms.

Wojcicki joins a board of directors that includes technologist Joi Ito, cyberlaw and intellectual property experts James Boyle, Michael Carroll, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Eric Saltzman, and Lawrence Lessig, MIT computer science professor Hal Abelson, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, and Public Knowledge founder Laurie Racine.

More About Esther Wojcicki

Esther Wojcicki has been teaching Journalism and English at Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, California for the past 25 years, where she has been the driving force behind the development of its award-winning journalism program. It is now the largest high school journalism program in the U.S involving 400 students. All the publications can be found at http://voice.paly.net which is the school publication website. In the spring of 2008, she was recognized for inspiration and excellence in scholastic journalism advising by the National Scholastic Press Association. She has won multiple awards throughout the years. A couple of others included the 1990 Northern California Journalism teacher of the year in 1990 and California State Teacher Credentialing Commission Teacher of the Year in 2002. She served on the University of California Office of the President Curriculum Committee where she helped revise the beginning and advanced journalism curriculum for the state of California. In 2005–6 she worked as the Google educational consultant and helped design the Google Teacher Outreach program, which includes the website www.google.com/educators and the Google Teacher Academy. She holds a B.A. degree from UC Berkeley in English and Political Science, a general secondary teaching credential from UC Berkeley, a graduate degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, an advanced degree in French and French History from the Sorbonne, Paris, a Secondary School Administrative Credential from San Jose State University, and a M.A. in Educational Technology from San Jose State University. She has also worked as a professional journalist for multiple publications and now blogs regularly for HuffingtonPost and HotChalk.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the Center for the Public Domain, Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as members of the public. For more information about Creative Commons, visit https://creativecommons.org.

CONTACT

Ahrash Bissell

Executive Director, ccLearn

Creative Commons

ahrash@creativecommons.org

PRESS KIT

https://creativecommons.org/presskit