Cate Tolnai is the Director of Member Engagement for CUE and is in her 15th year in k12 education. She taught middle school and worked as a district TOSA as well as district and county level administrator. She is dedicated to making the lives of teachers and administrators in California a little smoother, safer and engaging.

Cate Tolnai loves to talk digital badges, gamification,  personalized PD, web tools, and all things awesome. I’m so fortunate to have known Cate for some time through CUE and so lucky that we found time to have a conversation. Below are resources and a few excerpts from the podcast with Cate.

About Cate, her family, and background
I’ve been married for eight years to a great guy named Chris and have two kids, a five-year-old and two years old. We have a Chihuahua mix that is 22 pounds. We live in San Jose, CA. My son started kindergarten this year and I am so unprepared to be a kindergarten parent to figure out this homework stuff and all of it.

This is my 15th year in education teaching mostly English and History in middle school. In 2011, I was in a webinar about TCI (Teacher Curriculum Institute) on how to become a teacher. After that, I started my professional Twitter account in January 2011. The resources that came into my world through Twitter and the connections I made completely changed my approach to education and teaching. Then next thing I knew is that I uncovered this passion for education technology. Through Boise State, I took their technology specialist certificate program and took two courses from Dr. Jackie Gerstein @jackiegerstein and my world was changed. I realized this was it and what I want my world to be. I then pursued leadership positions and that’s when a TOSA (Teacher On Special Assignment) position became available. We moved to Sacramento, CA and became a TOSA. After two years, that lead to my role in Santa Clara.
Technology Specialist
http://innovation.sccoe.org/
I then became a Technology Specialist for the Santa Clara County Office of Education where we called ourselves Super TOSAs and moved to San Jose. The team is amazing who have passion and dedication for the work they do with educators in the Silicon Valley.

[This is Barbara: Here’s a picture I took of a slide from the SCCOE team presentation at the Badge Summit June 2017]

Director of Member Engagement (CUE)
http://www.cue.org/news/cate_tolnai_member_engagement
http://blog.cue.org/    #cuechat

In my role as Director of Member Engagement for CUE, the team allows so much flexibility and room for passion. I was brought on specifically to take the lead on marketing and communication which means I’m the point of contact for independent contractors, graphic designers, supporting the blog, or redesigning the website. The line I love is that I am the protector of the CUE Story. That was part of the application that I have always been so intrigued about finding their why and telling their story. Knowing that that is my major role for CUE is such an honor. But I am still on top of professional learning and doing presentations for CUE. I’m rethinking and re-imagining what professional learning means for CUE.

Sketchnoting
www.sketch50.org
I always have been a doodler and when you move to digital, I lost touch of doodling. Now that I have the digital tools that allowed me more freedom accessibility with my processing. I’m pretty good at copying other people’s ideas and then make it my own. When I saw the influx of sketchnoting, it played a huge role that it made the environment safe to share. At ISTE in 2016, I was part of a session with Sylvia Duckworth @sylviaduckworth ...