Debra has her BS/BA from Syracuse with majors in Inclusive Elementary & Special Education/Art History. Later she received her MS in Educational Leadership and JD from NovaSoutheastern University and her Micromasters from RIT in Design Thinking. Her interest in integrating tools into the curriculum started when she worked in Disney Education where she was awarded a Mousecarit Award for her work in Educational Programming at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Debra’s first classroom position was running a one-room schoolhouse that traveled with a carnival. This led her to research migrant education where she received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship for her work in Education Law.

When she returned to the classroom she became an advocate for technology integration into an already organized curriculum. Debra holds several educational technology certifications and badges and has won an award from BrainPop for using their Make-A-Movie tool in ‘Pedagogy.’ Debra has had student winners/grants for Wonder Workshop (top 10) Design Attachment competition, Frito Lay Dreamvention (school award,) and most recently the Scholastic/Mastercard Tech4Innovation Challenge (Student Award and Teacher Grant.) Debra has worked with rolling out 1:1 Chromebooks in grades 3-5 and designed Computer Science and Innovation Labs focused specifically on elementary students. Debra has coached elementary First Lego League robotics, Vex Robotics, and Wonder Workshop competitive teams. Debra looks forward to working with teachers this year to bring coding/MakerEd to their CS lessons in elementary. Her passion is focused on teaching teachers, student exploration, differentiation in Computer Science, and classroom manipulatives. She authored the chapter, ‘Augmented Reality and Social Emotional Programming’ in Augmented Reality at School:  A Practical Guide for Educators and several articles in in Edutopia.  (https://www.edutopia.org/profile/debra-jacoby/)  Debra is a current United States Patent Office MTIP (Master Teacher of Invention & Intellectual Property Educator.) She has held past positions as a Florida CSTA (Computer Science Technology Association) Leadership Board K-5 Representative and a South Florida Scratch Event Organizer.