Ann H. McCormick

CEO and Co-Founder

Teaching and Learning

Ann began her career as an urban, poverty area school teacher, an experience that shaped her lifelong quest  to improve learning opportunities for students like hers, giving them a better chance at success in school and in life.  These experiences have culminated in the formation of 6 Arts Academy with colleagues she has admired and collaborated with for decades.

Ann taught children and teens, their parents and teachers for over 50 years, Ann has worked in the classroom, as a tutor, and as a teacher educator nationally (US Department of Education, Dominican College, University of San Francisco).  

She has lectured at universities about learning software (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, UC, Berkeley) and given keynote presentations, workshops and courses for teachers and administrators about blending powerful technology with hands-on learning.

School Governance

Ann served as a Director, Board Member, Advisor and Consultant to schools of the future: 

• Technology industry (Apple Classroom of Tomorrow, Apple Advanced Technology Group, ATT, IBM, Northern Telecom, ), 

• Nueva School (Nueva Media Lab)
• State of California (Model Technology Schools, state Board of Education Technology Committee) 

She set policy and guided excellent schools as a board member (Synapse and Odyssey School), and consultant to national government leaders (US Special Office of the President, Head of the Office of Naval Research and Department of Education), England (Member of Parliament, Prime Minister’s Technology Project), China (Vice Minister of Science and Technology Education, Green Valley Alliance, ISCL School, Peking University Honorary Professor), Brazil (Congress of the Latin Americas) and Finland (National Head of Technology Education; Redesign of Finland’s Schools) and advisor in 11 other nations. 

Pioneering an Industry

Ann was invited by industry leaders to help them envision the future of education and software development, working with publishers (Addison Wesley, Simon and Schuster), conferring with toy companies (Fisher Price, Mattel, Tomy, Coleco) and entertainment companies (George Lucas, Jim Henson and Associates, Disney Interactive). Ann was recently invited, as one of the top ten women game designers in the US to present at the National Museum of Play, Create! program. She was also invited to the National Children’s Museum, Washington, DC and the Smithsonian Natural History Museum to share program concepts.

Research

Ann conducted research throughout her career, first studying Black Dialect, Reading  and Teaching Style for her doctorate at UC, Berkeley. which published her study as a monograph.  Ann researched successful projects in poverty area schools, funded by the US Department of Education (5 years, $5M) to help public schools nationwide to adopt these.  

While Chairman of The Learning Company, Ann field tested each product with over 300 children (venture funding from Melchor Venture Management, New Enterprise Associates).  With Dr. Amie Watson from UCLA, she developed a comprehensive database and model for maintaining high quality learning in software throughout the development cycle (Viacom).  Basing software on research is one reason Ann’s companies produced some of the most highly regarded titles ever produced, Half of all sales were made by schools, though all marketing was targeted for home sales. 

Pioneering Breakthrough Software and Apps

Ann won a grant from the Apple Education Foundation in 1978 to develop one of the first preschool products, Juggles’ Rainbow, which she tested at Stanford’s Bing Nursery School.  Apple gave her a Program and Design Excellence Award and supported her work for many years as a top developer.

She next won a grant to produce a series of logic and geometry products under a US NSF/NIE Joint Grant:  Logic Gators, recruiting former Atari game designer, Warren Robinett.  Ann incorporated to accept the grant, and later changed the research name to The Learning Company(TLC).  She was “thinking outside the box” to create young children’s circuit design simulations, which were not part of standard curriculum for third graders.  Warren used “real-time interactive graphics” to produce some of the best software of all time with Teri Perl and Ann, with follow-on venture funding for Gertrude’s Secrets, Gertrude’s Puzzles, Rocky’s Boots, and with next round funding (New Enterprise Associates) Robot Odyssey, based on a “bag of holding” concept by 15 year-old “future teacher of 6 Arts Academy,” Michael McCormick and Mike Wallace’s turning into a “chips inside chips, inside robots” recursive programming for young children.  These high play-value, high learning-value products attracted worldwide attention in the highest circles of invention (Xerox PARC, Apple ATG, MIT Media Lab).

Ann shaped the design for Leslie Grimm’s Reader Rabbit, which became a franchise selling 14M copies, and TLC’s first 16 products, each of which won high critical acclaim and national awards.  Ann appeared in magazines (Fortune, Psychology Today, Learning Magazine, Byte, Compute, Working Woman; 300 each year), in books (Women, Technology and Power, The Six Figure Woman, High Tech, Window to the Future), and was invited to be a keynote speaker, and attend conferences for thought leaders (Aspen Institute, Berlin, Xerox PARC, Lucasfilm).  

While on the staff of the Nueva School, working with Karen Stone-McCown and Anabel Jenson (future 6 Arts Academy Council Members), Ann won new NSF and US Department of Education SBIR grants, and launched a new venture, creating a keyboard for illiterate teens, used in a hard-edged city simulation, The ‘Hood, with sound design by Oscar-winner, Jim McKee.  Kirk Bergstrom, another future 6 Arts teacher, worked with Ann to produce Half Moon Bay Farm for kindergarten children learning that: “six circles fit around one,” 

Ann created iPad apps, Reader Bee, for young children, and included 2 patented inventions:  a letter daisy (6 consonants around a vowel, enabling K children to daisy-type, “cat, hat, mat, sat, …” within ten minutes of starting to learn letters and sounds.  These 9 apps won 13 national awards, including Parents’ Choice Gold and the Dr. Toy Award.  Ann also guided the development of Crayola’s 3D Castle Creator (Best Creativity Title of the Year at E3), a website for her favorite book as a child, MistyOfChincoteague.org, and a website that teaches children about an 1,800 year old redwood tree, BigOldTreeOnSkyline.com.

Education

Ann earned a BA at Seattle University, where she attended the College of Sister Formation and pursued a Social Sciences Field Major, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She earned her MA and PhD at the University of California at Berkeley, in Educational Psychology.