Founder and Executive Producer
LearningTimes.org and LearningTimes, LLC

Jonathan E. Finkelstein is the founder and President of LearningTimes, LLC and Executive Producer of The LearningTimes Network. As an educator, technologist, industry expert, and producer, he is focused on creating and deploying engaging, web-based and web-enhanced human environments, programs and curricula that foster learning, collaboration and community.

Over the last several years, he has worked with numerous leading educational, corporate, and publishing organizations to build learning programs and communities online, including: Columbia University, the New York Department of Education, Harvard, Princeton, CalState University, New Visions for Public Schools, The New York Transit Museum, Lehigh, Houghton Mifflin, NASA, MetLife, and The Princeton Review, among scores of others.

Jonathan is also the Executive Producer of LearningTimes.org, a free, open professional development community for educators. The community provides education professionals with online forums -- live and asynchronous -- in which they may collaborate and learn from peers and industry leaders.

He has also led the formation and growth of the LearningTimes Network, a series of vibrant, online learning communities. The LearningTimes Network connects education-minded organizations of all kinds, fostering partnerships between educational institutions, associations, corporate entities, museums and other groups whose missions include reaching a geographically dispersed audience of learners.

Jonathan has acted as the Executive Producer and Director for several unique, interactive and standards-based K-12 humanities curricula. Working closely with Columbia Teacher's College and the Academy of American Poets, he created PoetryLive, a web-based distance learning and classroom-enhancement program that connects professional poets to learners and uses poetry as a common language to explore social issues. Jonathan also built a coalition of renowned museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the New York Transit Museum, to design and deliver HistoryQuest.US, in which students teach remote peers in online virtual classrooms.

Jonathan is regarded as an industry expert and is a frequent speaker and panelist on the topic of effective, interactive, web-enhanced learning at industry conferences. As the Executive Producer of LearningWeek Live, Jonathan produced and co-hosted a live, interactive, weekly webcast about the people and technology of learning.

Jonathan is a co-founder of HorizonLive, Inc., provider of a platform for live teaching, learning, interaction, collaboration, and community-building over the Internet. As HorizonLive's Senior Vice President of Product Strategy, Jonathan's role included establishing and executing upon the company's product vision, developing innovative ways to teach and learn online, and maintaining a deep understanding of the needs of educators and learners. Several of the products Jonathan designed were recognized for industry awards, including recognition by Online Learning Magazine, US News & World Report, Brandon-Hall, and the SIIA Codie Awards. Jonathan also oversaw HorizonLive's Professional Services division, where he led major efforts to design educational technology curricula and programs for high-profile clients, and guided the integration of multiple platforms to create engaging, interactive, innovative and useful educational applications.

Jonathan also regularly conducts seminars and courses on topics such as blending face-to-face with web-based instruction, designing effective virtual learning spaces, scaling human interaction in online learning environments, and fostering professional development communities on and offline. Valuing the power of real-time interaction and community-building, Jonathan has delivered nearly 2500 hours of live online instruction and has coached hundreds of individuals on re-discovering their own teaching styles when bringing their instruction online.

Jonathan is an Editorial Board member of The Technology Source, a peer-reviewed e-Journal for educators that focuses on the challenge of integrating information technology tools into teaching. He is also and a member of several grant review and industry award programs, including a Judge in the Brandon-Hall Excellence in e-Learning Awards and a Review Board Member for the New Visions for Public Schools Tech Power grants. He is often sought for guidance and quoted in publications on learning online.

Jonathan has also worked as a strategic, multimedia, and public relations consultant in the Boston and Washington, D.C., offices of ML Strategies, Inc. There, he created a wide variety of technology-based systems and communications tools and programs for high-profile clients like America Online, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Time Warner. In addition, he has conducted formal work in a wide range of fields, including: surgery (Harvard Medical School), psychology (MIT), and entertainment (a magician since the age of nine).

Jonathan received his AB degree cum laude in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University, where he led the world's most comprehensive civic education program for secondary school students, attracting over two thousand students in the United States and Europe annually. He is the proud son of two New York City public school teachers with over 60 years of teaching experience between them.