Melissa Handy’s Brilliant Maker Mindset: What School Could Be in Hawai’i

On this episode of What School Could Be in Hawai’i, host Josh Reppun sits down with Melissa Handy, Education Technology Director at Le Jardin Academy, a medium sized independent school in Hawaiʻi. She is the Past President of the Hawaiʻi Society for Technology in Education (HSTE), a champion robotics coach, a makerspace expert, an International Baccalaureate Examiner, a WASC Commissioner and one of the founders of the Hawaiʻi Education Leadership Summit, which is now the Hawaiʻi Association of Independent Schools’ Leading Schools of the Future (LSOTF) conference.

Melissa prefers not to refer to herself as a teacher. Rather, she is the ultimate guide, coach, facilitator and mentor for her students. Her kids “ride bikes” and she runs behind them (as she likes to say) as they learn to navigate thinking, doing and collaborating. She has a larger-than-life personality of an artist, a wonderful laugh and a mind sharp like a knife. She knows how to solve problems like no one else I know. She has written extensively on the differences between maker spaces and maker mindsets. She is also a regular presenter at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) annual conference.

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the Education Technology Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!
Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

finance
Dr. Silver Kung’s Path From $10 Million in Debt to a Multibillion-Dollar Finance Career
May 21, 2026

Global finance is being tested by forces that no balance sheet can fully predict: unstable supply chains, geopolitical shocks, tighter credit conditions and the accelerating rise of AI. In trade finance especially, success depends on more than capital; it requires judgment, discipline and the ability to see risk before it becomes disruption. As automation…

Read More
specialty pharmacy
At the Center of Care: How Specialty Pharmacy Aligns Patients, Providers, and Payers
May 21, 2026

As healthcare costs continue to rise, more patients are finding themselves navigating not just illness, but the growing complexity of paying for treatment. Specialty pharmacy sits right at the center of that challenge—often out of sight, but increasingly essential to how modern care actually works. These high-cost, high-touch therapies now make up more than…

Read More
Language development
Just Thinking… About How Multilingualism and Language Development Belong at the Center of Student Learning
May 20, 2026

For millions of students in America, learning English is only one part of a much larger academic story. A 2024 GAO report found that English learners in U.S. public schools grew from 4.5 million to 5 million students between fall 2010 and fall 2020, and that they speak more than 400 languages. That diversity…

Read More
AI Infrastructure
Simplifying AI Infrastructure: From Data Center to Deployment (Part 1)
May 19, 2026

In this episode of the Flawless Execution podcast, Jeff Hudgins, VP of Global Services at UNICOM Engineering, breaks down the real-world challenges of deploying AI infrastructure at scale. As AI moves from one-off builds to repeatable global deployments, OEMs, ISVs, and enterprises face increasing complexity across design, integration, cooling, logistics, and installation. Jeff discusses how…

Read More