Zak Kolar

(he/him)
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About Me

I am a digital learning teacher and programmer. I make digital literacy and computer science topics accessible to students and educators through engaging, interactive activities and cross-curricular integrations. I also provide policy advice around data privacy and AI to school and district leadership. I am especially interested in centering impacts of technology in this work.

Experience

August 2018 – present

Digital Learning Teacher

Waltham Public Schools

Leadership & Administrative Projects

Provide policy recommendations to school and district leadership on current and emerging priorities like AI and data privacy.

Designed a district-wide K–8 reading assessment data management system to track progress for over 3,800 students.

Created an automated system to email out new students’ credentials to their classroom teachers when their accounts are created.

Created an automated system to generate daily morning announcement scripts with the day's lunch, students celebrating birthdays, and a daily message from our SEL curriculum.

Created an asset management system to track device assignments and paperwork for our 1:1 Chromebook program.

Created dashboard for teachers and administrators to assign and track progress of action steps following student intervention meetings.

Wrote scripts to automate transfer of student data and attachments during migration from Rediker to Aspen SIS.

Created materials, coordinated logistics, and developed and ran PD for a district-wide implementation of the Education Development Center's math and programming microworlds in elementary grades.

Co-chaired the inaugural Waltham Codes committee to unite Waltham’s diverse population of all K–12 students in Hour of Code activities.

Instruction & Professional Development

Coach educators to meaningfully and ethically integrate technology, digital literacy, and computer science content into their practice.

Provide digital literacy and computer science professional development to educators at the school, district, regional, and national levels.

Provide on-demand support to teachers and specialists to integrate digital literacy and computer science standards through coaching, co-planning, and co-teaching.

Co-develop and co-teach a bi-weekly integrated literacy block with the school librarian, embedding DLCS and MSLA standards into students' existing ELA instruction.

Partner with the math coach to design grade-level coding projects distributed throughout the year, ensuring K–5 students receive continuous exposure to coding skills through the math curriculum.

August 2019 – July 2020

Digital Literacy and Computer Science Ambassador

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Selected as one of ten ambassadors to provide professional development about the Digital Literacy and Computer Science standards throughout Massachusetts on behalf of DESE.

May 2020 – present

Programmer and Materials Developer

Education Development Center

Work with research team to develop and refine microworld programming environments that teach elementary students mathematics through programming

Pilot microworlds with students at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham, MA in full classes and small group cognitive interviews.

Develop customizations to Snap! programming language to simplify user interface for microworlds.

Work with international Snap! development team to incorporate microworld customizations into the main Snap! language.

Selected Presentations and Publications

July 2026 (upcoming)

Rethinking online privacy, safety, and student autonomy

Massachusetts School Administrators Association Conference

Presentation by Zak Kolar.

Also presented at:

  • Massachusetts Teachers Association Summer Conference (upcoming July 2026)
  • Boston Public Schools Library Teacher Competency Review course (2026)
  • Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Digital Literacy and Computer Science Summit (2025)

March 2025

Demystifying AI: the cans, can'ts, coulds, and shoulds

Massachusetts School Librarians Association Annual Conference

Presentation by Zak Kolar

Also presented at:

  • MassCUE Fall Conference (2024)
  • Cleveland Computer Science Certification Seminar (2024)
  • Waltham Public Schools Professional Development (2024)
  • MassCUE Spring Conference (2024)
  • Massachusetts Department of Education Digital Literacy and Computer Science Summit (2024)

May 2024

Mathematics through programming in the elementary grades

Massachusetts Digital Literacy and Computer Science Summit 2024

Presentation by Zak Kolar, Kate Coleman, and Evelyn Gray

Also presented at:

  • Association of Teachers of Mathematics in Massachusetts Spring Conference (2023), Snap!Con (2020, 2021, 2022), CSTA CS Across the Curriculum Summit (2022)
  • MassCUE Fall Conference (2022)
  • CSTA National Conference (2021)
  • Connected Learning Summit (2021)
  • CSTA New England Regional Conference (2020)

October 2023

Programming microworlds for elementary school mathematics: What we’ve been learning.

Proceedings of FabLearn / Constructionism 2023

Conference proceedings by Paul Goldenberg, June Mark, Deborah Spencer, Kate Coleman, Katie Chiappinelli, Kristen Reed, and Zak Kolar

July 2023

Impacts and Ethics of Data in a World of Dying Privacy

Computer Science Teachers Association National Conference

Presentation by Zak Kolar

May 2023

Using Programming to Express Mathematical Ideas

Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK–12

Article by Deborah Spencer, June Mark, Kristen Reed, Paul Goldenberg, Kate Coleman, Kathryn Chiappinelli, and Zak Kolar

March 2023

Engaging All Students Through Math and Programming

Waltham Public Schools

Three-part professional development series by Zak Kolar and Evelyn Gray

November 2022, January 2023, March 2023

October 2022

Invisible thieves: How companies steal your data behind your back

MassCUE Fall Conference

Presentation by Zak Kolar

Selected Projects

Why Can't LLMs Understand?

Web App

A web app that simulates "learning" a language like a large language model. After a few minutes of testing, users can construct plausible "sentences" in a made-up emoji-based language. Yet even with unlimited time and example sentences, they will never gain the context to understand what their sentences mean.

Tech Literacy Tools

Resource website

Created TechLit.tools, a growing collection of web apps, lesson materials, Google Apps Script automations, and other resources I've made to help teachers with digital literacy instruction.

Digital Literacy Simulations

Waltham Public Schools

Create simulations to make abstract digital literacy concepts (e.g. data collection/privacy, digital footprint) concrete, approachable, and engaging for students.

Data Privacy
A web app and accompanying lesson that demonstrates ways apps collect data without user notice or consent. After experiencing surprising, undetectable data collection, students learn how these techniques work and ways they're used in real life. Can be followed up with subsequent lessons where students think about and discuss the impact of such data collection.
Digital Detectives
A collection of activities that teach students about their digital footprint through engaging mysteries and investigations.

STEM Grants

Waltham Education and Beyond Foundation

Wrote and received four grants totaling over $13,000 to purchase and implement STEM equipment for Waltham Public Schools.

Built grant strategy to introduce technology at one grade level and cascade it to lower grades as we received new equipment from subsequent grants.

Skills

Teaching
UDL, Engaging students and staff
Technology
Computer science, societal impacts of technology, personal data privacy & security
Leadership and collaboration
Curricular development, professional development, grant writing
Communication
Public speaking, writing
Programming languages
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Google Apps Script, PHP

Education

August 2014 – May 2018

Computer Science and Education Studies, B.S.

Brandeis University

Summa cum laude with highest honors

Phi Beta Kappa