JODE BREXA
Educator | Digital Storytelling | Educational Exchange
For more than three decades, Jode Brexa has worked as an educator in classrooms, teacher education, and educational exchange programs in the United States and internationally.
Her work in digital storytelling has been shaped by Peace Corps service, a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching, U.S. Department of State educational exchange programs, and collaborations with teachers across multiple countries.
Throughout these experiences, she has remained committed to one central idea: teachers learn digital storytelling best by making stories themselves.
International Commitment
Jode is an award-winning educator with over 30 years of teaching and training in both secondary and post-secondary institutions in the U.S. and internationally. She served in the Peace Corps in Senegal and is alumna of multiple U.S. State Department exchange programs in Romania, India, Mongolia, and Tajikistan. She received a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching and supported Digital Storytelling for youth voice in South Africa. In 2022, Jode lived and worked in Uzbekistan as a Coach in the English Speaking Nation project, collaborating with teachers in rural schools and working with highly motivated and creative students in Access programs.
More recently, she facilitated digital storytelling projects with English Access teachers in Cambodia and educators in Mongolia, continuing her interest in documenting learning through digital storytelling and StoryMaps.
Professional Background
Jode earned her Educational Specialist degree in Applied Leadership and Policy Studies with a concentration in Digital Storytelling from the University of Colorado-Denver. She has published on Digital Storytelling in Agenda, a leading feminist publication, and, as a result of her Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching project in South Africa, a chapter titled “Voices of Young Women Leaders: Swaraj and Satyagraha through Digital Storytelling” was published in Teachers Teaching Nonviolence (Bracho and Dodson, Dion Press, 2020).
Professional Background
Jode earned her Educational Specialist degree in Applied Leadership and Policy Studies with a concentration in Digital Storytelling from the University of Colorado-Denver. She has published on Digital Storytelling in Agenda, a leading feminist publication, and, as a result of her Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching project in South Africa, a chapter titled “Voices of Young Women Leaders: Swaraj and Satyagraha through Digital Storytelling” was published in Teachers Teaching Nonviolence (Bracho and Dodson, Dion Press, 2020).
Creative Writer
Alongside her work with teachers, Jode creates StoryMaps that document educational exchange projects and the stories that emerge through them. She is also the author of HOLDINGS, an ongoing collection of writing and short digital works exploring attention, place, memory, and what remains after experience becomes story.
STORYCORD is evolving.
Every What began as a resource for digital storytelling workshops is gradually becoming something broader: a collection of documentary StoryMaps exploring international educational exchange through narrative, image, and reflection.
During this transition, you’ll find both the teacher learning resources that shaped the work and the newer StoryMaps that are emerging from it.
STORYCORD is an independent educational initiative and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of State.