Today we continued brainstorming a useful, relevant path to take our nation's schools to a different place, a place where technology is seemlessly integrated into instructional delivery (students and staff), data aggregation and disaggregation for data-driven decision making (assessment), and communication and immersion of stakeholders. Tim Magner, the Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, is bright, articulate, and a razor sharp thinker. I was immensely impressed with his grasp of the scope and complexity of the technological and political ecosystems in which America's schools live. And he is a young man. He quickly grasps ideas and issues brought to the table and distills them to their core components while reframing them in a more quantitative and qualitative context that creates new thinking for me. That is rare and utterly delightful!
The others in the room, mostly principals, are also amazing leaders in their own right. We were asked to come to DC to work with SRI and Xplane, who were contracted by the DOE. SRI is a think tank designing materials to shape policy and planning for the DOE (and many other agencies and companies). They have people sitting in the room word processing as fast as we talk, (and some of these folks break new speed barriers), designing interactive flash-based animations, recording and synthesizing the ideas and concepts being thrown around the room. Xplane is here to help us visualize the ideas brought to the table. The literally draw everything. "If you can draw it, you can do it." Over the past two days we literally repeatedly plastered the walls with color stickies and large sheets of brightly inked paper.
This is what a brain dump looks like I guess. Fifteen bright people brought into a room, being asked probing, stimulating, challenging, clarifying, difficult questions, sharing our ideas, successes, obstacles, and vision for our nation's schools and how technology invisibly fits into this complex stew of human undertaking.
Yesterday, from the 28th floor of what once was the USAToday/Gannett building, we had a spectacular view of the Mall: the Washington Monument, Whitehouse, Capitol Hill, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials as well as several other memorials near the Potomac--impressive and inspiring to say the least.
I am completely humbled by this experience--being asked to share what we have accomplished at Mabry, how we did it, and how this and more can be extended into our nation's schools in meaningful ways. I've never done anything quit like it. The process has been as amazing to me as the outcomes. I will gnaw on this experience for some time to come!
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