New Leadership, New Directions

Our small independent school is going to be helmed by a a new Head next year...again...for the second time in two years. With it brings new technology direction and an opportunity for me to check myself. Do I want to keep the technology program pointed in the direction it is currently going? I moved around a lot as a kid and my unconventional mother encouraged me to change my name at each school. Yes, really. I've been Ali, Alecia, Annie, Lisa, Allison and Alisha. So, do I want our program to keep moving towards 1-to-1 with laptops? I've been tooting that horn for a while but recently I have been rethinking that. This summer's Philly ISTE conference may shed some light on future directions in tech, but my gut instinct tells me that touch tablet computing, a la the iPad (not necessarily that particular one), is going to change a lot. Of course, we hear that all the time: this is the next big game changer. But in this case, I think it may be true.

The instinctive nature of the iPad and its operating system makes technology so much more accessible and eliminates the need to spend so much time teaching HOW to use the apps. Kids are instead just USING them right away. Yes, there is a lot to be desired in the way of the iPad being an input device, but that's coming. App development is happening more quickly than we can keep track. So, with this new leadership, I think I am going to seek a new direction and turn our ship a little bit. I'll focus, as usual, on faculty development, but from a hardware point of view, I'll exhort a BYOT model. We shall see how this is received.