This year has been one of careful reflection and contemplation. After my resignation at the Purnell School as their “Tech Guy” (Which closed at the end of 2020 after 57 years), I had to look deeply into the outcomes schools seek in deploying and assessing that technology – both for the classroom and the administrative perspective. Too often have we seen tech thrown into the classroom without standards or methods of evaluating outcomes. Too often we are paying too much for our student information systems – a significant cost factor – without leveraging what they can do for all constituent groups – prospective applicants, current students and alumni. A shout out to my predecessor who helped all the way into chaos that was Purnell.
Critical thinking is more important than ever when it comes to our viewing “information” on screens. This might sound odd, but as a previous Tech Director and Coordinator, I’m calling on educational institutions to spend less time on screens and more time on reflecting about what they see rather than constantly experiencing what they see – and asking, “Is this true?” How do Design Thinking methodologies fit into the this puzzle? How do we look at what we learned from COVID? How do we make this equitable?