The Savvy Technologist

TIES 2007: Kurt Steinhaus, opening keynote

Kurt Steinhaus is Deputy Cabinet Secretary of Education in New Mexico. (He’s also a marathoner who ran 4:38 at the 2007 Duke City Marathon.) The title of his talk is “Enjoying T-Time by the Sip or by the Gulp?”. His slides will be available on the conference wiki.

Kurt wants us to take action in three areas:

• 21st Century Skills
• Robust support systems that function “just in time.”
• Innovative teaching and learning to keep pace in an increasingly digital world.

Kurt visited Minnesota a couple weeks before his keynote (something I’ve never seen before) and stopped to visit some schools.

• He saw the 1-to-1 program at Oak-Land Junior High School in Stillwater.
• Andy Weaver at using technology to study falcons.
• American Indian Magnet School and World Cultures Magnet School in St. Paul.
• New Country School
• Scot Hovan, Kate Noreen, and Patrick Crothers at Mahtomedi High School
• Dave Casey at Buffalo Community Middle School who is doing amazing things with his social studies students
• Edina Public Schools
• Northrop Urban Environmental Learning Center in Minneapolis

What trends did he see?

• Relentless, intense passion
• Support system (technical and teching and learning)
• More school-wide integration

Kurt observed some transitions underway in Minnesota and elsewhere:

• From purchased licenses to Web 2.0 and open source
• Application-based to Web-based and mobile learning
• Isolated and offline to collaborative and online
• Copyrighted content to shared content
• Submitting reports to blogs and web publishing

What is the future of technology in education? It’s already here, it’s just not in every school yet.

How can we move forward?

• Step 1: Where are we?
• Step 2: Reach a broad consensus on a clear message (vision or goal).
• Step 3: Meet them where they are and use your “bag of tricks” to move resources toward achieving the vision.

Kurt talked about how to advocate for your vision. Prepare a “One-pager” that you can give to key decision makers. Include the following things and customize your one-pager for each audience.

• Name
• Compelling vision
• Brief overview of history
• Rationale (why is this essential)
• Funding request (include recurring and non-recurring costs)
• Research base

Also, develop an “elevator pitch” that you can deliver to a decision maker in 30 seconds in any setting. One of Kurt’s recommendations: “Make your friends before you need them.”

Tags: 21st century schools, iste, kurt steinhaus, Open source, ties07, ties070001, wiki