New Tech Network 2nd Day

I'm now starting to settle in and get familiar with the group, the instructional model and the software of the New Tech Network. One thing I noticed today is that most of the schools at this training are from smaller cities or rural communities. My school of Dallas and another school from San Antonio are the only truly urban ones represented here. This is actually something I'm very proud of. We have a great group of people on our staff, and I really think we can make this school of South Dallas into one of the crown jewels of the New Tech Network, and encourage more urban school around this country to adopt this excellent model.

If Schools ran like Google

I just finished reading Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain by Richard Brandt. It's an breezy and thought provoking book that isn't really about education technology, but it brought up some things I think are relevant to schools. Here's my half-serious list of items entitled, "If schools were run like Google":

1. The primary driving value of schools would be the experience of the end-user, aka the students.
2. Mediocre education software and textbook oligopolies would be very afraid.
3. Administration would truly value the ideas of its employees and encourage problem-solving collaboration across the organization.
4. Pragmatic idealism, the idea that all students can learn would be actively pursued and all solutions would be considered.
5. School technology would be run by people that know how to get the most for the money we would never endure network outages that stop productivity.
6. At every decision point, the discussion of ethics would center on the question, "is this good for students."
7. All cell phones would work with school tech systems and students would be busy using them for productive purposes.

Any other ideas or criticisms are welcome.

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• Google Apps Education Training Center (edutraining.googleapps.com)