T&L Advisor Guest post — Henry Thiele, Assistant Superintendent for Technology and Learning for District 207 in Park Ridge, IL: Kids always amaze me, especially when adults get out of the way and let them be great. Over the last few weeks I have seen many examples of this phenomenon. At Tech & Learning Live in Atlanta, we heard from students who were running their school's helpdesk in a way similar to what we're doing in my school district's TechGenius Program. Our Tech Geniuses are preparing to present in multiple events including the Shedd Aquarium Learning Labon a Project to create a Virtual Reality Tour , Illinois Institute of Technology Raspberry Pi Project where they are converting an iPhone into a radio station with Raspberry Pi, and at the Student Technology Leadership Summit speaking about student leadership through supporting technology. Just last week another group of students held an area-wide hackathon where a virtual reality game beat out several other projects after 20 hours of caffeine-fueled development. These types of events are not limited to high school settings as demonstrated by Jennie Mageria's Jr. ChromeDepot where students are leading in their school and will be an unstoppable force when they get to ours. The potential for kids to do amazing things is limitless. In school settings, where students outnumber the adults, we need to find opportunities for kids to be the ones getting the headlines through their greatness and technology is a venue for creating the conditions to make that happen.
