As I wait for my flight to Dallas for our next T&L Live conference, I had a few minutes to reflect on all I’ve learned in this last busy month. We kicked off our T&L Live season in Nashville in early October with our Leadership Summit focusing on Digital Equity. “We need to equally meet the needs of all students, not just with tech but also with the curriculum,” Dewayne McClary, director of instructional technology at Washington D.C. public schools said during the morning panel discussion. “We want to educate the whole child. That’s where the digital curriculum and innovation come in.” At T&L Live Princeton, two students from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South shared their impressions of what it means to be good digital citizens: “We know that Social Media is a valuable tool when used properly,” said students Melinda Chen and Isaac Berger. “But saying what you want has some upsides and downsides.” At last week’s Big Data Summit in Denver, co-produced by Brightbytes, the theme was “Turning Big Data into Big Benefits for Students” and attendees spent an intensive day and a half diving into this topic. “While grounded in the best of intentions of removing subjectivity and biases from educational placement and intervention decisions, any researcher understands that the effectiveness of this approach to making decisions depends heavily upon the amount and validity of the date being analyzed,” wrote Superintendent (and T&L Leader of the Year Winner) Todd Dugan in his blog about his experience at the conference. These are just a few snapshots of the robust conversations we’ve had these past few weeks, and we’ll be covering these events in depth in upcoming reports (and find highlights via #TLTechLive), but I wanted to take a moment to thank our growing network of school leaders and innovators for bringing your passion and enthusiasm to our events, and for all you do for students every day. – Christine Weiser, Editorial Director
