Education Recoded: Who Are We?

Continuing with our first week of posts (and getting all the particulars out of the way – posts will get more substantive soon), we would like to tell you who we are and why we think that we can bring something valuable to this extremely distinguished blogging group here at BigThink.

So, we’re CASTLE, at least the directors thereof. CASTLE is the nation’s only center dedicated to the technology needs of school leaders. Collectively, we believe that our schools need a substantial recoding for the digital, global age and that all of that necessary transformation hinges upon school leaders’ ability to be effective change agents in their school systems. So Scott founded the center and Jayson helped get it up and running. John jumped on board a few years back and Justin helped bring it all together at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Education Leadership Studies, where we are all professors. Now based in Lexington, we have graduate students, affiliated faculty at other universities in America, and even some visiting scholars from around the world.

Here’s a short overview of each of us:

Scott is the global evangelist. Not only did he found CASTLE but, through the use of social media, he has helped to build a movement to change our schools. He is probably best known for the Did You Know? (Shift Happens) series of YouTube videos (co-authored with our friend Karl Fisch) and his wildly popular blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. He also is widely considered to be the father of the emerging academic field of school technology leadership.

John is the Silicon Valley designer. Born and raised in the Valley, the creative and entrepreneurial spirit comes naturally. John surprises and delights in bringing new design solutions to help school leaders find creative new concepts for solving old problems. He was tenured at University of Texas at El Paso, worked at Stanford overseeing research and evaluation projects on technology and learning, and started a multinational company to shorten time to impact in the education, nonprofit and social sectors.

Jayson is the globalist. He is CASTLE’s eyes, ears, and voice around the planet. Scott probably logs the most frequent flier miles, but Jayson certainly eats the most exoitic meals while flying over the oceans. Jayson has consulted for foreign governments and has conducted educational research in developing countries like Cambodia, Turkey, Malaysia, and Egypt. Jayson also is a leading academic researcher in the field, having published many peer-reviewed articles on school technology leadership.

Justin is the lawyer. He explores and finds solutions to problems in the legal code underlying the education system. He has written policy briefs, law reviews, education research journals, governmental reports and has even been cited in a brief to the Supreme Court. Justin also founded and operates the primary online scholarly outlet for education law at The Edjurist.

So that is who we are. Bottom line, we are a group that wakes up every day dedicated to recoding the education system to something that makes a bit more sense for today’s digital, global challenges. We have quite a bit of experience changing that system and we hope that we can have a productive conversation with you here at Education Recoded. Thanks for joining us!