I always find this time of year interesting. On one hand you feel firmly entrenched in this year, focused on major projects and making sure things get completed before June is upon us. On the other hand, I find some of my attention starts to drift towards next school year – yikes! Our budget process has just been nudged into action. In many ways, this is viewed as a time to be thinking about priorities for the upcoming months.

More and more though, I am beginning to view multiple school years as a continuum. On the assumption that strategic planning and the Board and department levels have been done well, then projects and strategies still need to be executed in the right order, with the right priority level(s) and resourced appropriately. From my point of view, the bottom line is Stay the Course. If you had the right big picture priorities in the first place, then they should still be priorities. In our case, it will take another 3 years for some of our technology environment changes to be fully completed and implemented in a sustainable way – well worth it, is just takes time to do correctly.

Some of the ongoing massaging of supporting the big picture plan going forward is what captivates my interest:

• maintaining the energy behind new processes
• meeting the challenge of keeping staff trained and aligned with the true needs of the system
• keeping the learning and IT agendas well aligned, stepping ahead in a strong partnership
• determining the role of new technologies within the curriculum (netbooks, iPads, eBook readers etc.)
• ongoing support for mobile learning
• embracing new tools in a systemic way

I enjoy the time to reflect, and the opportunity to tweak the necessary components in an effort to maximize the achievement of our system goals.  More reflecting, analyzing and learning on the horizon.

~ Mark