Mentor Schools Technologist Listed Among National Organization's '20 to Watch'

Jeremy Shorr's recognition as one of the top technological education leaders in the country is less important to him than the manner in which he wound up on an exclusive list.

The National School Boards Association's Technology Leadership Network this month named its top "20 to Watch" leaders in inspiring colleagues to incorporate innovative technology solutions into the educational process. Shorr, an educational technologist, for Mentor Schools was the only Ohioan to receive the honor.

"One of our principals and about a half-dozen or so teachers nominated me for this," Shorr said. "That's everything.

"It's nice to be recognized, but what's nicer is having these really outstanding, hard-working staff members who not only are working their tails off seven days a week, but are willing to let me in their lives to try to bring them to a new place with technology. That's really the whole thing to me."

Shorr switched from Information Technology to augmenting the curriculum about three years ago. Now, he's working to deploy a "1:1 initiative" across the district as well as implementing a blended learning environment at the middle school level. The 1:1 initiative entails gauging the extent to which a device, such as an iPad, impacts instruction in and out of the classroom.

"The idea is that if we want to ensure that our students are prepared for the digital world, we have to give them the opportunity to have access to their content and to collaboration with each other inside of school and outside of school," Shorr said. "The 1:1 deployment affords us that opportunity."

At this point, three teachers have iPad classroom sets, and another with a Chromebook classroom set. They have been teaching children how to use them and troubleshooting. In the next couple of months, Shorr and the teachers will decide what the initiative will look like and which device to deploy.

Shorr is a little more excited about blended learning, which is a mix of traditional teacher instruction and digital learning being piloted in one class at Ridge Middle School. The model Mentor is exploring is one where a teacher is rarely standing in front of all 25 students lecturing at once. Instead, he or she might sit in a small group of struggling students, while others work on a group or project or quiz one another.

"It affords the teacher the opportunity to work in smaller groups so they can reach every student," he said. "The concept isn't new, but it wasn't really easily possible until technology, until you have a situation where students have devices and they know there's a place where they can log into, they can see what their assignments are and you have videos posted, quizzes posted and discussion boards  and you have Google docs so they can collaborate on a presentation in real time.

"All of that has afforded the teacher an opporutnity to basically multiply themselves and be instructing in different methods."

Shorr said he isn't accustomed to being deemed a person "to watch" within his industry, as Mentor teachers and the National School Boards Association have suggested. He just enjoys seeing how and if technology can enhance the educational experience.

"We're living in really exciting, exponential times," he said. "I really enjoy being part of that."

Shorr hopes to discuss technological initiatives at Mentor Schools with parents and students via his Twitter account, @K12Technologist.