What does your ISTE Keynote vote really say?

The ISTE keynote vote was certainly a step in the correct direction (toward the wisdom of crowds). But have you ever considered what your ISTE keynote vote says about you? It says who’s voice and ideas matter to you; who you view as a person who can inform your work.

If you voted for an educator, educational leader, or someone who has held those roles, then that is a vote that reaffirms that the knowledge about educational change isn’t external to our profession.

If however you voted for an outsider, what your really saying is that we as professionals lack the ability to inform and inspire one another . Clearly there are a lot of knowledgeable non-educators out there that can inform us, but if ISTE is giving us the opportunity to pick a speaker, how could you not select an educator?

One reason to not pick an educator, is that there may not be many educators who’s ideas are interesting and new to you. That responsibility to be innovative, to be creative, to be inspiring is all of our collective responsibility. We need to do a better job of focusing on leadership and vision development within our profession, rather than looking externally for answers.  The answer for how to make good change happen is within each of us.

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