Contributing to our Innovation Lab was the work we started on our learning and technology plan, Vision 20/20. Creating this framework was one of the first tasks that I was asked to begin to build at the school.

We choose Vision 20/20, since it would provide us the opportunity to build, grow, and change over a multi-year process. The purpose of the plan was to provide us the lenses for all future technology and learning innovations moving forward. The goal was to make sure that all growth was done in a systemic way, rather than in an ad-hoc fashion.

To begin the process, we developed our vision statement. Here is we ended up developing:

Quest Academy students will be prepared for the technology-infused environments of the 21st Century, leveraging the use of communication and technology tools to enhance their learning in both areas of personal passion and in their academic subjects.

From there, we began to define the areas that we wanted to focus our attention. In the end, we ended up with these five:

Curriculum and Content

Quest Academy students will learn to apply the right technology skills and understand through the use of computational thinking to develop solutions to complex problems.

Blended Learning

Quest Academy students will learn to integrate and collaborate in environments both within their school or the greater global communities

Differentiated and Personalized Instruction

Quest Academy faculty will employ pedagogies which will adapt and individualize instruction, enabling Quest Academy students within a personalized learning

Online Education

Quest Academy faculty will lead the way, working cooperatively with other gifted education schools to create online learning units for Quest Academy students and the greater global community

Physical Infrastructure

Quest Academy will supply the appropriate financial, staffing, and infrastructure support to enable the growth of the program defined above.

It was from our investigation and our needs  the school of both the curriculum and content and physical infrastructure from which our Innovation Lab emerged.

And that is the story for next time.