CoSN 2022 Preview—Amplifying for the Power of One

A conversation with Keith R. Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).

Still digesting my notes and footage from a great few days spent at ASU+GSV this week but as they say, “No rest for the weary!” (One thing NOT missed during the pandemic was red-eye flights!)

In the meantime, I’m preparing to head to Music City for CoSN22, one of the first edTech events I attended when I started to cover education 20 years ago, and one I always consider to be a must-attend.

What makes it distinct? For me, it’s an opportunity to hear about what’s happening in the space from both the industry as well as the customer, or district, side. There are very few opportunities to get between those conversations. Of course, the CoSN organization—a nonprofit that serves as the voice of K-12 school system technology leaders in North America has also always been a strong advocate for federal funding for edTech—as far back as foundation of E-Rate and when Al Gore invented the Internet—and never have those activities been more important than right now.

I had the opportunity to snag Keith R. Krueger, CEO of CoSN, for a short Zoom session as he prepares for CoSN’s return to in-person conferencing. Click to listen and scroll down for some highlights.

On in-person versus remote versus hybrid event styles:

KK: We now see that there were a lot of people who never could travel as part of the team in the past. And so we're not going to virtualize the whole entire experience in Nashville and going forward, but certain elements of it will be—the keynotes, the spotlights. There will be certain content that will only be available virtually and some will be available to both.

We're certainly going to have a face-to-face annual meeting that's the signature event. But we're also going to do a mix throughout the year. I think the new way to do it for companies that want to participate with CoSN—getting engaged, being part of the online community, being part of our leadership initiatives—whether it's on digital equity or privacy or cyber security. Those issues are critical to our audience and really co-creating content, I think, is the new norm for what our educators are really looking for.

On the themes for this year’s event:

KK: The overall theme for the conference is called “Amplifying the Power of One.” And we're really looking at how some individuals have really made a difference, particularly during the pandemic. The opening keynote will have three kinds of stories, highlighting individuals. We have Raj Adusumilli, Assistant Superintendent/CIO from Arlington Public Schools who's really been working on digital equity and closing the homework gap; Michael Hinojosa, Superintendent from Dallas Independent School District, who certainly has had a big impact in his district, but also statewide thinking about the equity issues during the pandemic; and then filling it out with Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman of Federal Communications Commission, who really branded the term homework gap.

When you ask me what the big topics are, there's no question that for the last four years, it has been cyber security as the number one concern of our audience. We'll be releasing our new survey on that. Related to that is the issue of digital equity. We're also seeing lots of growing interest around topics like interoperability. The fact that data is too siloed. We're really getting much more powerful around how we use data to individualize learning.

On what the state-of-play for education and technology looks like in the next 24 months:

KK: Well, I never want to predict what exactly will happen, but I would rather be focused on how we invent the future we want. I think Winston Churchill had it right when he said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” And while we've seen how quickly things can move. That doesn't mean they will move.

If we get stuck in a mindset where we want to go back to where things were in 2019, I think that's a big problem. I don't think anyone in 2019 was saying that the education system in the United States was working for every kid. It wasn't.

So, let's learn from what we've experienced. We've learned we have new ways to engage parents. A lot more teachers are using technology. We have gained a lot of knowledge about personalized learning. So how do we leverage those trends and not get stuck in trying to go back to something that wasn't perfect in the first place?

Look for more big picture insights from my dispatches from CoSN coming up! In the meantime, you can get a taste of the sessions here. See you in Nashville!