Today was one of those days when I had a powerful reminder of how incredible this still-very-new world of blogging and citizen publishing and, well, the internet in general. I’m working with the architects and the builder and the Philly SDP Construction folks to finalize the floor plans, figure out what the permanent furniture (science labs, construction of fixtures in the Main Office, computer labs, etc…) looks like, and then deal with ordering all the chairs, tables, file cabinets, etc. It’s a bit daunting to say the least, and it’s also something that you really get one shot to do right.

So what did I do, I shot off an email to Christian Long. I’ve never met him, but we read each other’s blogs, and we’ve emailed a few times. And again, given that I read his blog, I know a lot about how profoundly Christian thinks about school design. That led to an hour-long conversation that will end up informing the final construction and "fit-out" of the Science Leadership Academy.

Earlier in the day, I was researching biochemistry curriculum on the web, and I found some really interesting work being done by Duane Sears on a web-based Biochemistry tutorial. One phone call later and a quick email exchange of documents, and I had more feedback on our proposal to start the SLA students off with a two year Biochemistry sequence. (More on that in another post.) These moments don’t happen without these new technologies.

So I’ve been thinking about how much the internet and the blogosphere has and will continue to play a role in the formation of the SLA. We really don’t need to ever try to make meaning in a geographic vacuum ever again. David Warlick will be coming up for the next Curriculum Summit. Folks like and Wes Fryer have weighed in with their ideas. And in a few weeks, I’ll use the blog (and the Essential Schools Job Board and the Small Schools list-serv and other progressive school online communities) to officially kick off the search for the founding faculty of SLA. (Unofficially, resumes are always welcome…) As a new school principal, I keep thinking about how many more resources I have at my disposal because of all this.

And I think this is a new paradigm. It really does change the way we can think. And then the next powerful question becomes — if this is a new way for me to think, collaborate, build knowledge, then what does it mean for our students? And how do we construct our classroom experiences (and physical classroom space) to best facilitate that experience?

To that end, I’m reading David Warlick’s latest book Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century, and he does a great job of framing these and other questions. And today was one of those days when I was able to see how the theories many of us write about on these blogs really can affect a school from the ground up.

How amazing — that when SLA opens… and when we succeed (and I am determined that we will)… that the success can be shared, not just by the teachers and students and staff and the people who have helped it along in the School District of Philadelphia, but by the folks who read this blog and have taken the time to offer up their two cents. I’m trying to build SLA as transparently as I possibly can. Open Source can mean much more than programming. And, just with what happened with the best of open source software, I think it’s worth it because it is allowing so much powerful and positive voices to weigh in as we move forward. And that shared community-based meaning-making is an amazing thing to live through.