Mary Jane Warden majored in business in college, but made an early career shift toward education after working as a volunteer tutor in Chicago and meeting a student named Ramon.
“Ramón was in first grade and the challenge of helping Ramón learn to read really excited me,” he says. “That opened my eyes to the things I wanted to spend my time on.”
Today she is the Director of technology for Community Consolidated School District 15 in Illinois and recently won the CTO Innovative award, one of the tech & Learning awards. Innovative Leader Awards, in the recent Midwest Live Regional Summit. She talks to us about her evolution as a technology-focused educator, a woman in edtech, and the potential of data to transform education.
<h2 id="technology-sparking-creativity-xa0″>technology generates creativity
After being inspired by meeting and tutoring Ramon, Warden earned her master’s degree in teaching and began teaching in Chicago Public Schools as a seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher. This was in the early days of the Internet in classrooms and Warden became fascinated with the potential of the technology. She applied for a grant to bring the Internet to the school where she taught and used the new technology to foster student creativity.
“I had my students create websites around mythology and connect science to that,” he says. “It was a really fun project and that set me on the path of supporting schools to get online and helping teachers see how to integrate technology into what they were doing. And then, as technology continued to evolve, so did I as an educator and technology manager.”
<h2 id="a-space-for-women-in-edtech-xa0″>A space for women in edtech
While Warden faced discrimination and sexism during her career as a woman in educational technology, she also found supportive opportunities and mentors. “Education is a unique space for women to enter the technological field,” she says.
In the past, young women were taught that girls are bad at science and math, and while that perception is changing in general, Warden believes the change is happening more quickly in educational technology. “In education, I’ve seen that women can have entry points,” she says. “I’m finding that in education, those kinds of opportunities and intersections occur more frequently.”
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t barriers or obstacles that women in educational technology must overcome. Warden says one of the highlights of her career has been modeling female success in tech, while not “shining away from the boys’ clubs.”
The potential for data use
Warden is excited about the future of technology to help students in many areas, including the potential for data to better inform decisions by teachers and district leaders. But he acknowledges that it’s easy to get lost in mountains of data. “Many teachers don’t use spreadsheets,” he says. Therefore, district leaders should provide data in an easily accessible format and encourage teachers to use the data in small ways that can have a meaningful impact.
For example, in his previous district, he had teachers compare their MAP scores to local assessment benchmarks and drill down into areas where their students were struggling. She says it was an easy way to help teachers use data to determine what they would teach next and why certain students weren’t performing. Teachers can then expand their use of the data over time.
“I think small steps are always good,” he says.
