MCS Digital Leadership: The Beginning- A Metaphor

As the second year comes to a close, I look back on all the Digital Leaders did this year and honestly, it doesn’t seem like much. If this were a story SETDA would be the climax while everything following would be the resolution. However, this isn’t the whole story; it is a chapter. And every chapter leading up has been part of this story.

Of course before chapter one could even begin there was the prologue; our creation, written by Lisa Cutshall. Our rocky beginnings, grants and ideas took place here. Not every story has a prologue but the best ones do. Ours will be great once finished.

Chapter one (aka year one) consisted of many great experiences and opportunities. We created digital curriculum for elementary students which was a first for many of us. Presenting this curriculum was even more of a challenge; otherwise known as the conflict. The rising action of this chapter was preparing for our conference. Our Alter Ego: Discover Your Digital Identity conference was the undisputed climax. Following our success with the conference, the school year came to a close thus allowing us to move on to the next.

In between chapters one and two there was a little novella: California. In this we went to California and visited flagship companies such as Google and hometown entrepreneurs like Instructables. Plus, we went to Disneyland. The networking opportunity in California was prolific experiences and we were also able to expand our ideas across the country.

Chapter two was this year; it was relatively short in comparison to others. There was no longer the challenge of us trying to define who we were as group. Now, it was about doing better than we had the year before; always improving. We created a website and accepted a national award, all within that first semester. Next year, I don’t know how we’ll top a national award unless we go global. To end this year we started focusing on cyberbullying especially in our corporation's junior high.

Things are changing in our class next year. Two main characters in our story will be gone and the setting may change as well. Everything is up in the air at the moment. But we must not forget that we are the authors, we have input in what goes into this story. We are writing it with every conference, every event, twitter chat, blog post, social media update, network opportunity and more. We are leaving our digital footprint all over the internet and our physical footprint all over the country. Our legacy is not over; this story has not yet finished.

Posted by Jordyn Watson, senior, Madison Consolidated Schools