Even though it was a research visit, it felt more like I was on an expedition, stalking a not-yet-seen species, but know it was there somewhere and I was close.

This was not a typical school visit for me. Most of my work is connected to media use in public school, and often disadvantaged ones at that. My current visit was centered on an elite private school in Manhattan. What relevance could there be in exploring a well-to-do school with more resources, less constraints and little to no mandates from distant government entities?

My hope was that within this environment, certain “best practices” might be gleaned from a largely successful media/technology and education operation. And from what I had heard from the person I was visiting, it was a tremendously successful example of how technology and education can work together. Was it all because of the factors of privilege? Or would there be other factors that could actually be beneficial to public settings? The answer to that question was my expedition and I was optimistic.

I showed up a little early for our 8:45am appointment, early enough to get a sense of the school from the front entrance. I had my Starbucks coffee and muffin and watched from a Central Park West bench across the street as parents and school buses dropped off kids at this preK-5 school near Manhattan’s Columbus Circle.

Maybe it was the beautiful, late spring morning sunshine that added an extra glimmer and glow to the air, but it seemed an extraordinarily happy and positive place to be. Children had an extra spring to their steps. Mothers and fathers were smiling. The whole picture of the school was very pristine and warm. When I finally went in the building and checked in at the security desk, it seemed that even they were more taken by the beautiful day than any sort of imminent security threat.

Sarah Amor was a little late coming out of her meeting —typical of these meetings, she explained—and when I saw her it seemed only yesterday I was wishing her best of luck ahead from the graduation podium – 12 plus years ago!

Sarah was a student of mine in the late 90’s at the university. My strongest memory of her was as a student in my advanced production class when she produced one of the most memorable thesis projects where she brought together original music produced in her music recording class with her film project. She worked tirelessly on that project and it came out great. She demonstrated that she could pull off the seeming impossible and I had great expectations of her future in the industry.

It surprised me, therefore, when I realized she was headed in a different direction—though somehow predictable in retrospect—after graduation. She headed to USC for a masters in education and like many others who pursue a career in entertainment, found fulfillment in more educational applications of entertainment storytelling practices.

After getting her masters she went on to work at a small private school in Los Angeles, and that is where she began her experiences in bringing education and media together as director of technology. The culminating experience of her time at this school centered around the Inauguration Trip 2009 which she and the group of 9 students made into a 2 disc DVD that documented their experiences at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

We met in her office for about an hour discussing everything from the four schools in the school system, to philosophy to pasts, presents and futures of technology usage in educational settings. She introduced me to her boss, Trent McMorrow who was the Director of Technology for the schools.

Trent didn’t just talk about what they did there at this school. He talked a lot about their Model of technology and education and that is when I had my first sighting of the Integrator. Turns out that Sarah herself had been given the title, frankly because Trent was not able to think up any better (or more true) word to describe what they were doing.

Basically an integrator’s job was to work with teachers and help them integrate technology into their classrooms and lesson plans to make their lives easier and their teaching better and their students smarter. He cited some well developed operating principles which surprised me coming from someone called a “technology director.” The names Michael Wesch and Chris Lehman came up a lot.

Wesch, from Kansas State University, leads a working group dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography particularly as it relates to the perceptions of students. Chris Lehman Chris Lehman, principal at SLA, Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia who championed the merits of integration in education: presenting technology like oxygen, "ubiquitous, necessary & invisible… When was the last time we took students to a pencil lab?"

Trent and his integrator Sarah saw these two figures as great educators who provided inspiring visions of how school could be. They saw it as their responsibility to apply these ideas to their use of technology and purchasing of educational resources. The job of an integrator was to stand by the students and teachers, truly get to know them, earn their trust and lend a hand—both a hand in the improving the learning process and making the teacher’s job easier and more fulfilling. The main tool of the integrator was technology, but there was also another that I discovered when I looked very closely – call it a blend of ingenuity, creativity and courage. Knowing technology was not enough. It had to be adapted with nuance and delicacy. Trent explained that this made the integrator a breed apart of technology expert or trainer. To me, coming from a media industry perspective, it was a very similar skill we look to build in storytellers.

Sarah and Trent did their integrating with passion and high energy. They were genuinely excited about their work and the yet unrealized possibilities as did their colleagues in their Bronx campus.

As I toured on throughout the complex, including the Bronx campus, I realized that all was not completely perfect in this heavily endowed private school (35K /year tuition). In other words, the reason for their success was not completely do to privilege. They had some of he same problems all school systems face including strong and weak staffing, slow and fast technology adopters, leadership problems….yes, they were human. But the operating principles behind their day to day work integrating technology into classrooms really seemed to work well! From what I observed, the majority of their success stemmed from their model of integration. But there were other structural factors in addition to the integrator to be elaborated on in the future.

But as I left the school and considered how proud I was of my student and her success, I realized I had become her student in this case, and found a very promising prospect for public school systems in the Integrator.