Writing · Read the Terrain
Where I think out loud.
Essays on leadership, systems, and what the trail keeps teaching me about both. No spam, no funnels, no “crushing it.” Just the actual thinking, on a regular basis.
Featured essays
Three to start with. The rest live on Substack.
Candor
The Tough Conversation Does Not Need a Runway
Leaders pad the hard moment to soften it. The padding does the damage.
Read on Substack: The Tough Conversation Does Not Need a Runway
Systems
What Accumulates Eventually Has to Be Carried
Organizations rarely break all at once. Most of the strain arrives one layer at a time.
Read on Substack: What Accumulates Eventually Has to Be Carried
Capability
Borrowed Trust
Watching my husband weld is one of the clearest lessons I know in what competence feels like up close.
Published work
Fourteen pieces. Sixteen years. One argument.
Published work on educational technology, school leadership, and the decisions that get made long before anyone opens the manual. Plus a couple of pieces about driving old Land Rovers into places they probably shouldn’t go.
2026
AI Policy in Schools: When the Default Becomes the Decision
Solutions Review, October 2026
A Maryland district switched on an AI tool in September and banned student AI use by October. How a platform’s defaults cut the ruts before anyone decides, and four questions to answer before the next feature arrives switched on. First published by Insight Jam.
2026
Cybersecurity Is a Mirror
CALIE, June 2026
After a major platform breach, the questions that flooded in were about logins and assignments, not forensics. Most school technology ecosystems were never designed. They accumulated. What that costs, and the conversations it keeps schools from having.
2026
Stop Letting Educational Tech Grade Itself
Insight Jam, August 2026
Districts can produce the contract and the license count. Eighteen months later, most can’t produce evidence that anything changed for a student. On walkthroughs passing as proof, vendor dashboards as an echo chamber, and four rules for running a pilot that’s allowed to fail. Syndicated by Solutions Review.
2026
Before You Buy the Next Tool, Ask These Four Questions
K12 Digest, July 2026
A closet full of clickers nobody asked for. A grade portal that quietly taught a staff to stop entering honest scores. Four questions to ask before the purchase order, borrowed from the habit of getting out and walking a trail before you drive it.
2025
Future Forward, Human Forward
K12 Digest, September 2025
What school is actually for, argued from a trail that disappeared in Anza-Borrego. Hope and mattering, an Apollo mission rebuilt in VR, and six skills that still hold once the tools change again.
2025
Keeping the Light On
The Learning Counsel, July 2025
How VR and AI Help Students Reclaim Their Attention in the Age of Distraction. Attention is the scarce resource in a school without hallways. What immersive tools can do about that, and what they can’t.
2020
For Schools, Coronavirus Shutdowns Are Only Half the Battle
New America, March 2020, with Kristina Ishmael
Written in the first week of closures. Closing the buildings was the easy half. Connectivity, untested software, meals, and housing were the half nobody had a plan for.
2017
Apple Classroom with and without MDM
CUE Deployment Squadron, October 2017
What the management layer actually buys you, and what it costs the teacher standing in front of thirty devices.
2017
iPad Deployment: This Time with Students
CUE Deployment Squadron, August 2017
Field notes from putting devices in students’ hands instead of on a cart.
2013
Meet the Needs of Digital Learners Through BYOD
Creative Educator, 2013
Bring your own device, back when that was a policy fight rather than a given.
2011
Pixie 3 Releases
Tech4Learning, July 2011
An early look at a creation tool built for elementary classrooms.
2010
The Relationship Between Teacher Attitudes Towards Software Applications and Student Achievement in Fourth and Fifth Grade Classrooms
Doctoral dissertation, Alliant International University
The question underneath all of it: whether a tool works depends on what the teacher believes about it.
Off the clock
Where the terrain metaphor comes from.
The leadership work borrows its language from somewhere real. These are the pieces about the somewhere.
2026 · Beyond Boundaries Magazine, May 2026
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Driving on Its 500 Miles of Extensive Dirt Roads. Two days and a rover club loop through the southern park, from Canyon Sin Nombre to the Wind Caves. Diablo Drop-Off punishes impatience and rewards restraint. A line that worked last year may not exist this year. Five pages, starting at page 24 of the flipbook issue.
2024 · Rovers Magazine, Summer 2024
Luna and Her Sisters
A paddle board that wouldn’t fit in a sedan, a ’97 Range Rover that quit two hours from home, and the club that showed up anyway. How a reluctant first Land Rover turned into leading a dozen trucks through the Yuha Desert.
Also
Contributions
Brighterly, June 2026. Commentary on the gap between students learning and students getting to the right answer, and how “show your thinking” checkpoints close it.
From Teaching to Empowering, October 2025. Elite Academic Academy’s first white paper, with AI Educators. Replacing one-off training with sustained coaching.
Write for your audience
Need a piece written for your audience?
Bylines, guest columns, and white papers for education and EdTech publications. Tell me the readership and the argument you want made.
From the classroom
The earlier writing.
Before the systems work, there was the classroom. Practical, teacher-to-teacher, and still useful if that’s where you are. Kept a little apart on purpose.
I have had the privilege of collaborating with Dr. Spencer on multiple projects through the CUE board and within my school district. Her insights have consistently proven invaluable, and her ability to contribute thoughtful perspectives to key decisions makes her an exceptional thought partner.
Brian Briggs
Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District
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