This fall the State of Maine began yet another ambitious expansion of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) by providing the opportunity for high schools across the state to expand the 1:1 computing model to grades 9-12. To date approximately 62% of the high schools in the state have opted in. As a result there are now over 60,000 new MacBook laptops which have been shipped - now covering every middle school student and teacher, every high school teacher, and 62% of the high school students in Maine.

The MLTI project has been in existence for over seven years and has served as an model for many national and international 1:1 deployments. As a result of it’s success and exposure, it remains a very attractive project for companies such as Google to donate their software to. This year’s deployment was fortunate to include software by The Omni Group, Inc. The Omni Group has donated their entire suite of applications to the MLTI project, which includes OmniOutliner, OmniDazzle, OmniGrapher and OmniFocus. The total value of this donation is huge and it provides a powerful set of tools for the teachers and students in Maine. However, one of the greatest opportunities presented by this donation is the potential to expose the educational community to OmniFocus, and in particular the Getting Things Done (GTD) workflow methodology, of which OmniFocus closely based upon.

As a GTD evangelist myself, last March I was fortunate to attend the GTD Summit in San Francisco. This was a first-ever event hosted by David Allen, author Getting Things Done, and his company, David Allen Inc. It was a networking event which brought together all of the best and brightest GTD practicers from literally around the world. It was at the GTD Summit that I met Ken Case - the President of the Omni Group Inc. Being a Technology Director at a school district in Maine and a GTD evangelist, I encouraged him to consider donating OmniFocus to the MLTI program as a first step in exposing the educational community witin Maine to the benefits of the GTD system.

It’s now nearly seven months later and OmniFocus is in the hands of over 60,000 teachers and students in the State of Maine. And so begins the hard work - educating people about the Getting Things Done system, and the ability of OmniFocus to serve as one of many potential GTD tools. As one of the first steps towards this goals, I will be giving a GTD and OmniFocus introduction at ACTEM’s MAINEducation Technology Conference on October 16th in Augusta, Maine. The title of the session is “Is a Zero Email Inbox Possible?” and will serve as an introduction to GTD, OmniFocus and the potential benefits for digital natives. If you’re attending, please stop by and learn about more GTD, OmniFocus and how both can assist yourself and many of the digital natives in your classrooms that are ill-equipped with effective time and workflow management skills in this web 2.0 world.

Related links:

What’s on your MacBook: OmniFocus (iTunes U podcast)

History of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI)

David Allen, Getting Things Done® and GTD®

GTD Summit | Changing the way the world works

The Omni Group and OmniFocus

ACTEM’s MAINEducation Technology Conference

Tags: Digital Natives, Getting Things Done (GTD), OmniFocus