In this short conversation from ISTE, Jeremy sits down with Rick Ballew, a Minnesota educator, computer science teacher, ISTE certification facilitator, and self-described badge collector.

Rick shares his perspective on the ISTE/ASCD certification process, including the differences between the edtech leader, instructional leader, and edtech teacher certifications. He also talks about why the certification process is meaningful, rigorous, and valuable because it is grounded in real educator work, reflection, and feedback from human evaluators.

The conversation also explores Rick’s professional learning journey from teaching beginning band across multiple elementary schools to becoming a digital learning leader and middle school computer science teacher. Rick shares how a need for better systems led him into Google tools, certificat ...