No Screens, No Fizzle: How Frizzle Brings the Sizzle Back to Student Thinking

The AI Tool That Lets Students Put the Screen Down Without Turning the Data Off Perhaps one of the strangest plot twists that I’ve seen in the evolution of educational technology is that artificial intelligence may ultimately drive many classrooms back to pencil and paper. After years of pushing and integrating devices, digital assignments, online … Continue reading No Screens, No Fizzle: How Frizzle Brings the Sizzle Back to Student Thinking →

Protect the Thinking: Introducing the TRACE™ Framework

TRACE™: A Human-Centered Framework for AI-Supported Thinking and Learning AI Supports. Humans Lead. There is a familiar and recurring educational optical illusion appearing in classrooms everywhere. A student submits an assignment that looks terrific. The grammar is polished, the vocabulary is elevated, the organization is nearly flawless, and the presentation appears ready for a conference … Continue reading Protect the Thinking: Introducing the TRACE™ Framework →

Come with Me if You Want to Lead: Human-First, Future-Ready, and Fully Present.

Come with me if you want to teleprompt, speculate, conversate, translate and navigate, into the future. It’s been a month since I started wearing, living, and working with the Even Realities G2 smart glasses and companion ring, and the experience has been nothing short of otherworldly. The closest comparison I can make is that unmistakable, … Continue reading Come with Me if You Want to Lead: Human-First, Future-Ready, and Fully Present. →

Mentor Moments: Thank you, Dr. Larry Kopelman!

Life Lessons Through Treating the Person, Not the Injury There are mentors who teach you what to do, and then there are mentors who quietly show you how to be. Long before I ever stood in front of a faculty, addressed a national audience, or was entrusted with leading Staten Island Technical High School, I … Continue reading Mentor Moments: Thank you, Dr. Larry Kopelman! →

Thank You, Jimmy Miranda

The Courage to Step Out of Line & The Name Tag That Changed Everything (For my son, Mark Erlenwein, Jr., who is now the same age I was when this story began, yet already carries more courage, self-awareness, and moral clarity than I did at that moment in my life. You are living proof that … Continue reading Thank You, Jimmy Miranda →

Suplexes, Scantrons, and School Spirit: How Wrestling Raised a Principal

by Mark Erlenwein (Special thanks to Dr. Lavie Margolin and John ‘Poz’ Pozarowski for the fun interview on Episode 261 of “The Business of the Business” podcast, which inspired writing this article.) If you had told four-year-old me, perched on my father’s shoulders outside Madison Square Garden, waiting to rub WWF champion, Bob Backlund’s crew-cut … Continue reading Suplexes, Scantrons, and School Spirit: How Wrestling Raised a Principal →