The Member Spotlight is a new way for CoSN members get to know each other and improve networking. Each month, CoSN will select a member who has volunteered to answer various questions about themselves, personal and professional, and then share their responses with our entire CoSN community.
October 2026 Member Spotlight
Taylor P. Wrye, Ed.D., CETL®
Taylor is the Director of Educational Technology at Ridgefield Public Schools in Ridgefield, CT.
- How long have you been a member of CoSN?
"I joined CoSN in 2023, and earning the CETL certification shortly after has been one of the most meaningful professional investments of my career. CoSN offers something genuinely rare: a community of technology leaders who understand that this work is fundamentally about students and educators, not just systems and devices. What I value most is the quality of the thinking and the generosity of my peers through CoSN. I currently serve on the Innovation Committee, which keeps me connected to the leading edge of educational technology alongside some of the most thoughtful colleagues I have encountered in this field.Before joining Ridgefield Public Schools in Connecticut, I served as a Director of Technology and Innovation and on the METAA executive board in Massachusetts, a state-level affiliate of CoSN that advances the role of technology directors in district leadership. Those experiences deepened my commitment to technology leadership grounded in equity and sound policy." - Why did you join CoSN? What do you enjoy about being a member?
"I've been incredibly lucky to work under supervisors who recognize the value of CoSN and the power of professional networking. For me, CoSN’s value is rooted in its high-quality content, meaningful connections, and a commitment to its members and the critical issues facing edtech. The diversity of the members provides a wealth of expertise and perspectives, making the annual conference, webinars, and communities incredibly useful. CoSN is usually my first stop whenever I need to benchmark ideas or get advice from the wider edtech community." - How did you get into the field of educational technology?
"Early in my career as an 8th-grade social studies teacher, I was always the one jumping at the chance to sign out the coveted netbook cart and get students logged into wiki pages, pulling digital photos, RealPlayer clips, and other multimedia from across the internet. I genuinely believed students could do more interesting and engaging work when technology was part of the picture.That belief only grew as I moved into administration. As an Assistant Principal, I helped lead the original rollout of Google Workspace to teachers and students across my middle school and eventually the district. What struck me most was how much the rollout's success depended on relationships, trust, and sustained support. The tools were never the hard part. Getting people to believe in them, use them well, and see what students could accomplish with them was the real work. Watching educators grow confident in ways they never expected was very rewarding.By the time I was a building Principal and then a district administrator, I knew I wanted to do that work at scale. My doctoral research at Drexel University, "The Great Equalizer: A Case Study of Distance Learning in Public Schools," gave me the language to articulate what I had been living for years: educational technology has genuine transformative potential, but it does not happen on its own, and it takes a community to make it happen." - What does your daily work entail?
"As Director of Educational Technology for Ridgefield Public Schools, no two days look exactly alike, and that is honestly what I value most about the role. I spend much of my time in buildings, working directly with teachers and administrators on how to integrate technology purposefully in teaching and learning. On any given day, I might also be reviewing a vendor data privacy agreement, working alongside our IT and data teams on infrastructure and compliance, supporting our Data Governance Team, meeting with community members and the PTA, briefing the district leadership on emerging technology trends, or collaborating with building principals on translating our technology vision into everyday classroom practice.Beyond Ridgefield, the broader professional community is essential to my work. Through the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology, I stay connected with fellow technology directors statewide. I collaborate regularly with tech directors across Fairfield County, sharing resources and working through shared policy challenges in real time. My years working in Massachusetts also left me with lasting relationships with colleagues across New England, including technology leaders in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine, as our states navigate many of the same challenges. CoSN members from across the country add a national dimension to that network, grounding me in what districts of all sizes and contexts are navigating and innovating." - What is an exciting project, initiatve, or rollout you are working on right now?
"The work I am most energized by right now is building a framework for purposeful technology use in Ridgefield that directly addresses how the screen time conversation is playing out in schools and communities. Educational technology is being pulled into the screen time debate in ways that flatten an important distinction: passive scrolling and a student producing a documentary, writing code, or designing a solution to a real-world problem are not the same thing, and our policies should not treat them that way.This year, with the active support of Superintendent Susie Da Silva and Assistant Superintendent Cory Gillette, we are implementing both an internal task force and an external advisory committee to give our community a shared voice, vocabulary, and structure to make that distinction. The goal is not more technology or less technology. The goal is purposeful technology, used intentionally in service of teaching and learning, with educators and families who understand why that difference matters.Alongside that work, April 2026 marked the publication of my first book, Leading the Next Era of Public Education: A Roadmap for Personalized, Student-Centered, and Equitable Schools (Routledge/Eye On Education), which captures the philosophy driving much of what we are building in Ridgefield, and opened conversations with other districts across New England and beyond wrestling with the same screen time narratives." - What is one tool, app, strategy, or workflow hack that has saved you time or made your work easier recently?
"The tool that has made the most difference in my day-to-day work is Apple's Live Captions. Built into iOS, no download required, and activated with a triple-click shortcut. I live with moderate hearing loss, and this feature is active for me at board meetings, professional conversations, and community events. When I miss a word or lose a phrase, I glance at the screen or my watch to read the transcript. The conversation keeps moving. No interruption, no repetition, no friction.
What makes this worth sharing, beyond my own use case, is the pattern it represents. Tools designed for a specific access need to consistently improve the workflow for everyone around them. Auto-captions on every major video platform trace directly to technology developed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Screen readers built for blind and visually impaired users are the foundation of the voice interface technology now embedded in every smartphone. The accommodation becomes the standard because designing for the edges of a system tends to improve it at the center.Any staff member can enable Live Captions today; Android users have a comparable option in Google's Live Transcribe, and neither requires procurement, a license, or deep training." - If you could instantly solve one pain point for educators or students tomorrow, what would it be?
"I would make student digital safety a funded, standing priority in every public school district, held to the same standard of care as physical safety. We do not treat locked doors and safety drills as optional expenses or one-time line items, yet the systems that hold student records, house instructional platforms, and connect every classroom to the internet are often protected by small teams running on limited budgets or grant-funded projects. Every district depends on its student information system and basic network connectivity, and every educator in the building feels the gap the moment those systems go down. Digital safety infrastructure deserves the same permanence and investment we extend to physical safety, not because something has already gone wrong, but because we know what is at stake if it does." - What hobby(s) do you enjoy doing outside of work?
"Outside of work, I am at home with my family, skiing in the Adirondacks in winter or out on the Connecticut shore in the summer. As a true New Englander, I follow the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics, usually with a large Dunkin iced coffee in hand."
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