Dr. Shawn K. Smith is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Modern Teacher, Executive Chair of The Futures Institute, and a national leader on issues surrounding digital education and pedagogy.
Described as an “education futurist”, Shawn is an author, speaker, consultant, and rare book collector. He has one of the largest private collections of John Dewey’s writings in the world. Shawn has authored four books on education: Teacher as Architect: Instructional design and delivery for the modern teacher (2012), The New Agenda: Achieving personalized learning through digital convergence (2017), The Shape of Change: The continued journey of the Digital Convergence Framework (2018), and Wisdom and Influence: Mastering the Digital Convergence Framework (2019). His fifth book, The Automation of Learning: Artificial intelligence, machine-human collaboration, and a new generation of American teachers is due out in 2020. Formerly Shawn was a teacher, principal, and Chief of Schools for 15 years in school districts in Illinois and California.

Shawn holds a board seat at The Futures Institute (www.TheFuturesInstitute.org) and has made appearances on both Discovery and Learning channels as well as various radio, web, and podcast programs. Shawn has degrees from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin (bachelor’s degree, elementary education), the California State University, San Bernardino (master’s degree, middle school education), and the University of Southern California (doctorate degree, urban education policy and leadership).