Scott McLeod has declared today to be Leadership Day 2008 and he has requested that we write posts related to effective school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs.
Scott posted some probing questions to get us started on our blog posts and in my post I would like to address the following questions:
- What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that can be taken to move administrators forward?
- What should busy administrators be reading (or watching)
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To begin, I want to revisit post I wrote back in April 2008 titled Shift Happens – Now What? I still believe very strongly with everything I wrote in that post and I want to summarize those points in this post:
So what should we do when we realize that the world has changed for our students?
Rather than immediately engage in a technology purchasing frenzy, take some time to begin discussions on your campus about how to transform your school into a place where teachers see themselves first as LEARNERS who are invested in improving their instructional practice through reflection and inquiry, and where students are more globally connected in a way that enhances and supports their individual learning. Collaborate with your faculty and staff — your learners — to learn more about how the world has changed and what that means for our profession…
Locate the “early adopters” in your district/schools and bring them in to a conversation around change — recruit them to help spread change…
Change adult behaviors and practices first… Change the way you work together, the way you speak with each other… Change your vocabulary… Begin by redefining yourselves as learners rather than educators… Acknowledge that in order to prepare your students for their futures of the 21st Century, all learners on your campus must be equally prepared for those futures… Commit to the belief that being “technophobic” or “technology illiterate” is no longer an option for 21st Century learners (and after you’ve redefined yourselves as learners, understand what that means for professional learning on your campus)… Be firm about this — it should NOT be okay on your campus for ANYONE to say “I don’t like technology” or “I’m just not very techie… can you do this for me?”… Banish the phrase “Kids these days” from the vocabulary of everyone on your campus… While you are at it, you should also banish the phrase “My teaching methods have always worked and I’m not going to change just because these kids (fill in the blank)…”
Don’t form a committee to “study this and bring back suggestions for change” — committees take too long and you just don’t have time… change needed to happen yesterday…
Don’t create a “pilot project” — same reasons for not forming a committee — it takes too long and change needed to happen yesterday…
Do not purchase any new technology hardware until you have first ensured that your network is up-to-date and accessible… How many network drops are in each room? Do you have wireless access across your entire campus?… Drops in every room and wireless access across the campus are “must-haves” before you start buying anything else!…
Give your teachers time to “play” with Web 2.0 — to explore the use of Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc.) for THEIR professional learning BEFORE they attempt to use the same tools in the classroom with students. In fact, put a moratorium on classroom use of blogs and wikis for at least four months until teachers have used them weekly for their own learning by reading and writing and connecting with other edublogging educators…
Inform all new first-year learners on your campus that their “learning” is just beginning and will never end… and that it certainly did not end upon completion of all degree and certification requirements…
Begin all interviews for new hires with “what is the most recent thing that you learned and how did you learn it?”…
Understand that all of this can and should happen in conjunction with other changes in professional practice such as Professional Learning Communities and Critical Friends Groups, and along with structural changes such as Smaller Learning Communities, varied student grouping strategies, and/or early college campuses… Transforming your school into a 21st Century Learning Center does not mean that you throw out other initiatives and other research-based best practices…
Campus leaders should model the professional learning use of Web 2.0 tools through transparent blogging and wiki use with the faculty on a weekly basis… Begin putting all of your professional “knowledge” on a wiki (accessible from anywhere — NOT on the campus intranet) and when your learners ask where they can find certain documents, policies, etc., smile and tell them “It’s on the wiki!”… Give your learners password-protected access to edit the wiki so that knowledge on your campus is collaboratively developed… This is as much about being transparent in your own learning and in your communication and collaborative decision-making with all of your learners as it is about modeling the use of new tools…
Don’t know how to use these tools for professional learning, collaboration, and communication? Take time THIS SUMMER to learn… A few great places to start include a wide variety of edublogs as well as “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (Will Richardson), “Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” (David Franklin Warlick), “Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition” (David Warlick), “Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools” (Gwen Solomon, Lynne Schrum)…
If our students need to be educated for a globally connected workplace rather than educated for factory work (and yes, they do), collaborate with your learners to make system, process, and structural changes so that your school looks, feels, and functions less like a factory and more like a globally connected communications and learning center…
Remember that the most important thing is a change in behaviors and practices — a change in pedagogy — NOT just buying new technology…
Finally… when you do make technology purchases — provide support… provide support… provide support… AND provide training… but provide training that is a model of effective instruction and learning practices… create cheerleaders who will coach other professional learners and promote continual learning around changes in the world, economics, technology, and workforce trends that have an impact on our work as learning professionals…
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As for what leaders should be reading right now, here are the books that I strongly recommend in order to understand the changes that are affecting our world and our education systems:
“The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It” (Tony Wagner)
“Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” (Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn)
“Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” (Clay Shirky)
“Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” (Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams)
“Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder” (David Weinberger)“The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life” (Richard Florida)
“The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent” (Richard Florida)
“A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” (Daniel H. Pink)
Leaders should read the following to get “primer” on what 21st Century instruction can and should look like in the classroom (Instructional Leadership):
“Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (Will Richardson)
“Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” (David Franklin Warlick), “Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition” (David Warlick)
“Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools” (Gwen Solomon, Lynne Schrum)
“Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works” (Howard Pitler, Elizabeth R. Hubbell, Matt Kuhn, Kim Malenoski)
Technorati Tags: 21st Century, EdTech, education, Fear, Instructional-Technology, leadership, leadershipday2008, School 2.0, schooltechleadership, Technology, Web 2.0
Change Agency by Stephanie Sandifer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You may copy, distribute, transmit and/or remix this content for noncommercial uses as long as you attribute the work to Stephanie Sandifer (with link back to the original post) and agree to license the work under the same or similar license.
