Thinking back on the first month, looking forward to challenges ahead

October 2, 2011 — egregory

I’m thinking back today, in order to better think ahead.

The first month of school is already done. It went by in a blur. One of the things I love about teaching is that the days never drag. The classroom is never boring to me. I love the energy, the fast pace, and being in the presence of children and learning every day. That fast pace was certainly evident last month! The year ahead became more clear as well.

I have a challenging assignment this year. I thought last year was tough with a new job, the Connected Classrooms to learn about and my Masters degree to finish. One thing I quickly realized during the first month of school was how challenging this year’s group really is. If I want to teach them all, make sure they each get the individual attention they deserve so that no one falls through the cracks, if I really want to teach them, I’ve got my work cut out for me. I almost feel like last year was a warm up, and I did a good job, so this year the universe has decided to throw a new challenge at me and see how I do with this one.

 

To be productive, here are the successes of last month and a few things I need to be mindful of as the year progresses.

Positives:

  1. Overall, an active group! Another 2:1 ratio for boys to girls, and they are very active, fit, energetic, athletic kids in general. The top three students in the Terry Fox Run last week were all from my class. Needless to say, there can be no PE or DPA times missed! I think students perform better with an injection of physical activity into the school day. I know it takes time, but it’s time well spent.
  2. Diversity is going to be our overarching theme this year. Without going into details, I have several students who live life with extra challenges each day. I want to somehow turn the diversity of our classroom community into our strength. I plan on highlighting everyone’s strengths and talking about ways to compensate and live with the struggles. I want to emphasize the humanity in each person in the room. I hope to build tolerance, acceptance, understanding and strength. No small feat, but I see it in my mind and feel strongly that it’s the right thing to do.
  3. I have a lot of support. My admin is aware of the challenges this group brings, so my class is a priority for extra support this year. I’ve attended two meetings focused on how best to meet student needs and ensure their success with this class composition. Meetings with parents are upcoming. I have at least one other adult in my room throughout the day, and, during numeracy and literacy blocks, I have two extra people in to help out. I am very grateful for this support and I plan to work with parents and families as much as possible this year.
  4. I’m loving (and the students are too!) the new methods I’m using for teaching math. Thank you Dan Meyer. I watched the TEDx talk of his entitled ‘Math Curriculum Makeover‘ and it crystallized all the concerns I had from teaching math last year. If you haven’t watched it, and you teach math, take the twelve minutes. Absolutely worth it!
  5. I was able to achieve a nice balance in my life during the transition from summer break into the school year start up. I’m going to need energy for the students, but also for my own children at home, and I am aware of the fact that I’m still recuperating from the Masters coursework last year. I’ve been able to establish a nice balance between looking after myself, being a (I hope) good parent, and working hard to be a good teacher.

Things to be mindful of as the year goes along:

  1. Stay positive! I found myself sliding into a state of worry last month. Yes, it’s a challenging group. But I can handle it. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly why I’m sliding into a ‘down’ mindset, but I think part of it is that I miss the enthusiastic, intense infusion of positive energy that I experienced working with my MEd cohort every other weekend last year. I miss those people and the way that they inspired me each week. I get to see them all this Friday (so excited!) and I’m going to have to find a way to keep in touch from afar. Thank goodness for Twitter and email!
  2. Connected to this purposeful striving to maintain a positive mindset is my own professional development. I need to use pro-d in a positive way this year. I have several conferences that I’m looking forward to, partly because of the great learning I expect to experience, but also because of the passionate educators I know I will meet. I need to look for those opportunities to engage with others in an upbeat, uplifting way. Thank goodness for social media and my PLN!
  3. I need to figure out a good system for assessment. I’m thinking of splitting the class into groups and observing/paying extra attention to/talking with/taking notes on one group each day. I usually don’t do my assessments in such a structured way, but with this group, I think I may need to.
  4. I’m still settling and I need time to think. I’ve never liked quiet. I grew up in a noisy household and I used to be the type of person who would turn on the radio and the tv if I was home alone. Not any more. Now, I seek quiet and time to think. I’m guessing that I need this time to let my thoughts continue to settle from all the learning of the last year. It’s as if I need processing time. I’ve only just figured this out in the last week, so now that I now, I’ll be seeking quiet spaces for contemplation and time to let my mind wander, process and settle.
I could keep going, but that seems manageable for now and I’m hoping to revisit this at the end of next month. It’s all part of the purposeful mindset that I seem to have now that the Masters degree is done. It still feels a little unsettling, but the new awareness is worth being pushed beyond my comfort zone. And I’m sure, eventually, at some point, I’ll figure it out. With a little help from my friends, colleagues, students, family, keyboard and pen, no doubt!
Imagery Wither on the Vine by dianecordell from Flickr.com and used under creative commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Posted in professional development, Reflection. Tags: . 4 Comments »

Relaxed and grounded in a state of being uncomfortable

August 31, 2011 — egregory

        As I near the end of a summer filled with thoughts of overarching themes in the education system, as I ‘cook’ my thoughts and my learning from the culmination of my graduate coursework, and as I continue to read and engage online with virtual colleagues who constantly motivate and inspire me, I noticed a shift in my mental mindset this week as I planned and prepared for the start of the school year.
        At times I feel relaxed. Maybe it’s because I’m teaching the same grade for the 2nd year in a row. That’s a favourite because I’m finished with the hectic pace of teaching something for the first time (I’ve been a first year teacher five years of my fifteen year career) but while the situation is familiar, it’s also relatively new because it’s only the second year so the inherent excitement of novelty is still attached.
        Other times I feel very grounded. I do feel a certain, new confidence in myself as an educator. The Masters degree allowed me to find a solid theoretical and methodological basis for not only who I am as an educator, but also why I teach the way I do. I am more sure of what’s important to me and my ever-evolving pedagogy. I feel my ‘peeps’ with me, bolstering, offering support, adding to my life’s work.
        And then, at times, I feel unsettled, uncomfortable. As I plan, I notice that I am engaging in the planning process in an entirely new way. After fifteen years of teaching, I’m doing things radically different;  if that’s not transformative learning then I don’t know what is.
        What’s different? I’m faster. I’m able to use social media to ask experts questions and get almost immediate answers. I’m able to find excellent, relevant resources quickly. I know myself better so I’m able to sift through and discard the irrelevant with much more certainty.
        But it’s more than that. I think in a different way. I have a heightened awareness of the different layers of thinking in everything I do whether I’m talking with a colleague or planning a math unit. I have a clearer sense of what I think to be important and I am aware that the kids needs are much more in my mind as I go.
        It’s exciting and a little unsettling at the same time. I am excited about the start of the year. I can’t wait to see the students next week. I know my passion to work with children and help them along in life is an strong as ever. The tricky part is, as I wrote in an earlier post, that after my MEd learning I need to learn how to walk differently as I move through my classroom, my school, my home, my community. That’s the part I’m still adjusting to. And it’s uncomfortable. But that’s okay. That uncomfortable feeling only means I’m still learning and that is a state of being uncomfortable that I’m pretty sure I can handle.

Imagery: iEllen by boeke from Flickr.com

Posted in MEd, pedagogy, professional development, Reflection. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Learning to walk as a master

August 19, 2011 — egregory

Last month I completed my Masters in Education in Educational Practice from Simon Fraser  University. This was a graduate field program, meaning that it was designed for working  teachers to complete while continuing to work full time. It involved teacher inquiry into our  practice using qualitative research methods. It was easily the most transformative learning  experience of my life and I feel as if I’m walking through the world differently these days.

What did I learn? I’ve been cooking my thoughts, as Dr. Kelly, our prof, would say, to try to  make sense of the year’s learning. It took me ten days to relax and come down from the  intensity of the thesis submission and final comprehensive presentation. Once I relaxed, I  realized how exhausted I am, both physically and mentally. Aside from the sleep deprivation,  which I can remedy by returning to a normal bedtime, it’s a good exhaustion. It’s similiar to the wonderful feeling I enjoy after a long run when my body feels physically worked and tired, but the better for it. And what was it, exactly, that exhausted my mind? What’s actually still cooking in my thoughts?

I have moments of insight. Moments where there is pure clarity as to what I learned and how the MEd experience changed me. And then there are days of feeling lost and scattered and confused about how to synthesize and articulate even one piece of my learning. Is it even possible to communicate one entire year of intense study? Some days I think I need to just wait and, with time, clarity will arrive. Other days I think that to condense all that learning into so few words is impossible and unrealistic and will never happen, regardless of how much time passes.

I decided on a few profound learnings that I can, with certainty, share at this point:

1. I learned to attend, to be wide awake (see Maxine Greene). Not what I expected at all. I expected to learn ‘something’, not a way of being in the world. I hope to share this with others.

2. I learned that, in my humble opinion, to be literate in Canada today, to be literate in the world today, must include the ability to read and communicate with, and through, images. It’s not enough anymore to simply see literacy as reading and writing; overall literacy must include visuals as one of the forms of communication. I finally achieved an understanding of what this ‘visual literacy’ means and learned the beginnings of how to include it into my practice. See works by Elliot Eisner and David Jakes.

3. I learned that my own notion of citizenship has a local, national, global and digital component. Creating global citizens is a popular topic in education these days, especially in the blogosphere, but to me, that’s only one piece. It’s not sensible to have empathy for those in dire situations on the other side of the planet and yet turn a blind eye on those in dire need in your own community. And the complicated beast that became (digital) citizenship in my thesis is a topic I have yet to tame, although I enjoy the constant and challenging attempt to do so and I now, more than ever before, absolutely see this as a vital component to everyone’s education, not just, but especially, children’s.

4. I learned that deep caring for children, all children, sits as the base of my pedagogy. It always has, but I wasn’t aware of how and why until I wrote my thesis. Motherhood is a part of the deep caring, but not all of it. I care deeply for the well-being, the happiness and the future of all children, mine first, of course, but all other’s children a close second. The theme of care, always present before, but now with the added weight of notions like making decisions based on the 7th generation to come and scholars such as Nel Noddings to bolster and add support, is even more prevalent in who I am as an educator.

5. Finally, thankfully, I learned that I found a place of contentment. This is, of course, more of a mental state than a physical place. I often struggle to be content in life. I have high expectations for myself and those around me. I detest boredom and usually create a constant, positive push to improve and move forward in my life. With the ending of the Masters year, however, I realized I need to stop pushing for awhile and just be. And, thankfully, I’m content with that.

And so, all this learning has left quite an impact on me personally and professionally. I will walk through the world in a different way, truly transformed by the learning experiences of this past year. I know that next month, I will walk into my school and my classroom differently. I’ll walk into that classroom determined to advocate for the arts, an approach, a method that children love and that is important for their education. I’ll walk into that classroom knowing that the reality of shared experience extends beyond the classrooms walls and into an intangible environment entered into through technology and that extension is changing, has already changed how we learn, engage with one another, and live our lives. I’ll walk into that classroom sensitive not only to the influence that my family’s complicated heritage has offered, now offers, to my practice, but also keenly aware that each of my students also bring known and unknown family history to their learning and our classroom environment. Finally, I know that I will walk differently as a mother with a new perspective on how to raise my children.

More to come…

 

Imagery: Waking creativity by jenn.davis and Jurassic Park by mallitch, both from Flickr.com and used under Creative Commons licensing.

 

Posted in about me, MEd, pedagogy, professional development, Reflection. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

(Digital) Citizenship

May 7, 2011 — egregory

Less than two weeks ago, I was excited that eight months of teacher research was solidifying into the central idea of learning relationships. While I originally focused my MEd on student/teacher rapport through a video camera, there is much more going on in the Elementary Connected Classrooms to focus simply on the teacher/student relationship. There are peer-to-peer relationships, the collaborative relationships between the three teachers involved, and then all the crossovers between the almost 70 students and 3 teachers interacting in different ways (not just through the camera) each week. I decided that the term ‘learning relationships’ better described the complicated web of interpersonal connections in our unique setting and changed my terminology to reflect that deeper understanding.

I was, however, only temporarily satisfied with ‘learning relationships’ as the hub of my research. It just seemed too simple and not quite right. Now, after further reflections on my experiences at the Digital Learning Spring Conference and another weekend at SFU with a brilliant professor, I finally think (I hope!) I’ve found the main themes that connect all other ideas at the center of my learning.

At this point, deep caring for children – all children – sits as the base of my pedagogy. It always has. Motherhood is a part of that, but not all of it. I care deeply for the well-being and the happiness and the future of all children, mine first, of course, but other’s children are a close second. I love working with kids and absolutely fight for the best education they can possibly get because, in my opinion, not offering what they deserve in the classroom every day is a disservice to them.
digital citizenship

In my opinion, if we, as educators, truly care about children, we need to honour the learning environment that today’s children are growing up in. If we are guiding them to become good citizens, we need to incorporate digital citizenship into their learning. Each child, family, and community will vary as to the extent to which new technologies have become a part of daily life, hence the idea of honoring each individual’s learning environment. Thanks to some simple online dialogue with David Truss, I’ve decided that (digital) citizenship is the other main theme that binds all my research strands. Citizenship is still the main idea, but with the lesser theme of digital connected to it.

A vital component of (digital) citizenship is how to create and maintain healthy learning relationships. I worry about those, for example, who don’t understand social media because it is the way of the world in a very real sense. We need more educators to become experts in how to use new technologies, if for no other reason than to be good role models and guide the kids; the kids who will use those technologies anyway, regardless of whether or not they’ve received guidance to help keep them productive and safe. Even more important, we need educators who don’t get caught up in the technology, but who become (digital) citizens themselves and then gain a greater understanding of the larger, more meaningful themes, such as learning relationships, within that new technologically-rich context.

Imagery by I am I.A.M. from Flickr.com and altered as allowed per CC license using FotoFlexer’s SuperPixelate.
Posted in Connected Classroom, MEd, pedagogy, professional development. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Conference + Social Media = Powerful Learning Experience

April 22, 2011 — egregory

I experienced the most powerful professional development of my life this past week at the Digital Learning Spring Conference in Vancouver. I attended as a co-presenter, along with my Elementary Connected Classroom (ECC) colleagues. The three of us gave a 45 minute presentation sharing our work in the ECCThe view from my balcony project, and while that was a powerful learning experience in itself, it was only one tiny piece of my overall experience.

The keynotes, Dr. Alec Couros and George Couros, were fantastic. These guys understand what education is all about. They know that the students come first and their passion as educators is inspiring. The keynote was one of the best I’ve seen, mixing insight and wisdom with humor and sibling rivalry. Their keynote, another piece of my learning, is here and well worth looking at.

Usually, good keynotes, being a presenter and other workshops would be enough to make for an intense pro-d experience. And they did, most definitely. But, the thing that transformed a regular conference experience into a powerful learning experience was social media itself.

Before the conference, I sent out a few tweets to people I wanted to meet face to face. I’ve been building a digital identity for five years now with blogging, Flickr, Slideshare, Twitter and more, and I’ve carefully selected certain educators to learn from and with online. The conference was my first chance to connect with some of these people, and it absolutely transformed the conference experience. I met some amazing people and enjoyed wonderful conversations. Some of those conversations were backchannel tweets during workshops, some were face to face over lunch or later at night, and some were just plain silly (at one point I felt like the girl sitting in the back of the classroom laughing with the troublemakers, just like high school all over again).

The lasting impression is that without careful, purposeful use of social media to build relationships with like-minded educators, none of those connections would have happened. I would have attended the conference, been inspired, and gone home like I have dozens of times before.

Instead, I went, I presented, I was inspired, I socialized and I left with new friends and acquaintances. I left feeling connected to some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. I left with the feeling that I’d found a few more of my ‘peeps’, as Dr. Kelly (from my MEd) calls those who you can really learn with and from in life. I left feeling empowered by deep, meaningful learning connections that will continue after, rather than end with, the final keynote. It was the most powerful learning experience I’ve ever had and it would never have happened without social media.

Posted in professional development, Reflection. Tags: , . 7 Comments »

The Calm Before the MEd Storm

April 5, 2010 — egregory

It’s official; I’m in! In September I  start the final year of my Masters degree at Simon Fraser University. I received my letter last week and already I can feel the upcoming change. I swing between feeling extremely excited to feeling absolute panic! I’m aware that the daily rhythm of my life, which has Storm lightfinally achieved balance and is almost relaxed, will change  dramatically for the year of study. Life is fairly calm right now, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was just the calm before the storm. I was right; the MEd storm lays directly in my path!

I’m looking forward to the opportunity to record learning, with all the accompanying struggles and successes, on this blog. During TLITE, I kept an electronic journal using Microsoft Word. That was a stretch for me as I’ve always kept a journal, but it was always with pen and paper. Six months after TLITE ended, I started this blog in hopes of maintaining professional momentum. It has served a variety of purposes since November 2008 and soon will serve as one way to record and extend my  learning the MEd year.

One thing that I found with my electronic journal was that I would lapse into personal writing at times. I haven’t done that as much in my blog because I try to stay aware of the audience that comes with writing in a public space and the digital footprint that I’m leaving with every keystroke or click of the mouse. It will be good for my brain to be forced to shuffle through and clarify the professional from the personal this fall.

Not surprisingly, even though I don’t start until September, my mind has Cotton Cloudsalready begun. Thursday morning I woke up with enough ideas to complete two years of coursework, let alone one. But that’s another post. I think I’ll let my brain enjoy the calm seas of contemplation a little longer before I share my ideas with the world…

Images from Flickr: Cotton Clouds by rob_surreal, Storm light by jekrub
Posted in MEd, professional development, Reflection. Tags: , , . 5 Comments »

Taking a Photo a Day

February 21, 2010 — egregory

I love photography. I always have. I’ve always been the person who’s rarely in any photos because I’m the one taking them. Teaching photography is an woodabsolute pleasure and I enjoy sharing my passion for the subject with my students.

Last New Year’s Eve, I decided to take on the challenge of taking a photo a day for the duration of 2010. Not surpisingly, I learned about the photo a day challenge through Twitter. My first photo, at the right, is one of my favourites so far. I started because I love taking photographs, but I also though that it might be an interesting assignment for my photography students and I like to try things out before I bring them into the classroom.

FragilityI decided to follow @dailyshoot on Twitter because they tweet simple, good photo assignments each day. It helps to keep motivated and inspired. You can even tweet your photo with a link and they’ll add it to their Daily Shoot site. I usually try the daily shoot assignment, but, if the opportunity presents itself, I veer off and capture images of my choice.

I use my Flickr account to archive my daily photos. I also joined two groups on Flickr: the 2010/365photos group (a group largely made up of After the rain...edubloggers which started in 2008) and the Art Ed 365/2010 (another group similiar to the first, but specifically for art teachers). I already had a Flickr account, so it was just a matter of finding the groups (which I learned about from my PLN on Twitter) and joining. Both groups contain members that I either follow on Twitter or that have a blog I subscribe to. I purposefully joined groups that would extend my existing PLN experience and I’ve found that being a part of the group has made my commitment more real.

The benefits I’ve experienced so far are:

  • a greater awareness, a constant searching, for that awesome photo
  • some great photos that I’m really proud of
  • a neat visual record of my year so far
  • an understanding of what it feels like to have to take photos in the same place every day. I get it now when my photo students come in and say ‘there’s nothing to take photos of in this school’,  whereas before I’d privately think, ‘how could there be nothing to take photos of in the whole school?’

The struggles I’ve had so far:

  • finding inspiration in the same spaces day after day. I think it’s time to go on some long drives to take advantage of the beautiful natural setting surrounding me. Looking at my photos so far, very few are outside of my house or my classroom, even though I take my camera with me everywhere I go. I want to change that.
  • remembering to take the photos. I haven’t missed a day yet although I haven’t posted all the photos online, but I have forgotten until late at night and then I was stuck taking a photo just because I had to. Not surprisingly, those don’t turn out very well.
  • technical difficulties. I’m getting a dark spot in the lower right corner of my recent photos. It only shows up in certain close up situations with the flash and it’s ruined a few good photos already.
  • uploading the photos to Flickr, then naming them, tagging them, adding them to the group pool, etc. Is there an easier way to archive the daily photo? There probably is, but I haven’t found it yet, so I usually only upload every couple of weeks or so.

In this time of limitless online professional development, the daily photo is a Linesvaluable and worthwhile learning experience. I’ve really enjoyed it so far and I think it will make for a valuable photography assignment for my students. I wonder about others’ experience so far and I think in a classroom setting, where the students can sit and talk about their successes, struggles, etc. face to face, it will be even better.

All images by me.
Posted in professional development. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »

It’s Been Awhile…

December 28, 2009 — egregory

Where to start?

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. My apologies to those of you who do check in regularly. I’ve thought, at least once a week, of something that would make a great topic for a post, but then life rushed me right past it before I could pull it out of my mind and onto the ‘new post’ window.

Here’s what’s happened in the last two months to prevent me from posting:

#1. Report cards. I’ve been teaching for 14 years and I still haven’t figured out how to do reports without the rest of my life coming to a complete standstill. Any ideas?

#2. Presentation to colleagues on Using Web 2.0 Tools To Build and Maintain a Personal Learning Network for the district non-instructional day in November. This was really a long, detailed Tech Corner designed to spread the word about the great potential for learning connections using technology.

#3. Twitter. Wow. I said that in August, and I’m still saying that now. In only six months I’ve sent 636 tweets, decided to follow 302 people and I’ve picked up 195 followers along the way. If you want to be connected in the world today, you have to be on Twitter. It’s just that simple. It does come with a price though. It’s taken a fair chunk of my computer time away from this blog but because it’s microblogging, I still think I’m moving forward with my online pro-d.

#4. Christmas. I think for the first time in my life, I managed to pull off a wonderful, organized, fun-filled family Christmas without tiring myself out. I made it a priority and I maintained balance which meant that some things, like blogging, just didn’t take place. But this is some of what I did accomplish:

  • 8 batches of gingerbread cookies (my specialty)Christmas Baking
  • 4 batches of sugar cookies
  • 2 batches of shortbread (secret family recipe)
  • 1 batch of krumkake
  • 1 gingerbread house
  • several Christmas movies, complete with treats, blankets, pjs, and other comfy movie night necessities
  • a beautiful Norwegian Christmas Eve dinner, etc., for my husband’s family

#5. I joined a book club. My first, actually. A wonderfully inspiring colleague asked me to be a member so I couldn’t refuse! We’re reading Teaching with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen. The coolest part so far was a conference call to Eric himself (turns out one of my colleagues knows him, what are the odds?!) after we read the first chapter.

That’s my update! I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I do plan on posting more regularly. More to come…

Posted in professional development, professional reading, Tech Corner. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »

Tech Corner – Wordle

October 26, 2009 — egregory

At the start of every staff meeting I present a short (~5 minute) agenda item called Tech Corner. During Tech Corner, I introduce something related to using technology in education. My overall purpose is to advocate for the transformative integration of technology into the school. With a positive approach, I show items of  interest to colleagues to get them thinking about how they could use technology to enhance the learning in their classrooms.My Wordle

The last Tech Corner focused on Wordle.  I’ve used Wordle in my blog posts before, but after seeing it used at the local elementary school I decided to share it with colleagues.

Using the laptop and LCD projector, I started with a quick demo introducing the Wordle website. I then showed two different ways to create a Wordle: paste in a chunk of text or type in a URL for a webpage that has a RSS or Atom feed. I then shared a few examples, some from online sources (Obama’s speech to students at the start of the school year) and some from students in my own school (a colleague had used it for the first time earlier that day). Ever the art teacher, I finished off with a quick demo of how to change the design using choices of language, font, layout and colour. It was a typical Tech Corner – lots of info through visual examples, some demonstration and me talking through the whole thing.

I often wonder about how Tech Corner is received. Do staff really enjoy and learn something useful from my five minute technology blitz? Or are they tuning out and marking while I talk?

This time, I learned very quickly what the teachers at my school thought about the Wordle Tech Corner. The next day, a teacher came into my classroom because he was having difficutly using Wordle in one of the computer labs. We soon discovered that one lab has Java installed on the machines so Wordle works properly, the other lab has machines without Java and with Deep Freeze, so installation is a problem.  Although we had to solve that problem, I was thrilled that he was using the website with his students!

In the next few days, a Wordle sensation spread throughout the school. A bulletin board appeared with student Wordles all over it. The secretary called me in because she needed help creating a Wordle for a card for her brother (brilliant idea actually – she brainstormed words about her brother to create the Wordle and made it into the front of a card for him). Another teacher asked me questions about it. And students in my classes asked how to use the site and started creating their own Wordles out of curiosity!

This Tech Corner had a positive impact on the students, teachers and secretary at the school. I wonder, though, why this one was more successful than Tech Corners of the past. Was it the striking visual impact of the Wordle itself? Perhaps it was the use of elements and principles of design that only an art teacher would know about? Was it that the non-stop Tech Corners at the start of every staff meeting for the last three years have opened up people’s mindset? Was it that the staff are becoming more receptive to using technology over time?

My graduate diploma mentor said that quality learning often results in more questions than answers. Although I’m on the teaching side of Tech Corner, I’m obviously still learning, albeit with different outcomes than everyone else.

Wordle above of this blog post and courtesy of Wordle

Posted in educational leadership, professional development, Tech Corner. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

Tips on Creating Effective School Technology Leadership

July 12, 2009 — egregory

Thanks to Twitter and Scott McLeod, I learned that today is Leadership Day 2009 (#leadershipday09) in the blogosphere. The idea is for bloggers to share ideas related to effective school technology leadership. These posts are then linked back to Scott’s original post in his excellent blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, for everyone, including school leaders, to read and comment on. Sounds like a great way to share ideas, start a complex conversation and learn from others!

To start, how is leadership defined in an educational context? I like Mintzberg’s definition:

“Leadership is…about energizing other people to make good decisions and do other things. In other words, it is about helping release the positive energy that exists naturally within people. Effective leadership inspires more than empowers; it connects more than it controls; it demonstrates more than it decides. It does all this by engaging – itself above all and consequently others.”

Leadership goes beyond school and district administration. In every school, there are usually teacher leaders too. According to Harris and Muijs (2003),

“(t)eacher leadership is not a formal role, responsibility or a set of tasks; it is a form of agency where teachers are empowered to lead development work that impacts directly upon the quality of teaching and learning. Teacher leaders lead within and beyond the classroom, they identify with and contribute to a community of teachers and influence others towards improved educational practice.”

Based on those ideas, I think the first step in creating effective school technology leadership would be the creation of a team of administrators and teacher leaders. The purpose of this team would be to work collaboratively to enact constructive change towards increasing effective use of technology within the school. I think it’s important to note that the team members all need to be willing to participate with school staff in formal and informal professional learning activities. A metanalysis conducted in 2007 by Professor Viviane M. J. Robinson suggests that the most effective leadership dimension is “promoting and participating in teacher learning and development.” Leading by example and being active participants in the process is key.

Once you have a team in place, the next step would be to ask some questions:

  • How is technology being used to enhance learning in school?
  • What needs to be done to more effectively integrate the use of technology in the school?
  • Where are teachers ‘at’ with the use of technology in their practice?
  • Where are students ‘at’ with the use of technology in their learning?
  • What do people know?
  • What do they want to learn?
  • What do they need to know?

After getting some answers (and probably even more questions!), staff could work on goal setting. I think it would be important for a few school wide goals to be decided, but I also think that personal goal setting on how to more effectively use technology in one’s own classroom would be useful too. From there, the original team could take on the responsibility of planning some professional development activities, and then the learning, and hopefully, positive change, could really start.

Technology is intimidating to many, as is change. To increase success, I think it’s vitally important that the team adopt a respectful, supportive, patient, and encouraging approach throughout the entire process, from asking the initial questions of staff members, to all pro-d activities. In my experience, the approach is often the deciding factor in whether or not one is able to really engage and motivate the learners and create a community of learners.

Now that I’ve written this out, I think I might just try it. What do you think?

Posted in educational leadership, professional development. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »
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