Calling all bloggers! – Leadership Day
Many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central
office administrators) need help when it comes to digital
technologies
. A lot of help, to be honest. As I’ve noted again and
again on this blog, most school administrators don’t know
- what it means to prepare students for the 21st century;
students and teachers;
infrastructure) look like or how to implement them;
and external stakeholders;
outcomes;
and effective;
Administrators’ lack of knowledge is not entirely their fault. Most of them
didn’t grow up with these technologies. Many are not using digital tools on a
regular basis. Few have received training from their employers or their
university preparation programs on how to use, think about, or be a
leader
regarding digital technologies.
So… let’s help them out. Wednesday, July 4, 2007 is American Independence Day
and is as good a day as any to celebrate independent (and hopefully innovative)
thinking and leadership. I hereby invite all edubloggers to blog
about effective school technology leadership next Wednesday.
Blog about whatever you like: successes, challenges, reflections, needs.
Write a letter to the administrators in your area. Post a top 10 list. Make a
podcast or a video. Highlight a local success or challenge. Recommend some
readings. Do an interview of a successful K-12 technology leader. Respond to
some of the questions below or make up your own. Whatever strikes you. Please
tag your post with this Technorati tag:
and/or link back to this post. If you don’t have a blog, comment on someone
else’s post or send your thoughts to me and I’ll post ’em for you. I’ll do a
summary afterward on what folks wrote and talked about.
Please join us for this important day, because I promise you: if
the leaders don’t get it, it isn’t going to happen
.
Thanks.
Some prompts to spark your thinking
- What do effective K-12 technology leaders do? What actions and behaviors can
you point to that make them effective leaders in the area of technology?
Do administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders in their organizations?
What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that can be taken to move administrators forward? Given the unrelenting pressures that they face and their
ever-increasing time demands, what are some things that administrators can do to
become more knowledgeable and skilled in the area of technology leadership?
Perhaps using the NETS-A as a starting point, what are the absolutely critical skills or abilities that
administrators need to be effective technology leaders?
What is a technology tool that would be extremely useful for a busy administrator (i.e., one he / she probably isn’t using now)?
What should busy administrators be reading?
