Pedagology

Leadership Day sort of snuck up on me – before yesterday I had no idea it existed.  So I threw my two in-progress blog posts aside and started thinking about what I could do in a short time with little-to-no research. I wanted to participate!

One of my aspirations is to someday open my own brick-and-mortar boarding school. (I guess all boarding schools would need to be b&m, right?)  I have been rethinking it a little lately, but I still think it would be neat to have my own Hogwarts here in western NY.  Anyhow, I’ve already got my School District Administrator certificate, so I wrote this article from the point of view that I’m in charge of a new school and I’m trying to figure out what I want to do to promote technology in it without scaring everyone in the northeast away.  I could have written 20 pages on the subject, so tried to whittle it down.  But I’m good at talking…

So, the quickly-thrown together list of the 8 things that I will do as an administrator to encourage and promote educational technology in my school:

1. Be open-minded.

So often I see administrators who discourage their staff members to think outside the box. How does a standard, union-approved teacher observation work when the lesson isn’t traditional in style? How will we explain to the parent(s) that yes, we are using social networking in schools (even though Dateline NBC constantly reminds us how “dangerous” these sorts of places are)? These aren’t really valid questions in this day and age.

2. Allow the teachers to fail every once in a while.

As part of the keynote address at NECC 2009 by Malcolm Gladwell, the idea of student “failure” was brought to the forefront. Ever since the conference teachers in my PLN have been talking about the positive effects of this in education. But what few people have mentioned is the idea that teachers need to fail, too. Teachers need to try a new technology and have it blow up in their faces. They need the opportunity to change the structure of an entire class without *knowing* up front what the outcome will be or without having to prove that the change is based on “best practice” (although obviously there are limitations to this statement). Teachers need to learn every day – so why are their expectations any different than those of students?

3. Be visible, both in person and online.

There’s little more frustrating than an administrator who isn’t visible in the building. Not that I’d want one in my classroom constantly, but it’s always nice to know that the people in charge of the school are aware of whats going on throughout. Being an administrator I’d be sure to not only make myself seen in person, but also to log on and contribute to any site/wiki/blog that the students are using. What a great way to build relationships with all students – administrators often never meet the “good kids”.

4. Data!

Here in western New York (and maybe everywhere?) we’ve got a ton of data on every student. Not only do we know what their scores were on every state assessment they’ve ever taken, but we know what questions they missed, what sorts of questions were missed, how many other students scored similarly, what the scores from each teacher are, etc. I’d guess for the eighth grade English test alone we could print close to 5 pages of data for each student who took the test, if not more.

The problem is, however, that most teachers never see that data. Sure, you could say that “education 2.0″ is going to eliminate state tests and will go to some arbitrary scoring system… but in the meantime that data is uber-important. Administrators need to take the time to sift through the data and give the teachers what they need for the year. Although “tracking” isn’t used widely anymore, I’ve often felt that in some of today’s classes it would help. Any kid, for example, who scored real low on reading comprehension could be placed in a class that focused on that topic versus the kids who scored lowest on antonyms or similes.

5. All students, teachers, non-teaching staff, and administrators will develop and maintain ePortfolios.

At first I was going to say that all teachers and administrators need to have a website – but my idea of an ePortfolio sort of takes care of both pieces. An ePortfolio would be essentially a digital storage area for all documents and data for each student / teacher / administrator. The user interface would allow for any document to be shared with the world, the school, or selected family or friends. It would also allow for customization of a small website that would operate very much like a blog, with widgets and links to different areas. Basically it would be a point-and-click portfolio system that was completely web-based. Every student would leave the school with a online record of what they did including expectations, course outlines, grades, peer assessments, and anything else noteworthy.  Parents, teachers, and perhaps even employers could get all the information they needed about a student’s work from one place online.

6. Encourage teachers to spend time working on personal projects.

I’m taking a page out of the Google philosophy here, but I think teachers would be better prepared to teach if they had more free time in a day.  I can’t really quote anyone specific on this one, but I know that by encouraging a person to work on something that’s important to them is better for morale than expecting that same person to be working solely on school work for 8 hours a day.  I somehow lucked out last year and was given a lighter load for a semester and in that time I planned the upgrade for our auditorium sound and light system, I made a Interactive Wii Whiteboard, I worked with the music department on a few music/technology ideas, and I was able to plan some really fun video projects for my eighth graders.  Without that extra time I would’ve done the same projects I did the year before… and over time that leads to burnout and boredom.

7. I will model good teaching by using a variety of technologies whenever possible.

I had to give a presentation to a group of administrators about technology a while back and I chose to do it with an overhead projector and some dry-erase markers along with some large Post-It notes.  I did it to make my point even stronger – technology isn’t just “wanted”, it’s practically “needed”.  I was hardly taken seriously by some, but the ones who understood my message will remember it.  I learned, however, that I may have made just as large an impact had I dazzled them with a Voicethread, some interactive Wiimote games, and an old fashion Web Quest.  Oops!

8. Encourage Online courses for students and faculty.

Last but not least, I will encourage the use of online courses for both supplementing and replacing of local instruction.  Perhaps a schedule conflict or a long-term illness creates a situation where a student is unable to get into a class – let’s see if that same class can be found online.  As someone who’s both taken and taught online classes I can attest to the fact that they are no lower-quality than brick-and-mortar education.  I’m not sure how online education got such a bad reputation, but I tend to see it as an amazing opportunity.  I am presently teaching online programming courses in schools that are too small to hire a separate teacher for that task; last year I had students from half a dozen schools at any given time and this year I expect many more. And it’s not just technology classes – my online school also teaches a ton of AP and state-required classes.  A great way to supplement any school catalog is with online classes, and I’d certainly promote them.

Google Spreadsheet of many posts
Diigo Slideshow