Scott McLeod---the mind behind Dangerously Irrelevant---has started an interesting July 4th tradition designed to support the digital development of school administrators called Leadership Day.  To participate, Scott asks interested edubloggers to:

Blog about whatever you like
related to effective school technology leadership: successes,
challenges, reflections, needs. Write a letter to the administrators in
your area. Post a top ten list. Make a podcast or a video. Highlight a
local success or challenge. Recommend some readings. Do an interview of
a successful technology leader. Respond to some of the questions below
or make up your own.

Having had my own learning permanently changed by digital tools over the past few years, I can't imagine a more important project to get involved in.  I passionately believe that digital tools make learning easy for everyone---and that by failing to integrate them into our practice, we are leaving our children unprepared to grow as self-directed thinkers and at a competitive disadvantage in a knowledge-based society.   

Heavy stuff, huh?

What's most frightening, though, is that I just plain doubt the digital capacity of most educators.  Many have yet to master efficient learning in the 21st Century---and some struggle to even seem interested in change! 

Now, it's difficult to argue that the mental stagnation surrounding schools is completely our fault.  Anyone who has worked in education for any length of time knows that
adult learning has generally been pushed aside as we sprint through
days in a state of panic about leaving no child behind. 

The few moments that we can steal for professional development
(typically beginning and ending in July OR starting at 3:45 after we've
wrestled with kids for eight hours) are spent in sessions with
"experts" pitching the latest silver bullet.  We rarely get to self-select learning opportunities, pursue professional passions, or engage in meaningful, ongoing conversations about instruction. 

We end up jaded, literally groaning
when given "opportunities to learn." 

How's that for ironic!

Heck, even Richard Elmore---Professor of Educational Leadership at Harvard and all-around educational policy rock star---has gone as far as to argue that school structures make learning for adults unlikely at best and nothing short of impossible at worse:

It would be difficult to invent a more dysfunctional organization
for a performance-based accountability system. In fact, the existing
structure and culture of schools seems better designed to resist
learning and improvement than to enable it.

As expectations for
increased student performance mount and the measurement and publication
of evidence about performance becomes part of the public discourse
about schools, there are few portals through which new knowledge about
teaching and learning can enter schools;

few structures or processes in
which teachers and administrators can assimilate, adapt and polish new
ideas and practices; and few sources of assistance for those who are
struggling to understand the connection between the academic
performance of their students and the practices in which they engage.

So
the brutal irony of our present circumstance is that schools are
hostile and inhospitable places for learning. They are hostile to the
learning of adults and, because of this, they are necessarily hostile
to the learning of students.

Amazing, huh? 

To argue that schools are hostile to learning is a bold statement---but if you're a school leader, chances are good that you were nodding your head in agreement as you read through Elmore's thoughts. 

Times have changed in two significant ways, however, since Elmore began describing the hostile learning environments that have held schools back.  First, a new emphasis has been placed on the importance of collaborative learning between members of close-knit teams in schools. 

Second, digital tools now provide new "portals through which new knowledge about
teaching and learning can enter schools."

Specifically, thousands of accomplished educators are now writing blogs about teaching and learning, bringing transparency to both the art and the science of their practice.  Coming from every content area, grade level, school size and geographical region, they are actively reflecting on instruction, challenging assumptions, questioning policies, offering advice, designing solutions, and learning together. 

And all of this collective knowledge and professional challenge is readily available to your faculty for free!

Not a bad deal, huh? 

With the investment of a bit of time and effort, you can expose your teachers to more interesting ideas in one day than you've been able to expose them to in the past ten years of high-dollar professional development!  Better yet, this learning has the potential to be authentic---driven by personal interests and connected to classroom realities. 

All that you need to do is introduce RSS feed readers to your faculty!

Feed readers are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet easy.  Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for anyone. 

Imagine never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources again.  Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the thoughts of writers that you trust and respect.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

It's not!  Here's a Commoncraft tutorial explaining RSS Feeds in Plain English:

Have I hooked you yet?  If so, then it's time to take action!  To get your faculty learning again, take the following 10 steps:

1. Start by using a feed reader as a learning tool for a few weeks yourself.  If you're really brave, find a collection of blogs that target school administrators and organize them on your own with an aggregator of your choice.  If you're not quite sure where to begin, try this collection of educational leadership blogs that my buddy Adam Garry and I organized with our favorite feed reader. 
2. Dedicate a few minutes each day to browsing the content in your aggregator.  Notice how new posts are added automatically.  Make a commitment to reading two or three entries a week.  Find topics that you're motivated by and let your thinking be challenged.  Leave comments for the authors and see whether or not they respond.  Engage other readers in conversations or friendly debate. 
3. Remember that all of this learning is completely free! 
4. Smile profusely. 
5. Tell others how much you enjoy having your thinking challenged by the blogs you are reading.  Share a few posts that you find with peers.  Ramble on about the beauty of RSS.  Use your enthusiasm to generate a buzz about the potential for professional learning to be fun again.
6. If you're really brave, use a feed reader to create a collection of blogs for your teachers to explore.  Remember to find writers from different content areas and grade levels.  Focus on writers that offer specific, practical advice or model the kind of reflective thinking that you'd like to see more frequently in your building. 
7. If you're not sure where to begin, use my personal feed reader.  I read the blogs in this collection all the time.  Some leave me challenged.  Some leave me angry.  Some leave me jazzed.  All leave me energized and ready to learn more.   
8. Ask your teachers to share the most interesting articles that they find with you.  Read what they're sending and then extend conversations every chance that you get!  Make it a point to talk with a teacher about a shared blog post at least twice a week. 
9. Remember that all of this learning is completely free.
10. Smile profusely! 

Over time, you'll start to see a real change in the quality of the conversations in your faculty workroom.  No longer will teachers be sharing war stories or groaning about students.  Instead, they'll be debating the merits of the new instructional practices or the challenging ideas that they've stumbled across online. 

Better yet, you'll start to see RSS feeds finding their way into classroom instruction as well.  Teachers, driven to show others how to learn, will begin creating collections of student blogs for their kids to explore or designing automatically updating pages of resources on topics connected to their curriculum. 

To put it simply, you will have used a free digital tool to make individualized learning a part of the very fabric of your organization!

Shouldn't that be the ultimate goal of every school leader?

(Image credit:  Computer by Guillermo Esteves, licensed Creative Commons:  Attribution)

Considering that we're smack dab in the middle of Memorial Day weekend---the traditional start of summer---I figured it was high time that I put together a reading list for y'all. 

I know, I know:  Nobody likes the curmudgeon who assigns a massive list of scholarly tomes that won't fit easily into beach bags.  In fact, writing this post today kind of makes me feel like the militant librarian that nobody likes because she drains the joy out of reading---and life, come to think of it!

The good news is that my reading list is completely optional! 

There will be no "fall freshman" seminar that you have to attend and no extensive reporting required.  I won't compose a collection of multiple choice questions designed to determine whether you can identify author's purpose.  And this ain't no Accelerated Reader list either, so I won't be handing out trinkets to those of you who read the most books.

I just figured that you might be interested in the kinds of books that I've found interesting over the past few years:

What I'm Reading Right Now:

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky:  Here Comes Everybody is turning out to be one of the more interesting titles that I've picked up in a long while.  Essentially a book about human interactions, Shirky works to explain how digital tools and the Read/Write web are changing the ways that people work together.  I find myself nodding all the time while reading Shirky's work because it explains a lot of what I see as I work to introduce my professional learning team to tools for electronic collaboration.

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink:  I downloaded Pink's book onto my Kindle yesterday primarily because it seems like you're completely illiterate in today's educational environment if you HAVEN'T read it!  Almost every conversation that I get into with progressive educators sees someone send a nod towards Pink's thinking.  In this title, he explains why our world will eventually favor right brained thinkers who are capable of synthesis over left brained thinkers who are good at analysis and outlines six specific behaviors that will be the keys to tomorrow's kingdom.

What I Haven't (Regretfully) Been Able to Finish Yet:

Classroom Assessment for Student Learning by Rick Stiggins and Friends:  I gotta tell ya, no single task drives me crazier than trying to assess my students.  Embarrassing, huh?  How can an award winning teacher openly admit to not having a clue whether or not the work that he is doing is making a difference.  That's why I picked up this title---and it's amazing.  Almost every page includes ideas about what high quality assessment looks like in the classroom, and my practices are slowly changing for the better. 

The only problem:  This sucker's almost 500 pages long!  I think I've made it to chapter 4 so far.  I figure by the time I retire, I'll hit the back cover. 

What I'd Read Again if I Had the Time:

Deeper Reading by Kelly Gallagher:  I often tell people that you can tell how much I liked a book by the number of dog-eared pages and annotations that you find when you pick it up from my bookshelf.  If that's true, then Deeper Reading would be on my list of "Books to Bury Me With."  It's an amazingly approachable look into pre, during and post reading strategies that are appropriate for the middle and high school classroom.  No joke:  Like 90% of the strategies that I use in my classroom are Gallagher rip-offs. 

Summarization in Any Subject by Rick Wormeli:  So Rick Wormeli is a digital pal of mine---A long time TLNer who made it to the big leagues!  I can remember Rick and I arguing once over whether he was still a real teacher anymore, considering he makes bank doing consulting work all over God's creation.  Rick's answer:  "Those of us working beyond the classroom are helping to change instructional practices in deep in meaningful ways." 

At the time, my answer was, "Yeah, right!"  And then I read Summarization in Any Subject and it changed my instructional practices by introducing me to a collection of 50 different ways to incorporate summarization into my daily lessons.  I guess Rick was right!

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni:  Here's a book I almost didn't get through!  You see, I'm a bit of a skeptic and Five Dysfunctions seemed like just another one of those business books that cross over into the educational field because some superintendent read it and wanted to make his district more like a corporation and less like a learning organization.  You know what I mean, right?  After all, if you've been in schools long enough, someone has probably tried to convince you that Who Moved My Cheese was an earth-shaker too.

But Five Dysfunctions was different.  It was one of the first books that helped me to understand what was happening on my professional learning team.  Having language to describe the struggles behind collaborative work---and recognizing that our dysfunctions were actually pretty normal---was one of the key factors in convincing me that PLCs were worth my time and effort.   

What Feeds My Inner Geek:

Class and Schools by Richard Rothstein:  Class and Schools was one of the first policy-wonkish books that I ever read and it changed the way that I think about education.  In it, Rothstein goes through a wide range of factors beyond schools that contribute to the achievement gap between white students and students of color.  Reading it helped me to realize that schools are not the only solution to the struggles faced by children living in poverty.  Really---It's a must read for anyone involved in education. 

Who Controls Teachers' Work by Richard Ingersoll:  About 7 years ago, I went through some difficult professional times, wondering whether or not I was cut out to always play second fiddle in the schoolhouse.  I was frustrated, I think, about the limits that are often placed on classroom teachers simply because they lack broad decision making power in buildings.  After reading Ingersoll cover-to-cover in about two nights, I realized I was right!  While his work is stats heavy and narrative light, Ingersoll outlines the lack of empowerment that can often drive teachers away from our profession.

Education Myths by Jay Greene:  In this absolutely shocking book, Greene spins a collection of half-truths designed to attack public education that have been embraced by conservatives including Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  I literally could only read this one in small doses---and my wife had to constantly remind me that Greene couldn't hear me cursing at him while I read.  My friends kept asking why I kept reading.  My reply:  "Wise men always say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer---and few can play the enemy role better than my favorite professional myth-maker Jay Greene."

Schoolteacher by Dan Lortie:  Schoolteacher was recommended to me by my good friend Barnett Berry---who is the heart behind the Teacher Leaders Network.  "Bill," Barnett told me one summer, "The single most important book on the life of teachers in American schools is Schoolteacher by Dan Lortie.  You've got to read it.  Heck, I'll even buy your copy."

"What makes it so significant?" I asked.

"It was written in 1977, yet it still rings true today---over 30 years later.  How's that for scary?"  he answered----and he was right!

What I Need a Few Gift Cards to Buy:

On Common Ground by Rick DuFour and Friends:  If you've read the Radical at all in the past few years, you know that I'm working in a building founded on professional learning community principles---and if there's one thing I've learned about PLCs, it's that they're hard to start and hard to sustain!  The work is incredibly worthwhile, but every now and then, I need a bit of a confidence boost, and I believe On Common Ground just might be what I'm looking for.  Heck, it's got systematic advice about PLCs from educational heavyweights like DuFour, Roland Barth and Michael Fullan.  Who wouldn't want to read it?

Classroom Assessment and Grading that Works by Robert Marzano:  Now, this may come as a surprise to you, but I've never read anything that Marzano has written.  Crazy, huh?  After all, I've plowed through about a billion books in the past three or four years---and Marzano has written some of the most significant books of the past decade, pairing research with tangible action steps to drive change in schools.  I figure it's time for me to figure out what all the buzz is about, and this title is a good starting point.  After all, it's about assessment---a personal weakness.

What I'm Reading for Fun:

The Taliban by Ahmed Rashid:  Come on....Admit it....You're curious about the Taliban too, aren't you?  After all, their actions have embroiled the Middle East in a seemingly never-ending war.  How can you not want to know more about this group of friendly neighborhood extremists?  Amazingly, this book was about ten times more approachable than I expected it to be---and it was interesting times ten too. 

Did you know that under the Taliban, women could be arrested for allowing their shoes to make noise while they walked?  Turns out it distracts men and prevents them from keeping their eyes on God!  Who knew?

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:  After reading The Taliban, I wanted to know more about the life of women in extremist Muslim countries.  That's when I stumbled across this autobiography/memoir written by one of the most amazing women in the world.  Ayaan Ali broke away from a radical Muslim community in Somalia and went on to a political career in Europe.  Then, she made a short film critical of Islam.  Now, she lives in exile in the United States under the threat of death from those who seek to crush her voice. 

Escape by Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer: If you haven't figured it out already, my pleasure reading list seems to spiral from one title to another---and over the past few months, I'm trying to learn more about how extreme religions treat their followers, particularly women.  That interest led me to an extreme religion right here in the Good Ol' U.S. of A:  The FLDS, led by convicted criminal (and part time prison prophet) Warren Jeffs.  In this title, a former FLDS member describes the life of abuse that she led before breaking free with her eight children. 

Whaddya' think?  Have any of the books on my list caught your attention?  Are there any books that you've read recently that should be added to our collective summer list?  What title should I pick up next?

Looking forward to your comments, that's for sure.  After all, I'm going to need a new book soon!

(Image Credit:  Book Collection by Ian Wilson, licensed Creative Commons:  Attribution)