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:
- 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.
- 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.
- Remember that all of this learning is completely free!
- Smile profusely.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Remember that all of this learning is completely free.
- 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)
