Game Change Leadership

I watched the HBO "docudrama", Game Change, last night. The production portrays Sarah Palin as a charismatic leader who is seemingly clueless about foreign policy, national policy and geography. While the campaign staff is impressed with her amazing ability to connect with people, she doesn't seem to have the necessary credentials to lead the country. The campaign manager and his staff try to bring her up to speed by supplying her with canned responses to areas where she may lack the necessary knowledge and experience to answer a question. Whether it is true or not, we all know of leaders who are charismatic yet seem to demonstrate scant understanding of their field and you wonder, how did these people rise to the top?

It started me thinking about educational leadership. How many Principals or Head of Schools truly can not only talk the talk, but walk the walk? I have been fortunate to always work with leaders whose depth and breadth of experience and knowledge make their schools shine (my current school is a great example of this strong leadership). While one could contend that charisma is a necessary component of leadership, I would argue that knowledge, expertise, emotional intelligence, understanding of school mission and vision are of even greater value. The ability to understand how to bring a community together and lift everyone's performance is the magical stuff that I look for in a leader. Judging by low performance we have across the nation in education, perhaps we have set the bar too low. How many of our educational leaders have actually taught? How many of them continue to push themselves to grow professionally? How many of them can greet their students by name at the door? We seem to rate our educational leaders based on their school's achievement level in standardized test scores and college acceptances [or dropout rate depending on your educational environment]. Perhaps it is the way we assess and reward our educational leaders that put so many schools at risk through poor leadership?

Why don't we measure an educational leader's ability to:

• create a culture of professional learning and collaboration among faculty and staff?
• increase student, parent, alumni and faculty satisfaction in all facets of school life?
• demonstrate a consistent personal professional growth?
• ensure opportunities for all types of learners?
• demonstrate an understanding of programs and alternative assessments that truly promote critical thinking?
•  convey a deep understanding of curriculum, learning styles and best practices?
• demonstrate a deep knowledge of his or her community?

If we agree that focusing on the wrong way to assess student success is how we are failing our children, then we need leaders who are knowledgeable, passionate, experienced and who are capable of steering their schools in the right direction for the betterment of all students. We need leaders who know their students, teachers and parents; who know what is going on in every area of school life because they are out there making those connections; and who are not afraid to drive change where needed. We need leaders who have more to offer than charisma.

The Sweet Spot: Building the Right Technology Curriculum

" . . . and the pitcher throws and your looking for that pill and suddenly there is nothing else in the ballpark you and it and sometimes when your feeling right and there is a groove there and the bat just eases into it and meets that ball. When the bat meets that ball you can feel that ball just give and you know it is going to go a long way. Damn, if you don't feel like your going to live forever." - John Cusack as Buck Weaver in Eight Men Out (1988)

http://sampleandhold-r2.blogspot.com/2011/07/sweet-spot.html

We (administrators, a diverse group of faculty and our wonderful librarians) are searching for our "sweet spot" in technology integration. According to Wikipedia,  "A sweet spot is a place, often numerical as opposed to physical, where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort." We are hoping to dig deep and work toward finding that just right combination of learning supported, infused, enriched or extended by technology. While we realize that this is not a static target but constantly moving, we are working towards creating an environment where as many of those sweet spots can exist.

On our PD day January 2nd, we will being the exciting task of creating anew a technology curriculum (preK-12) for our school. In preparation for this task, I've gathered resources (outside of our own curriculum maps, academic goals, and strategic management plan) to both provoke new perspectives and to ensure that we truly consider what would be the best sweet spot for us. By sweet spot, I mean that wonderful area where preparation, training, knowledge, and talent meet to enable both students and teachers to consistently connect with learning with depth and joy. Creating that sweet spot means we need to have the necessary tools, a deep understanding of pedagogy,  enough professional development, and a supportive community of learners to foster  that sweet spot.


The resources I've gathered fall into three categories:

1. 21st Century Learning/Learners
2. Innovation Trends
3. ICT Integration Protocols

21st Century Learning & Learners:

• Pat Bassett-Demonstrations of Learning for 21st Century Schools: http://www.nais.org/publications/ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=152280
• Tony Wagner-The Global Achievement Gap & 7 Survival Skills: http://www.tonywagner.com/7-survival-skills
• Future Work Skills 2020 http://iftf.org/futureworkskills2020
• Ryan Bretag: We Are Doing All the Cs! http://www.ryanbretag.com/blog/?p=2744
  
• Karl Fisch: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/
• NoTosh (Ewan McIntosh/Tom Barrett) http://www.notosh.com/
• NY Times Schools for Tomorrow: http://www.notosh.com/2011/09/new-york-times-schools-for-tomorrow/
• Reflections from the Ohio Summit: http://dwightcarter.edublogs.org/2011/12/20/reflections-from-the-ohio-summit-2-5-part-1/

INNOVATION TRENDS

• The Top Ten Ed Tech Trends (Audrey Watters) http://www.hackeducation.com/2011/12/16/top-10-ed-tech-trends-of-2011/
• The Top Ten Tech Trends for 2012 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/19/tech/innovation/top-tech-trends-2012/index.html
• 7 Trends to Come (Dave Cormier) http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/12/19/top-ten-black-swans/
• The Future of Libraries http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/12/books-and-band-saws-the-future-of-libraries/

ICT Integration Protocols: 

Educational Origami: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Facilitating+21st+Century+Learning

• What are your schools identified ICT objectives and goals?
• Are these goals administratively focused or educationally focused?
• Where does your school want to be ICT wise in 1 year, 5 years or 10 years?
• What level of consultation and buy in did key groups have, namely students, staff, the community?
• How are these goals integrated into your budgeting and curriculum planning?
• How are these goals supported by professional development for staff?
• How are these goals resourced?
• How are these goals implemented in the school, departments/faculties and the classroom?
• Do you have peer review of your curriculum, subject, unit plans and of teaching practice? Is this collegial support or appraisal?
• In Industry implementation of a new product and the training of staff are usually dollar for dollar. What is your ratio of ICT investments to training investment?
• What revision and review process do you have in place for your ICT goals, investment and training? To what degree are your students, community and staff involved in these reviews?
• To what level is the implementation of ICT into teaching and learning mandated? Is there any mechanism for checking or accountability?
• What accountability is in place for technologies put into the classroom to ensure they are utilised?
• What decision making process is involved in setting student and staff access and administrative rights to computers, networks and the internet? Who established your policy, your board, the principal or the technician(s)/support staff? What are the rationale for this decision - technical, administrative and educational? Who and how is this reviewed?
• Are your pedagogies reflective of 21st Century teaching and learning? 

 Edutopia: http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration  [one of the best compilation of resources on this area}


 The Plan:


 My plan is for us to discuss our dream graduate profile, work which we began in our Academic Council, and then build backward from there using Understanding by Design principles. Basically, if we know where we want to be, then we work backwards from there to build the road to get to the destination. In what ways can educational technology help all our students get there? We are going to meet first as a group and then split into three teams based on ISTE standards: Team 1: Creativity & Innovation, Team 2: Communication & Collaboration,  Team 3: Research & Information Fluency [combined with] Critical Thinking, Problem Solving & Decision Making and the last two standards (Digital Citizenship and Technology Operations and Concepts) will be examined by the core group of technology integration team. It is my hope that by dividing the work into teams with us coming together to report on our progress and to continue to draft and present our findings, we will create a living document, adaptable to change, reflective of our philosophy, and firmly focused on providing the best learning opportunities for our students. Hmmm, it seems suitable to close with another one of my favorite baseball quotes:

Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham: That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?  [Field of Dreams].

I think there's enough magic out there. I'll keep you posted :)

Dear Blog, Have You Missed Me?

I love Top Chef. While I realize the producers amp up the drama to increase viewership, I still admire the ability of the chefs to take all their hard won knowledge (whether garnered through professional school or on-the-job training) and apply it to new situations.  Cooking is a wonderful blend of art, intuition, and science [just like teaching]. It's the ability to use heightened senses and a knowledgeable palate to create a dish worth drooling over. I deeply admire the chef who can maintain dishes cooking on four different burners, continue prepping food, and toss off bon mots to his or her competitors. You know when Padma, the host of the show, comes in that some new challenge awaits the chefs. "Hello, chefs." She will slyly smile and then tell them they have to cook with one hand, or blindfolded, or swap dishes mid-cooking with another chef. I see this happen often to teachers and administrators. "Oh, by the way, we've just redistricted and added 200 students to your school and cut your budget by 18%, but you can still meet your educational growth target, right?" I am fortunate to be in a situation where we have been able to pilot an iPad program for our youngest learners, a teacher iPad pilot with Apple TV wireless connection, and SMART Boards for many of our middle and high school STEM teachers. Teachers are absorbing tech pd faster than I anticipated and are incorporating Twitter and blogging into the curriculum. All my problems are actually blessings but it feels a bit like Padma just came in and gave us our challenge.

When the head chef, Tom Colicchio, comes in to to check on the chefs, at least one chef invariably says, "I'm in the weeds." Tom will ask some questions, the chefs will sweat some more, maybe doubt their work. Yet, [most of the time] the chef pulls through with a magnificent dish. Who needs Tom Colicchio?  However irksome the chefs may find Tom, I think his questions inspire them to reach even higher. I sympathize as I feel like I've been in the weeds. I see daylight, sort of.  I have been prepping the framework for the creation of a new Technology Curriculum, pre-K through grade 12 [hence my absence from my blog]. My hope is that this plan will underscore our educational philosophy, reflect our understanding of digital learners, embody all the hard work we have invested in Visible Thinking, Curriculum Mapping and Differentiation, use of Social Media, and correctly anticipate where technology may lead us [Ouija board anyone?]. And oh yes, let's not create a plan that will be outdated 6 months after creation. A tall order surely but I have a hardy crew of volunteer teachers from all disciplines, and armed with the great research provided by my PLN, and our curriculum maps, I am confident that we will navigate these sometimes murky waters safely. Our school is yar, our sailors skilled, and we've packed plenty of provisions. Wait, has anyone seen the brownies? Hmmm, maybe I need Tom Colicchio after all. 

Learning, Reimagined.

As often happens in this connected world, two articles flew by on my Twitter feed that caught my eye and sparked my imagination. The first was on an interesting new app called Spartify that allows you, the party host,  to turn over your Spotify playlist to your guests and allow THEM to control the music-"create a music playlist on the fly". I wondered how such a concept would translate to the classroom. What if a teacher had an app like Spotify that contained all the concepts he or she wanted students to grapple with that day? What if students could control how and when those concepts came through the classroom day. What if they could spend more time on a concept for deeper understanding and fly by the ones they know? What if they wanted to listen to Lady Gaga's version of grammar rules instead of learning from the text? What if a student wanted the bootleg version of Dylan's algebra? Well, a lot of folks are interested in personalizing learning for students but I think this Spartify idea is a step beyond.The students would be in control of personalizing their learning experience. Students would not just consume, but create their learning. Learning has stretched so far past books as we know them that it's difficult, yet so much fun, to try and prognosticate what classrooms will be like even 5 years from now. Hmmm, interesting and scary all at the same time.

The second item of interest was an article on the Fayetteville Free Library in Fayetteville, New York and how the librarian, Lauren Smedley, is reimagining the public library. Smedley's concept is to create a creative space, a Fab Lab, where the public would have free access to the necessary software and hardware to create and manufacture items. This software and hardware includes items like a MakerBot which is a 3D printer that "lets you print plastic pieces of your own design" according to the wonderful article at MindShift by Audrey Watters. She plans on opening the venue to the community to create, build, collaborate on their own, or through classes. The possibilities are endless! I love Smedley's articulation about what 21st century library should be--"free access to information and to technology, and not just books or using computers, but actually building and making things."

What an incredible time we live in.

Is a Picture Worth 1,000 Words?

The National Day on Writing was inspiring--so many good reasons to write flowed in the Twitter stream and other locations that day. However much we are inspired to write,  my thoughts have turned not to the power of the pen (or keyboard or Siri) but to the way we present our words.Ideas may lose their appeal or power not because we lack elegance to articulate our ideas but because we founder in our choice of how to present our ideas. We teach our students the power of words, that they can change the world through the ideas they communicate. However, are we doing a good job teaching them how best to communicate an idea? Word processing is the "tech tool" teachers cite most often as their most frequently used technology. The 2nd most cited choice is Powerpoint. Really? So word processing and Powerpoint are the awesome tools we are giving our students to present their thoughts to the world.  From random use of clip art to poor choice of graphs, to "Death by Powerpoint", our students seem bewildered by the overwhelming amount of choice when it comes to visually representing data or ideas and I suspect they are not being guided in their choice either.


Let's first discuss image choice. How many students really know how to select or create the best image? Students often turn to the most expedient or the most frivolous image use. Whether choosing the first image that comes up on a poorly planned Google image search, or throwing in a word cloud because using Wordle is fun to use, our students are not choosing wisely. Are word clouds harmful? Do geographic visualizations serve to dumb down or distort data? Can an ill-conceived graph convey the wrong idea? Maybe. I read a great article by Jacob Harris (New York Times senior software architect) on the Nieman Journalism Lab site. Harris advocates against the use of word clouds as data visualization for stories. He argues that word clouds (as opposed to other types of data visualizations which accompany news stories) are misleading, sloppy and open to too many interpretations, "Don’t confuse signifiers with what they signify." Harris, along with  those who contributed the many comments on his story, prodded me to think about the importance of teachers being knowledgeable about the variety of images and presentation tools available to students. Think how much more powerful a student's communication would be if his or her ideas were accompanied by the right images and presentation format.

Teachers should be able to guide their students as to whether an idea is best communicated through an essay, cartoon, Prezi, Glogster, Powerpoint, Keynote, newspaper, blog, video or any combination of those tools. If we limit the choice of tools to what a teacher is comfortable with, we clip our students' wings. Would you expect a carpenter to show up with only a hammer to renovate your kitchen? Teachers need to equip their students with the knowledge of how to find or create just the right image which means they need to knowledgeable practitioners too. Is that asking too much? Probably. However, I'm betting that mechanics know every tool available to fix a car whether it's a wrench or a computer. I'm confident that a surgeon knows when to use a scalpel as opposed to an x-ray. So why would the teaching profession be any different?

While many teachers complain that they do not have the time to learn more than one tech tool, they do work hard to present their lessons to accommodate many types of learners. Therefore, it should be a no-brainer that we need to transfer that knowledge to our students and teach them that when they communicate ideas through a combination of words and images, they need to choose the right tool to ensure that they are communicating their ideas clearly, transparently, and succinctly. Just as a sitcom is not the right tool for satire, a word cloud (while fun to do) may not be the best tool to visually portray data. Many folks (especially since his passing) have pointed out how wonderful Jobs's presentations were because he understood how to marry the impact of words and pictures to communicate his ideas. If you are asking students to create presentations, how much thought do you give to which tool they use? Should teachers "talk through" the pros and cons of Prezi vs. Glogster. Vs. Powerpoint?  How much time do teachers devote to taking about the importance of choosing the right image? If you are assigning a research project, how much time do you spend on the various types of charts and graphs student scan create and embed in a report? Setting the aesthetics aside, the format by which we communicate and the  images accompanying that information are potent ways to deliver ideas and our students need to understand their impact.

Remember, "a picture is worth a 1,000 words?" What if they are the wrong words? The wrong ideas?

What do you think?

The Power of the Epic Fail

What is the single most important lesson we can teach our students? I know some would argue a "passion for learning", or "the ability to problem solve", or maybe even "to communicate concisely and elegantly an original thought". 

Perhaps. 

Another thought occurred to me though that above everything else there is one essential item we should teach our students: RESILIENCY. I've always thought it was important but as I get older and more difficult obstacles pop up in life, my resiliency is something I lean on heavily. I know that I will make mistakes but I trust in my ability to rise again. J.K. Rowling talked about the benefits of (epically) failing and resiliency at a Harvard Commencement speech:

 

"So rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

According to Resiliency.com, "Resiliency is the ability to spring back from and successfully adapt to adversity." Resiliency has been on my mind, particularly the last two weeks. Seeing the resiliency of the OWS movement is a powerful lesson. Talking my daughter through her fear of failing at a task made me realize that I don't "talk out loud" my thought process when I make mistakes and verbalize the lessons learned enough with my children.  Last week, some critics slammed Tim Cook for his less than dazzling performance at the iPhone 4S event. With hindsight, the presentation by Cook and other Apple executives was masterful. They knew that Steve Jobs, their mentor, close friend, and former boss, was dying. Tough stuff. Yet, they rose to the occasion and certainly the pre-sale iPhone 4S orders have proven that Apple is on the right track. Jobs himself demonstrated resiliency throughout his career,especially when he got fired from Apple:

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. 

Students are so focused on the right answer. They fear failure. Standardized tests that emphasize only one right answer don't help to encourage our students of the worthiness of failure. This generation of "helicopter" parents  (I'm one of them), are famous for practically scooping up their child mid-fall so the child doesn't scrape his knee. We are missing the chance to encourage our children to succeed by not letting them fail. Make a mistake. What's the worse that can happen? Richard Branson is one of the richest men in the world and is known as much for his successes as his failures. "Being unafraid of failure is, I believe, one the most important qualities of a champion."

 There are dozens of examples we can hold up to our students of the importance of failure and resiliency.

However, I believe that students sometimes block out these examples. So perhaps it is up to us to model failure and resiliency. As difficult as it is to take a risk with our students, it is imperative that they see us talk through our failures so that they can better understand the value of resiliency. Without resiliency, failure can never be success.

 

"I have failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed."

So fail. Even epically. Just remember to get up and dust yourself off.

 “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”-Sir Ken Robinson

Think Different-Steve Jobs & Learning

 Even though I had never met Steve Jobs, I felt devastated when I heard the news of his passing.  Much more so than than the death of JFK Jr., Princess Diana, or Michael Jackson, or any other icon I can think of, Steve Jobs's death seems to strike right at my heart. All night and this morning I've been pondering why this is so. I believe that like many teachers, Jobs inspired us in profound ways that we will not even realize for another generation. From memories of my first Mac, which seemed like pure magic to me, to my current Apple laden life (iPhone, iPad, iPod and my precious MacBook Pro) Steve Jobs has been a strong presence on and off for most of my adult life. He seemed to anticipate what I wanted before I even knew. My first computer lab was cluttered with his Think Different posters. Students would always ask, what's with the Think Different? I would always reply that the posters should be inspiration for you to think differently than you ever have, be uncomfortable, go down another path, think differently. While his influence on design will be felt for some time, more importantly his influence on how we think will be the real game-changer.

These are the top ten lessons that Steve Jobs taught me:

1. PERSEVERE
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."

2. KEEP IT SIMPLE
"That's been one of my mantras-focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."

3. DON'T SETTLE-FIND WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO
"If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on"

4. COLLABORATE AND STAY FOCUSED
"My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts."


5. KNOW YOUR COMPETITION
"We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade."
-- Jobs' answer to Kara Swisher asking about the "greatest misunderstanding" in Jobs' relationship with Bill Gates. (May 2007)

6. BE A NOTICER
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”

7. LISTEN TO YOUR GUT
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."


8. KEEP YOUR HEART OPEN & BE CREATIVE
"Picasso had a saying: 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas...I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world."


9. DON'T BE COMPLACENT

"Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

10. THINK DIFFERENTLY

Thank you Steve Jobs. May you rest in peace.