Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Technology Applications in Educational Leadership

This evening I will be speaking in Dr. Ron Musoleno's graduate classroom at Penn State Great Valley on the topic of technology applications in educational leadership. As my research was on the topic of principal leadership for technology integration, I believe this course is essential to all potential incoming administrators so I feel very fortunate to be able to share some of what I have discovered, discuss and seek to continually practice to these potential administrators.

In Dr. Ron's words, "[the] premise [of the class] is to introduce students who are in the principal certification program to some of the many technological applications available to them as administrators. It is also designed to acquaint them with instructional tools (such as the CPS) that they may encounter when they observe a class."

We will be reviewing classroom performance systems such as eInstruction, Turning Point and Senteo. We will also look at podcasting and some other Web 2.0 tools. To begin, we will explore two TeacherTube videos to set the stage and get these students in the mindset of a digital native. I will also introduce them to the conversations about School 2.0 (School 2.0 wiki) and Students 2.0 that were recently discussed at Educon 2.0, we need to get more educators, at all levels of the system (and especially at the administrative level) to get involved in these conversations!

to reiterate...revisit the title of my blog and my first post...changing the discussion! : )

Friday, January 25, 2008

Technology-ish

I think that 21st Century education is a constant balancing act between defining our learning goals and finding/acquiring/using the tools we need to meet those goals. Vicki Davis had a great blog post about Webkinz and education this week.

I also attended Peter Reynold's webinar on Tuesday and he reminded us to always try to promote creativity and innovation in our students. He had us draw teacups, so at my technology team meeting I had the staff draw monkeys. Most, including mine, were "monkey-ish." If you didn't hear the webinar, the "ish" might not make sense for you but basically what Peter was saying is that "ish" is a way of encouraging students. To that end he has created a product to easily allow students to animate drawn objects.

This product will do well to help us target ISTE's technology standard of creativity and innovation. Some of the first graders in one of my elementary schools got to demo this tool and created some Animation-ish movies today to illustrate dancing. I hope you enjoy them and all remember to dance to your own music! (hmmm...video upload errors...for now will publish without the videos...sorry!).

Many of us strive to be on the cutting edge every day. In balancing life, I have to say I think sometimes it's ok NOT to be and sometimes it's ok if you are just "technology-ish."

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Entering the Wiki World...

I created my wiki space today. I called it web20fored and the first space is about Why Wiki's. I welcome any input on the topic.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Happy New Year!

In the past few days I have heard and read about how New Year's Resolutions are "planned to fail" because they are too broad or too comprehensive. Having started a new job, at times I am overwhelmed by all that I want to introduce to my teachers. Sometimes it leaves me puzzled and almost paralyzed as to where to begin. So, this year I have decided to take some smaller steps and set small goals. Introduce one thing at a time instead of showing them 5 Web 2.0 tools at once without knowing our goals and vision of technology integration as a district.

This week I (finally) found time to read the report Maximizing the Impact - The Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System. I thought it was well written. One of the key points that struck me was the following quote,

"We have different missions. We serve different constituencies, but we speak with one voice on this issue: We must synchronize our efforts to leverage technology to achieve results for every student and, ultimately, for the nation, states and communities as well."

This is the key point I will start with as I bring my technology team and my technology lead teachers together this week to discuss this report. I have asked them to bring one question and one idea that we should discuss further. I can't wait to see what they come up with!!

You can download the full report here.