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Leadership Day – Summary

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[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]


On June 28, I invited

bloggers and readers to participate in Leadership Day

on July 4.

Specifically, I asked participants of the blogosphere to write about effective

school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs, etc. A

variety of folks participated in the conversation:

  • Jeanette
  • Johnson

    listed her Top Ten (Not So Good) Reasons Why Educational Leaders

    Don’t Embrace Digital Technologies

    .

  • Sylvia
  • Martinez

    affirmed the importance of student leaders, saying that while we

    wonder where the future technology leaders ‘will come from, there they sit

    in front of us everyday, being ignored.

  • Chris Eldred has never
  • worked under an administrator that made technology a priority of any kind. In

    fact, his current principal admits that e-mail isn’t a priority so no one

    e-mails her.

  • Along the same lines, Max
  • at backbythebell

    wondered what it will take before administrators

    see enough benefit in IT tools to actually promote their usage in schools.

  • At Books
  • and Bytes

    , RSS was identified as a perfect tool for job-embeddded training

    for administrators. An attempt also was made to aggregate

    all of the posts

    with the schooltechleadership

    tag

    .

  • Susan
  • Brooks-Young

    listed some technology tools that she regularly recommends to

    principals.

  • Jennifer
  • Lubke

    thinks that principals should let teachers count online participation

    in academic learning networks as required inservice hours.

  • Gerald
  • Ardito

    affirmed the importance of leadership when

    it comes to technology and was appreciative

    of being in an encouraging and supportive environment

    .

  • Christopher
  • Shively

    sadly noted that his university’s school administator certification

    program has had very little coverage of technology issues.

  • Tracy
  • Rosen

    recognized that she ‘can not expect the teachers … to try something

    new if [she is] not willing to learn as well.

  • Steve
  • Poling

    thinks administrators should be actively reading blogs by other

    administrators, teachers, and even students.

  • Similarly, VWB
  • at A Library By Any Other Name

    highlighted a few blog posts that

    every administrator should read.

  • Jason
  • Bednar

    believes that there is a lot of power in using wikis.

  • Carolyn
  • Foote

    listed a number of different activities that can be used to facilitate

    technology conversations with administrators.

  • Kyle
  • Brumbaugh

    noted that he wants to be a leader that works to five education

    independence from the industrial age.

  • The
  • Coordinator’s Office

    described a successful technology training

    initiative that included administrators.

  • Glenn Moses said that
  • independence and school leadership ‘don’t seem to hang out too

    much.

  • Brandon
  • Waggoner

    does not believe that administrators need to be tech-savvy

    themselves to be effective technology leaders.

  • Doug
  • Johnson

    helpfully listed some past articles and other resources on K-12

    technology leadership.

  • Dana Huff said that
  • many administrators don’t see the need for certain uses of technoogy …

    because they felt they got on all right, thank you very much, without them, so

    why should others need them?

  • Ruth Okoye said
  • that principals who are falling behind in technology should staff to their

    weakness and lead by example. She also listed some helpful things that even

    non-tech-savvy principals can do.

  • Finally, my
  • own post at the TechLearning blog

    emphasized the importance of appropriately

    designing professional development for administrators. (see also Patrick

    Higgins’ take on my list

    )

    Thanks to everyone who contributed to Leadership

    Day

    , including the numerous people who commented on the

    invitation post

    , the TechLearning

    blog

    , or Dangerously

    Irrelevant

    . Maybe we’ll do it again next year!

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