I never thought that I would have the opportunity to really look at what we are doing in our school regarding technology leadership. Through this course, I have had the opportunity to work closely with the Director of Technology at the school (who is also my course mentor!) and to really visit with our existing policy documents and look to the future beyond our current Technology Vision and Strategic Plan.
This course has reached out to me on both a personal and professional level. On a professional level, it has taught me that change management, in any context (but perhaps most especially concerning technology, education and teachers!) is a difficult system to navigate. Any school is a complex system - there are many moving parts and stakeholders to consider in this process and often there is a history that needs to be reconciled for change to be effective. Whether it be dealing with those teachers who are settlers (or even saboteurs!) to those that are willing to risk-take and trail blaze the new technologies and understand the role of technology in their subject and in wider educational teaching and learning - these are acumen that are invaluable to the teacher considering an administrative or teacher leadership role in the near future. The part that, for me in my current school, is more difficult to navigate is getting hands on experience of application of the theory learned. In the same way in which we teach our students in the four walls of the classroom about the theories - it is always best when that theory becomes reality and the student experiences what they learned. Leadership is carefully guarded in my current setting and I am not given any kind of role to be able to experience much of what I have learned in my day-to-day setting. Fortunately, I am a volunteer for the International Baccalaureate Educator Network (IBEN) and I have been afforded many opportunities to forge excellent teacher leadership experience through developing and leading workshops for IB teachers across the United States in a wide diversity of contexts. Instructional Technology has become a key component to teaching and learning in this organization and I am feeling very professionally valued in this work. I recently used the techniques in this class to complete a project with Marietta City Schools that involved filming a short documentary about the IB Programme in the school district. This documentary has gone to worldwide distribution for IB Programme promotion. This has prompted deep reflection on a personal level and serious consideration as to my future role in my current school.
I signed up to several technology sites on my RSS feed - and used one that talked about MineCraft from ThinkGeek during a recent mapping project with my 6th Grade. While some of the maps worked out very well (and, ironically, there are a lot of geographical references in this game for students pertaining to their next topic - Earth Structure), my reflection was that while fun, they missed out on some valuable classical geographical learning. I know that much of the learning that I am gleaning in class is going into my classroom - and that, for the moment will help fuel the vision that the school will hopefully embrace in the future. However, difficult conversations await for next year. But I'm excited - for my new set of skills and the continued opportunity to really affect some great new technologies into my work with IBEN and coach teachers beyond my daily four walls.
Click here to see the final presentation for The Technology Planning Project for this course.
This course has reached out to me on both a personal and professional level. On a professional level, it has taught me that change management, in any context (but perhaps most especially concerning technology, education and teachers!) is a difficult system to navigate. Any school is a complex system - there are many moving parts and stakeholders to consider in this process and often there is a history that needs to be reconciled for change to be effective. Whether it be dealing with those teachers who are settlers (or even saboteurs!) to those that are willing to risk-take and trail blaze the new technologies and understand the role of technology in their subject and in wider educational teaching and learning - these are acumen that are invaluable to the teacher considering an administrative or teacher leadership role in the near future. The part that, for me in my current school, is more difficult to navigate is getting hands on experience of application of the theory learned. In the same way in which we teach our students in the four walls of the classroom about the theories - it is always best when that theory becomes reality and the student experiences what they learned. Leadership is carefully guarded in my current setting and I am not given any kind of role to be able to experience much of what I have learned in my day-to-day setting. Fortunately, I am a volunteer for the International Baccalaureate Educator Network (IBEN) and I have been afforded many opportunities to forge excellent teacher leadership experience through developing and leading workshops for IB teachers across the United States in a wide diversity of contexts. Instructional Technology has become a key component to teaching and learning in this organization and I am feeling very professionally valued in this work. I recently used the techniques in this class to complete a project with Marietta City Schools that involved filming a short documentary about the IB Programme in the school district. This documentary has gone to worldwide distribution for IB Programme promotion. This has prompted deep reflection on a personal level and serious consideration as to my future role in my current school.
I signed up to several technology sites on my RSS feed - and used one that talked about MineCraft from ThinkGeek during a recent mapping project with my 6th Grade. While some of the maps worked out very well (and, ironically, there are a lot of geographical references in this game for students pertaining to their next topic - Earth Structure), my reflection was that while fun, they missed out on some valuable classical geographical learning. I know that much of the learning that I am gleaning in class is going into my classroom - and that, for the moment will help fuel the vision that the school will hopefully embrace in the future. However, difficult conversations await for next year. But I'm excited - for my new set of skills and the continued opportunity to really affect some great new technologies into my work with IBEN and coach teachers beyond my daily four walls.
Click here to see the final presentation for The Technology Planning Project for this course.