Shift to the Future

Does anyone else in a formal leadership position feel a little overwhelmed these days by the torrents of communication / information, time wasting meetings, and increased uncertainty for decision making?  I certainly do.  It can be paralyzing if you don’t rise above it.  Technology was supposed to make life easier, wasn’t it?  Unfortunately, our tools which are designed to improve our work flow often have the opposite effect.  Take email for instance, it can replace a lot of paper-based writing like memos, reports, and letters, and help with giving direction, sharing information, etc.  But, so many people misuse or overuse it.  You have probably crafted elegant emails with say three or four questions and then find that people respond to only one or two, or worse none or completely different questions.  This probably happened (I can’t remember) in the old days of paper memos but the speed of communication then was in days or weeks, not seconds....

I just finished up an amazing week of learning.  I find that having a mindset of a learner helps turn difficult situations into teachable moments.  I was meeting with a Principal a few weeks ago and she was sharing how her staff and herself were feeling inadequate.  They’re all embracing some new models of learning and haven’t had much time for training or to figure out good practices.  She relayed that it’s causing stress.  After listening to her story, I suggested that they consider changing the word “inadequate” to “learner”.  She paused for a moment and allowed that small change to resonate.  If each one of us is honest with ourselves, we would admit we all feel inadequate at times.  I’ve read often how leaders especially feel increasingly alone and inadequate and worry about being “found out”.  I know I feel that way often – this might surprise those that know me but it’s true.  I think we unfortunately spend too much time worry abo...

It’s interesting, actually encouraging, that with all the modern ways we have available to us to connect with each other, we still like to meet together face to face .  There’s just something inherently human and fulfilling about being together in the same physical space, shaking hands, looking each other in the eye, seeing facial expressions, and hearing the other person’s voice, live.  We travel all around the world to see amazing places and things, face to face .  I wonder though how things may get blurry with future, yet to be invented, digital devices? Last Tuesday a colleague and I received 10 principals from Denmark who were interested in our system of schooling and examples of educational technology.  We toured three schools visiting five classrooms.  They were able to have a great experience talking to teachers and students about their use of iPads to transform learning, various immersive uses of technology, technology used to support English as a sub...

There is a lot being written about what learning needs to become and how to inform learners, and those that have an interest in their learning, of their progress.  We all need to be effective learners: students in school, adults living life, and employees.  Will Richardson in his book Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere says “The World has changed – and continues changing – rapidly and radically when it comes to the ways in which we can learn, and what knowledge, skills, dispositions, and forms of literacy our children will need to flourish in their futures.” (Kindle 65) and “what happens inside of schools is going to change, now that the Web connects us the way it does.  It has to.” (Kindle 75). I wouldn’t limit this view to schools, this applies to all of us regardless of what we do in life or to earn our living.  There is a relentless march of change driven and accelerated by technological progress and inven...

I’ve made a concerted effort this past year to use Facebook more often.  I know, that sounds a bit odd when we hear and read a lot about how much time people waste using social media tools like Facebook.  For me, Facebook has become the best and main way to stay in touch with many of my remote family members and to interact with “real” friends.  It feels good to get “likes” and comments on what I post.  I like to share photos from trips, biking, hiking, kayaking, walks, etc.  I also really enjoy seeing, liking, and commenting on friends and family’s photos, videos, and posts.  It’s fun to engage this way.  Facebook doesn’t consume an excessive amount of my time, perhaps 15 minutes a day.  For me, I can efficiently share a little bit of what’s going on in my life while learning about and staying in touch with the people I care about and know in the real world.  How do you use Facebook? Twitter is a tool I use almost exclusively for professio...

A few years ago I led a learning team with seven K-5 teachers who came together to do some action research around the use of SMART boards in their classrooms.  Through that year I learned a lot about what’s possible and how challenging it is to effectively incorporate a foreign technology into pedagogy.  Often making technology choices requires a good compass to show them the way.  Learning teams have been a successful structure for our teachers in doing this.  Being a firm believer there’s always more to learn, I decided to participate in a workshop last week with about 20 teachers learning about SMART boards and in particular the Notebook software.  The workshop facilitator, Sasha Zekulin , was brilliant.  She really brought to life the capabilities and possibilities, light-bulbs were going off for many of the teachers. We live in exciting times don’t we.  Every week there seems to be some new technology invented and put on the market.  Educa...

I attended #edcampisabc yesterday morning and was fortunate enough to participate in two excellent sessions.  One was to talk about whether technology was essential for education and the other about educating students for an unknown future.  When talking about technology being essential the conversation quickly branched out to discussions of assessment, pedagogy, parent expectations, and qualifying for university.  To effectively use technology with K12 students, all four must change.  If the expectation is to get better or the best marks, then learning will be designed to accomplish that and assessment will report it.  If the way learning and teaching occurs is not redesigned, technology will never be able to effectively transform education to meet the needs of the future. One Kindergarten teacher in an independent school shared a story of a meeting with the parents of a four year old student who received a “meeting expectations” on her “report card” – the p...