Reflection #2 - Why Social Media Matters

The book, Why social media matters: School communication in the digital age, has a continuous theme of how social media has changed the way we work, connect with each other and pretty much any other aspect of our lives. “Despite this change in how we live and do business, school leaders are reluctant to embrace social media” (Porterfield & Carnes p. 6, 2012). School leaders are scared because social media is faster and reaches farther than we are used to. There are great ways to connect with stakeholders through social media, but the potential for negative consequences is always lurking right around the corner. In chapter 8, Porterfield and Carnes discuss how to craft social media guidelines and find example policies. Just like anything with leadership, if you want to start something, you need clear expectations and procedures. By creating a social media policy and providing professional development around it for either your district or school, you are making it possible for your staff to explore social media within the realm of work. Good leaders model and empower their workforce and the use of social media is no exception to this rule.

In chapter 3, the authors make a case for using social media to connect with stakeholders. Stating, “Communication through social media tools gives stakeholders reasons to feel emotionally connected to the mission of the school or district” (Porterfield & Carnes p. 32, 2012). Social media is an extremely positive tool that allows educators to control their own narratives. In today’s climate especially, it is important that stakeholders feel that they can genuinely trust their school and district. Trust can be developed through creating an open and honest dialogue and social media is a platform that allows dialogue to occur. Instead of being fearful of the interconnectedness that social media creates, we should embrace it as a way to tell our own stories and narratives. Chapter 11 also outlines the importance of embracing interconnectedness in a time of crisis. Parents and other stakeholders will feel more comfortable and trust you more if you are timely and honest with the updates you provide about a situation.

What I really took from the book is that your approach as a leader to both technology and social media is an attitude more than anything (Porterfield & Carnes p. 123, 2012). The book explicitly states this and I agree fully. Change is the only thing that is constant and, although, social media has provided us a lot of change in a short period of time, we need to be prepared for what could come next. Technology is growing at an exponential rate and with that comes new and different ways to connect with people. As educators, we can either jump on or get left behind. For me, as a leader, my most important value is the ability to be transparent and communicate clearly. Social media and technology allow me to do this in real time and in an authentic way; which is invaluable.

Porterfield, M. & Carnes, M. (2012). Why social media matters: School communication in the digital age. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press

Reflection #1 - Digital Leadership

Eric Sheninger very completely discusses the need for teachers and leaders to grow with the technology that is changing our world. Over the course of his book, he outlines how he sees the next generation of digital leaders interacting with technology. He focuses on being very clear that there is no room for excuses about not wanting to get involved with technology; the time is now.

A lot of the ideals of leadership that he discussed aligned with what I have learned over the course of my program. Digital leaders need to be transparent, build relationships, communicate clearly, and lead with vision. All of these themes connect to strong leaders and are echoed in Sheninger’s writing. I believe there is a lot of fear associated with technology because every person has had a negative experience with technology either personally or professionally. To overcome those fears, teachers need a strong leader who is passionate about technology within a school. Through the use of the seven pillars outlined in Digital Leadership, Sheninger outlines a step by step process for leaders to attack change head on within their buildings.

Sheninger outlines teacher responsibilities as digital leaders and principal responsibilities. For teacher responsibilities, the biggest take away for me is about the idea of digital citizenship. Students have access to so much technology today and they are constantly exploring the next ‘new thing’ without a lot of thought for potential consequences. Schools are slowly catching up to what students are doing and disciplining them when appropriate, but we are not teaching students what it means to be digital citizens. The future of this world is in technology and if we are not teaching our students to take care of it, then we are not preparing them to be citizens of the world. If we do not grow and include digital citizenship as a pillar of conversation within our classes, then we are doing our students a huge disservice. To create authentic student engagement with technology, we must teach them that their digital footprint will not go away. They need to be asked what type of digital footprint do they really want to leave on the world? As educators at all levels, we need to then provide them an opportunity to leave a positive digital footprint.

As a building leader, the most important part of digital leadership is creating meaningful teacher professional development and building PLN’s around this work. As Sheninger states in chapter 8, it is vital that leaders also have their own PLN with other leaders. “It is the consistent give and take at the individual level that makes a collective PLN exponentially stronger, more knowledgeable, and wiser. Why would any leader refuse th[is] opportunity?” (Sheninger p.119, 2014). As leaders work to grow their own capacity around technology, they are becoming digital leaders for their staff. Through interactions with their own peers, leaders are more encouraged to take risks and lead their staff into a digital change.

Sheninger, E. (2014). Digital leadership: Changing paradigms for changing times. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Affirmative Action Infographic

Title IX Infographic

PLN's and Next Steps - Assignment #5

The main points that I took away from the three readings are the same points I have taken away from this class. The 7 habits article focused on providing opportunities for collaboration amongst your staff as well as collaborating and learning about things in your own capacity. In the 21^st century principals article, it was discussed that a huge downfall of leaders is not using and learning the technology themselves. If you are rolling out new technology to the staff, you need to be an expert on it and you need to be at the trainings with your staff, showing them that you truly believe this is what the school needs. Leadership through modeling is vital to the success of technology in a school. The article also discusses making decisions about what types of technology to purchase without consulting the staff. Just like in any decision making process within your school, you need to consult the stakeholders who will be effected by this decision; and, in the case of technology, your staff is hugely impacted.

As a building leader, I would really like to form some type of group of teachers who take new technology and new apps into their classrooms then share out with a small group what worked and what didn’t and what they would change. This PLN could serve as an advisory board for the school as far as what technology they are finding is useful, etc. Creating and maintaining a connected and successful PLN both for myself and for my staff is imperative to the success of my school. Teachers need time to collaborate and they need that time built into their day for them. Teachers time is precious and, as a leader, you need to be conscious of this and make sure that their time is used fully. As for principals, time is always an issue but it is important to prioritize taking some time for yourself throughout the day. Currently, I devote 10 minutes of my morning to read the news, check on blogs, and just feel connected to today's issues. This is a practice that I hope to continue to complete as I grow in my career.

I have set goals for myself to use three new things in my classroom this year. These are also my first steps as a teacher to connecting with more technology. As a leader, I think that these steps also set me on the path to modeling that I am comfortable and interested in the use of technology in a school.

1. Blogger: I am planning to start a classroom blog where I can update assignments, notes, worksheets and reminders for the week. I will update this blog once a week, on Wednesday or Thursday. If I find that I like this and it is easy, I will integrate this tool into my leadership activities when possible.
2. Twitter: Through the article from Learning First Alliance, I can see how useful twitter can be to connect with students. I know that through my internship, I will be gone a lot and I think if I encouraged students to tweet out questions on days that I am gone I will be more connected with my students. I will create a twitter specifically for my work as a teacher and encourage students to follow the account and tweet using a specific hashtag that I will connect to the blog. I really do trust my students to be appropriate but I will definitely have to develop classroom procedures for twitter and blog use.
3. Padlet.com: Padlet is an amazing tool in my opinion. I really think that this could be used in class and as an administrator. I would love to see this used during presentations as a way to collect questions, aha moments and other comments during meetings or whole staff presentations. Especially during all staff meetings, a lot of questions can hold up the presentation and make it feel choppy. However, having people wait until the end can cause them to forget or not want to ask any their question any more to save time. Padlet allows people to ask the questions and the presenter can choose when to interact with the questions.

Teachers are naturally curious and have a deep love of learning. The trick, as an administrator is firing up this curiosity and connecting it to technology. I truly believe that if you give teachers a chance to choose what technology tools they want to use and time to learn them you will create buy in and excitement about technology. Part b of standard 3 talks about not just facilitating but participating in PLN’s that connect both you and your staff to new technology. If I was a new leader in a building and people expressed an interest in technology, the most important thing you can do is support those people and let them bring the staff up to their level. Excitement for new technology is key, but making sure that teachers feel supported and feel like they have time to truly learn the technology is just as important.

Overall, through distributed leadership, modeling best practices and working with your staff instead of above your staff you can create an environment within your building that approaches technology positively. In my current role, there are things that I want to take on as a classroom teacher and there are ideas that I want to save for when I am a building principal. There are some ideas that I can start to use through my internship as well, but I truly feel that to grow my capacity to be a digital leader, I need to grow my own technological abilities within my classroom first.

Connectedness - Assignment #4

“The more important questions revolve around the design of the culture of teaching and learning.” Alan November

As echoed in the article written by Alan November titled Why Schools Must Move Beyond One to One Computing, I see the biggest issue with one to one devices is that we see the device as the driving force and not a tool to enhance teaching. Technology is a tool, it is meant to supplement not supplant teachers and education. The Recent Research Brief clearly states that students can and are benefitting from the use of one to one devices. So where is the disconnect? In my opinion, the disconnect lies in the teacher training and the implementation of the devices. We can learn from schools that have struggled in the past by clearly framing the use and expectations of one to one device usage.  

When considering implementing one to one programs in schools, leadership training is a vital and often overlooked part of this process. We focus on the teacher training, but truly, the training needs to start at the leadership level. Creating cohorts and small learning groups of teachers to collaborate is up to the leadership team. Those small groups are invaluable to teacher learning and student success, IF they are created and ran in an appropriate way.

I struggle with the idea of the BYOD programs because I think that with students on different types of devices and running different platforms, you are going to spend a lot of time troubleshooting as opposed to working. There is a big difference between a mac laptop and a windows tablet. If you are going to do a one to one initiative in your school, it is vital that you provide the students with equal access to the same devices. I believe that a BYOD program in a school does not meet with Standard 1, because it does not create a shared vision among all stakeholders since all are not on an equitable level for access to devices. The rest of Standard 1 really speaks to how successful a one to one program can be IF the vision is clear and creates purposeful change with set goals and expectations. All of the articles discussed a common theme between unsuccessful one to one programs were due to an overall lack of vision. They were using the technology itself to drive the vision as opposed to driving the vision through leadership and a strong set of expectations. To find success as a digital leader, I think a strong vision for the focus and purpose of technology in your building is key. Moving a staff forward into new technology or a one to one initiative requires a shared vision amongst all stakeholder including the staff and the community as well. To truly create digital change, just as with any change within a building, it must start with a shared and united vision that is clearly communicated to all involved. 

Culture - Assignment #3

Creating a brand for yourself is what you do the moment you walk in the doors of your place of work. The work that you accomplish, the friends you make, how you treat students and how you treat peers all contribute to the brand of 'you'. Are you on time to meetings? Are you willing to speak up? Do you take other’s opinions into account? Are you reliable? The list goes on and on. Branding yourself takes time and it takes a certain amount of comfort in your own abilities and skills. The quote above from our book is very accurate. You need to be the owner of your story and how you are presented to the people around you. Social media has helped this issue be brought to the forefront because everything that you post to social media contributes to your brand, in my opinion. Social media allows you to post your best face to the world but it also has it’s pitfalls as people are very quick to judge based on what they see you post online. All of these pieces contribute to your own personal brand.

In some cases, your personal brand can be different than your professional brand. However, as educators, I feel that our personal brands really need to align with our professional brands almost more so than in other professions because so often the work follows us home in some way, shape or form. Professionally, the brand you are building is really based on your evaluations, relationships with colleagues and a lot of the things that have already been discussed in the paragraph above. As you are looking for jobs, I think that it is very important that you are checking that your professional brand is in alignment with the school’s or district’s brand as well.

When creating a school brand, there are more factors that come into play. A major factor is what was the school brand like before you came? Is this the same brand that you want to continue to perpetuate? If not, then what needs to change? A good place to start when re-vamping a school brand is with the surrounding community. Something as simple as power washing the outside of the school or giving the entry way a fresh coat of paint can start to increase the brand of the school in the eyes of the community. Coming from my personal experience, the remodel for Rogers High School did amazing things for the school and the community around the school. Rogers has always enjoyed a very supportive and committed community, but when the school was remodeled the ‘stock’ of the school and therefore the community really rose in the opinion of the public. This helped both students, community and staff have more pride and ownership in the school. Students, community members and staff are proud of Rogers and especially proud of the hard work Rogers has done to increase student achievement. This work was beginning to take shape before the remodel, but the remodel really helped to cement the fact that Rogers was on its way up in the eyes of everyone involved. I have seen the change in the ‘brand’ of Rogers over the last ten years, as the granddaughter of a Rogers teacher, daughter of a Rogers teacher and a current Rogers teacher.

Branding is invaluable for a school that is trying to create lasting change for its students and the surrounding community. In relation to standard 2, a brand of a school on the rise must include a commitment to providing it’s students’ with up to date technology. Along with this comes a commitment to giving the staff a strong sense of ownership in the new brand and technology when applicable. Recently, all the math classrooms in our district received SmartBoards as well as a training to go along with them. This act has a direct connection to standard 2, part C, because the district provided equitable learner centered environments and equipped them with technology for ALL the math students across the district. To again visit the case of Rogers, once the building was remodeled, the school received a grant and spent part of that grant on iPads and iPad training for the staff. This device and the training have had a long lasting effect on the staff and have continued to be a useful tool to promote student learning and staff buy in for technology. Up to date technology has a large effect on how a school is perceived by the public which is the definition of a brand. By staying up to date on new technology and embracing innovative teaching and technology that enhances student learning, schools can create a brand that is viable and sustainable for the future.