CHRIS
TOY
Diary #21
Thinking
about
Technology and Leadership
This week I participated in a great professional development opportunity sponsored by the Gates Foundation. It's a good example of a partnership between public education and the private sector.
The Gates Foundation has given Maine one million dollars for training school administrators in educational technology. Aside from the chance to take a whole day to explore and discuss online resources there's an innovative twist to the grant program. Each administrator that goes through 18 hours of technology training receives a $600 credit for the purchase of hardware of their choice.
The training is tailored to the interests of the administrators, allowing us to choose among a handful of options including Palm Pilot training, using technology to develop and enhance professional development plans for staff, teaching in a technology-enriched environment, choosing among various technology tools, and making strategic decisions around technology.
I chose a day-long session combining online resources and choosing among various technology tools. Our facilitator, Jim Moulton, was excellent. He provided us with a page crammed with sites, all in 9 point font. Every site had engaging useful information. What was best however, was the opportunity to visit and "play" at some of the websites.
Jim also took some time to demonstrate some hardware for us. Using a digital mp3 recorder, a video camera, and an Apple laptop computer he created a movie using Apple's iMovie program. One at a time he asked the 8 of us to tell him what we learned at the workshop while he filmed us. He then walked us through creating film clips, editing, splicing, creating titles, and making a soundtrack. The process took about 15 minutes and the results were amazing. I can just see kids and teachers creating and producing high quality educational presentations for themselves and their peers with this stuff. Knowing that we all learn best by preparing to teach to others is the point of all the gizmos.
Unfortunately I had to leave the class early to make it back to school for a team leaders meeting. But even so, it was a day well spent and I left with some more specific information that helps me to fill in the overall vision of how I can help our school meet the needs of our students.
Technology training for principals
It seems this past week had me thinking a lot about technology and leadership. The next day I met with Terry DePres, who is heading up the Gates Foundation work in Maine. We met to talk about the possibility of the Gates Foundation supporting the work of the Maine Principals Academy.
I happen to be on the board of directors for the Academy and I had met Terry a couple years ago while he was a superintendent. The Principals Academy provides professional development for practicing school principals throughout Maine. I think it may be the longest running program of its type in the country, running for over 20 years. Anyway, the Gates people are interested in creating a technology strand as part of the Academy's program.
As we talked it became clear to me that this would be a great opportunity to create a model of staff development that reflected what we know about implementing change. We talked about the need to make sure the Academy board understood how using technology could enhance our ability to provide school administrators with the vision and tools for improving their schools. If the board could understand the vision, then we had to use our policy making function to obtain training for the staff of the Academy. By having a shared understanding of how technology could be used to meet our mission, the Academy board, its staff, and the participants would have the best chance of successfully using the resources offered by the Gates foundation.
So, at our next board meeting (today!) I'll bring this up. Terry will be there to answer specific questions. It's a great opportunity. I hope I can explain it to the other board members.
