Sunday, August 28, 2005

Technology and Leadership

I finished reading Bob Johnstone’s Never Mind the Laptops. It was interesting to see the common thread in all of the success stories on 1:1 computing. Leaders at the top in districts and schools, and sometimes even states, saw the potential of technology as a force for school change. They were willing to look beyond the obvious. They also had a clear idea of what they wanted to see in the classroom. I fear that many of our leaders today, all across the country, are too bogged down in the minutia of state and federal mandates that they lose sight of why we are doing this and how, in what ways, we can ultimately support student achievment.

In a recent post, Will Richardson outlines a few reasons why he thinks a shift in our school is taking such a long time:

  1. over 50% of high school teachers are planning to retire in the next 5 years (this plays into the attitude of why should I change now?)
  2. few upper level administrators understand the power and role of technology in school change (“...very few upper level administrators have the technology experience necessary to see the potential or the vision necessary to see how it all works together. And the transparency of the tools scares them, frankly. Much of this relates to issue #1…I’m sure the expected retirements among administrators is even higher. If the paltry number of principals and superintendents who are communicating with these new technologies is any indication, there’s neither much understanding nor support for bringing these technologies mainstream.)
  3. it’s a daunting process for classroom teachers to apply these tools in their context (time, habit and comfort level all play in to this.)

He goes on to say something that I found pretty profound, very true, yet often one of those ‘unspeakables’ in the realms of public education:

“And there is more. Lack of access for students and teachers. A lack of real intellectual curiosity among many educators. The pressure of high student test scores… Frankly, schools in general these days are not very creative, risk-taking, forward thinking places, and that may be the biggest reason of all.”

While we have significant amounts of technology in our schools, you cannot see its real impact when there is one computer in a classroom or students have a few hours a week access to the technology. This is why we need to seriously address one-to-one computing. But this won’t happen until our leaders get more creative about their vision - extending it beyond reactionary behavior into something more proactive and truly visionary. Many teachers also don’t feel like modeling life long learning. There is little interest in getting beyond the routine of the day...or of the last 30 years.

As the technology advocates, how can we best address these issues - lack of vision, lack of access, lack of leadership, lack of intellectual curiosity?

Posted by Randy on 08/28 at 10:13 AM
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