7.1 Discussion: Tech Leadership - Taking Action Part II

1.      Educate, educate, and educate yourself and your constituents.

2.      Find a balance between people's skills and the challenges associated with their work.

The first action I can implement in my daily routine at work is:  educate, educate, and educate yourself and your constituents.  I truly believe this action works for peers and students alike. In order to better myself in my role, it is important that I contribute to seek out new knowledge and new methods to share and implement technology. This is definitely a role in which one cannot become comfortable and relaxed, by doing, you begin to fall behind in all the latest information, techniques and methods. In regards to helping students, teachers and other staff must make it a priority to continue to push them and encourage the learning process.  As mentioned in our text by Kouzes & Posner, "People can't do what they don't know how to do."  In other words, people don't know what they do not know.  One of my previous managers used to tell me that all the time and made perfect sense then and continues to. Our staff and students do not know what they are missing out on if we do not present them with new ideas or activities in which they can push their own abilities.

This leads me to the second action that I can implement at my work site:  Find a balance between people's skills and the challenges associated with their work.  This one made an impact on me while reading because t is something we are already implementing.  For the month of March, our school decided to step away from the 3 or 4 weekly meetings for all staff and decided to used each of the 5 weeks to help individual grade levels. The meetings will take place in the following groups: K & 1st, 2nd & 3rd, 4th & 5th, 6th and finally 7th & 8th.  We feel that this will have more of an impact on the teachers on multiple levels. One level will focus on what they already know and how to continue that positive technology related behaviors.  Many of the teachers already know different skill and we did not want to put the advanced teachers through and entry level Google Classroom Training.  The second level will impact what they would like to know or what they would like to incorporate into their classroom/lesson plan.  By taking this approach, it allows the teachers to perform their own brainstorming and prevents the technology team from giving them a ready-made assignment.

6.1 Discussion: Prof. Dev't at your School

Professional development at my school currently consists of bi-weekly meetings in which teachers share with their peers items that they bring up during the meeting.  The other topics discussed are geared towards issues/concerns that I see and hear on a daily basis.  For some of the lower grades it involves use of Google Classroom, while in upper grade it may involve the use of certain templates and importing them into various programs.

One change we will be trying in March is every week our tech. team will meet with 1 or 2 grade levels and review their lesson plans.  Having them send them to us prior to the meeting will allow us to help build a "tech" oriented activity for them to incorporate into their classroom.  The goal is to eventually have them creating their own activities based on those that we present them.

4.1 Discussion: Tech Leadership - Taking Action

Model the Way – Ch. 3 Set the Example

By being open to my peers and even students, I can model the behavior of setting an example.  As teachers or administration, we must learn from everybody.  Being open to feedback from peers and students, is an important quality a leader must have.  This is my first role at a school, as tech coordinator, I am expected to know everything.  When other staff gives me suggestions, I am open to it because they provide me with an important point of view I have not experienced.

Inspire a Vision – Ch. 5 Enlist Others

The way in which I will inspire a vision for my co-workers, as well as the students I interact with, is by doing what I say I will do and doing what I am asking of my peers and the students.  Today at my school site we had a tech skill development meeting.  Our tech teams ants to bring all staff to the same level, in order to do so we have to start at the bottom.  A few teachers have not had the pleasure of incorporating Google Classroom into their classes and we taught them how to set up a class and how to set up a Google Hangout.  The staff wanted to learn something new and asked, so I helped the experienced teachers assist those less knowledgeable.

Part of our responsibility is to mean what we say.  As the tech coordinator, when I say, “Come to me with any and all questions”, I have to be open to them all.  By enlisted in the more experienced staff, those less knowledgeable were more receptive because they got to see in action by other teachers.

Challenge the Process – Ch. 7 Experiment and Take Risks

Once again, experimenting and taking risks, is something that will be put into practice at my school site.  We all have teachers who are stuck in their ways.  I have a few and by being open to talking to them about what their lesson plans include and suggesting ways in which we can incorporate technology, I can help them take risks.  Also, by providing support to the teachers who are taking those risks already, I can help those risks and experiments be more successful.