Leading 21st Century Schools: What School Leaders Need to Know

"You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself."

Seth Godin - Tribes

Did you know?

Introduction

Why Change?

What is your vision for 21st Century Schools?

What has changed?

New literacies

What drives these changes?

Introduction (con’t)

Technology Standards for Teachers

Technology Standards for Administrators

What remains the same?

A word about leaders and systemic change

Conclusion

Introduction

• “To be a successful leader in the 21st century, schools leaders need to be open to change, know how to manage change, and be risk takers (Schrum & Levin, p.5).”

Why Change?

Why is change so important in the context of technology?

Why change?

• “Leading in a culture of change means creating a culture (not just a structure) of change. It does not mean adopting innovations, one after the another; it does mean producing the capacity to seek, critically assess, and selectively incorporate new ideas and practices all the time, inside the organization as well as outside it.”

• (Michael Fullan, Leading in a Culture of Change, 2001, p. 44)

What’s your vision of the 21st Century view of public schools?

What’s your vision of the Century 21st view of public schools?

• “Integrating technology throughout a school system is in itself, significant systemic reform. We have a wealth of evidence attesting to the importance of leadership in implementing and sustaining systemic reform in schools...

What’s your vision of the 21st Century view of public schools?

• ...It is critical, therefore, that we attend seriously to leadership for technology in schools

• (Don Knezek, North Regional Technology in Education Consortium, 2001)”

• Could you have foreseen some of the technological advances that occurred in the last 10 years?

What’s your vision of the 21st view of public schools?

What has changed?

What has changed?

• Globalization and Economic change.

• The needs of our 21st century students

What has changed?

• Globalization and Economic Change

• As educators we need to be cognizant of the fact the jobs that we are training our students for today might be obsolete tomorrow. Keeping that in mind we have to assess what skills are really pertinent.

TED: Child Driven Education

Sugita Mitra

1. How are today’s schools effectively preparing our students to work in the high-tech and technology dependent world of tomorrow?

2. How is the current emphasis on learning a body of knowledge long enough to be able to regurgitate it on a test be important in a technological future?

3. How do teacher facilitate student mastery of 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, and communication and collaboration?

4. What approaches will teachers need to take to ensure teaching of information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy for student success in the 21st century?

In-class activity

New LiteraciesThe new literacies include information literacy, critical media literacy, information, communication, and technology (ICT) literacy, visual literacy, multimedia literacy, and cultural literacy. How we define, use, and teach literacy is influenced by the ever-changing forces in our world, including the ubiquitous nature presence of technology today…

New Literacies• Unfortunately, our current assessment standards are not

rigorous enough. Three forces are currently shaping how we define and teach literacy skills:

1. Global economic competition that requires the sharing of information and constant communication with others around the world.

2. The emergence of the Internet as a powerful tool for information sharing and rapid communication.

3. Public policy that focuses on the need for high level literacy skills including the use of the internet and other information communication technology skills.

New Literacies

• “It is our belief that the knowledge does not and cannot reside in any one individual, text, or tool (Schrum & Levin, p. 11).”

What drives these changes ?

What drives these changes?

• No Child Left Behind drive accountability and the need for standards in the foreseeable future.

What drives these changes ?

Administrative standards

Changing Standards

Technology standards for children

Content Area Standards

21st Century standards

Technology Standards for Teachers

• During 2007-2008 school years, the NETS standards were revised to reflect an emphasis on the moving students into the 21st century (Table 1.2, p. 19)

Technology Standards for Administrators

• The NETS-A standards for administrators were put into place No Child Left Behind was implemented. As a results this standards were never fully initiative until a revision of the standards was put into effect in 2009 (Table 1.3, p. 21 & 22).

What remains the same?

• The goal for student achievement remains at the top of any administrators priority list. The goal of this text is to educate the reader about tools for teaching and learning in the 21st century.

• Chapter 3: Introduces these tools

• Chapter 4 & 5: Provides instruction on how to use these tools.

What remains the same?

• Challenges of teaching technology

• Web 2.0 tools are freely accessible but teachers are not familiar with these tools, and not all students have access to the Internet.

• Chapter 6, 7 & 8: cover the roles of staff members in strategic efforts to integrate all aspect of technology into the school.

Conclusion

• The Six Secret task is to enact the other 5 secrets:

• Secret 1: Organizational members will feel valued and be valued

• Secret 2: Be involved in purposeful peer interaction that generates knowledge and commitment.

• Secret 3: Build their individual collective capacity

Conclusion

• Secret 4: Learn everyday on the job

• Secret 5: Experience the value of transparency in practice linked to making progress.

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate. ...

Tribes need leadership. Sometimes one person leads, sometimes more. People want connection and growth and something new. They want change. ... You can't have a tribe without a leader - and you can't be a leader without a tribe.

Seth Godin - Tribes