Tech Leadership: A function of the whole

I agree with the following:

From  Dr. McCleod :  "We need to think of technology as a function of the entire system not as something that resides in you individually. And the leadership for technology is to be distributed across the organization so we can approach it from a systemic standpoint if we're going to be successful."

“One of the problems we have in K-12 schools is we think about leadership and technology in terms of people (for example, you’re the technology leader). What we should be doing is thinking about technology leadership from a larger systemic standpoint. Leadership is a function. It’s not a person. Technology is a function of the organization, distributed across multiple people and multiple parts of the organization.” -  Dr. McCleod

LF Goals 2009

My 3 - 6 Month Goals at Livermore Falls

1. Establish and embrace relationships with staff and students

2. Be visible and provide support - assess teacher and student needs

3. Collaborate, communicate, and contribute

4. Plan and design to react to tech integration, resources, and teacher training needs

5. Focus on our greatest resources - staff and students. Optimize what we have and efficiently plan for what we need.

6. Implement student-centered technology to impact school culture.

7. Familiarize and improve tech skills for tech infrastructure and end-user needs

8. Familiarize and improve skills for learning software and begin to solve how best to integrate

9. Inventory hardware and software and implement asset management software to efficiently and effectively manage assets and begin plan to homogenize assets

10. Assess and evaluate tech plan and its role: Do teachers share its vision?

11. Develop plan to remove barriers to effective instructional technology! Avoid a tech facade!

12. Develop a plan with teachers to integrate/immerse technology

13. Ensure equitable access to technology and online safety for students

14. Begin to implement digital citizenship and social media program as detailed (piloted)by MLTI for 2009. 

15. Implement Internet Safety curriculum grades 3-12 per compliance for CIPA and eRate

16. Assess student tech proficiencies at all grade levels:NETS alignment, measurement, evaluation...

17. Improve prof development by attending conferences, inservices, seminars online and offline and other progressive schools

18. Obtain web design/software system editable by staff and students (student pages, teacher pages,...)

19. Share Web 2.0 and open source ideas and options and how they may impact teaching and learning 

20. Begin to direct us to being a model district for integrating technology

**Collaborative environments, cloud computing, and "smart" objects are among the technologies that a group of experts believes will have a profound impact on K-12 education within the next five years or sooner.

1:1 is more important than brand name

Computers will transform teaching and learning when every teacher and student have a computer in their hands. Whether or not a school chooses Dell or Lenovo notebooks or Macbooks matters little since OS's change constantly- but life-long skills (critical thinking, problem solving, etc.) do not. Any discussion regarding product choice for 1:1 should defer to obtaining them and how to use them.

Some things I believe....

Effective technology integration is achieved when its use supports curricular goals.

Training for tech use should be “personalized, customized, informal, school-based, small group, flexibly scheduled, and needs based” (Kinnamen, 1993, p.51).

“Teachers must determine how technology tools are used, and they must have a hand in designing the staff development process that trains them.” (Schrum, 2000).

“The focus of professional training should be on teaching and learning strategies that make a difference in daily practice –on activities that translate into stronger student performance” (Tomei, 2002)

We should be at the point of not whether to use technology but how best to use it

"It is not how much technology is being used but how it is being used that matters."

The infrastructure means people in the right places doing the right thing for integration to occur.

Fear, reluctance, and change undermine integration as much as poor professional development and poor school curriculums.

Most disappointing about inadequate training is that teachers are not allowed time to experience successes and failures with integration and do not become involved in constructive discussions about the pros and cons of integrating computers

Integration will fail unless time issue and students learning is included and emphasized in professional development.

Integration fails when professional development doesn’t include all stakeholders. “Schools often assign only one individual or a few people to develop the professional development program for technology use, without allowing for the input of teachers, parents, and the community” (Schrum, 2000)

The best place for the computers is in the classroom, despite the fact that every classroom doesn't have one. If computers are present in the classroom, then teachers and students are inclined and motivated to use them with their lessons. Uprooting students to go to a lab disrupts the flow of the routine. Periodic and sporadic visits create a situation that computers are separate from the learning rather than an integral part of it.

Avoid lack of support for technical disruptions, lack of administrative support, poor and/or outdated teaching methods, poor and outdated equipment, equity issues, and lack of a technology plan (Tomei, 2002).

Teachers, technology coordinators, curriculum designers, parents, school board members, community and corporate leaders, technology committees, and principals effect technology integration. Technology coordinators who fail to keep equipment repaired and functional contribute to the failure of technology integration; curriculum designers who neglect integrating standards into the schools’ curricula limit the potential for successful integration; community and corporate leaders when they fail to solve budgetary issues related to technology effect technology integration; technology committees contribute to technology integration problems when they fail to govern adequately the technology resources and the technology vision that are a part of their school, and without the bold and strong leadership of their principal technology integration will fail.

The absence of a functional technology plan that all staff are aware of means technology integration will never occur as it should until one is developed by a technology committee and other stakeholders. A plan that doesn’t develop a vision statement; a plan for upgrades and repairs; a security plan; a plan for purchases; a plan that encourages the impact of technology integration on the curriculum undermines technology integration (Tomei, 2002).

Until a professional development model is created, professional development will be a major factor prohibiting technology integration at our school.

Who am I and How did I get here?

John Dewey, a well-known educational reformer, says it best, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

My name is Craig Suttie and I was born and raised in Fairfield, Maine a small mill town bisected by the Kennebec River. Three generations of my family worked at Keyes Fiber Paper Mill (now called Huthamaki) including myself. Livermore Falls is very similar to my home surroundings. Fortunately, I knew I needed to further my education and so I attended college graduating from University of Maine at Farmington and then jumping into a masters program for curriculum development and technology.

For the past 18 years I have worked for Good Will - Hinckley (one mile from the Sappi Paper Mill) starting as a support personnel for homeless and disadvantaged youth and moving on to assisting in the creation of a Life Skills curriculum of a Independent Living Program for adolescents ages 17-21. Next, I went to the campus middle school teaching adventure- based education and project-based learning activities to diverse learners honing a constructivist pedagogy that focused on rubrics and standards-based grading: I embrace best practices like cooperative learning groups, differentiated instruction, and scaffolding to meet needs of diverse learners. After a few years in middle school I walked in to the newly renovated high school and met with the principal to discuss how we would assemble the newly delivered computers in the new media center. She told me if I could make them work, then the program would be mine. So...... from that point forward (about eight to ten years) and with very little experience, I concentrated on developing a Computer Literacy curriculum aligned with NETS, encouraged teachers to work and train with computers and engage students that used them. About a year after the introduction of the computers to our school, we underwent developing a school curriculum and participated in a comprehensive school reform program. A few years later we earned accreditation. It was throughout this process that I became very interested in pedagogy, learning theory and curriculum development and how to use technology to assist teaching and learning - and so began the experience of integrating technology, technology management, and technology support to instructors and a network administrator.

My tour of duty at Livermore Falls will follow this approach: Put students at the center of all that we do, include and support teachers (and students) regarding all things relevant to immersing technology and improve teaching and learning.

Research and experience reveals that teacher support for technology use and integration usually takes a back seat to technical difficulties and 'fires". I intend to reverse that and put teachers first and create technical support networks to maintain an adequate infrastructure. I intend to be visible, transparent, and supportive.

In sum, I will embrace this opportunity and school community. I will collaborate, communicate, and contribute. I will provide help and I will need help. I will make make my strengths stronger and my weaknesses strong.