Dangerously Irrelevant

On Monday I published the final list of Leadership Day 2010 posts. Today I’m going to highlight a few that, for one reason or another, particularly resonated with me. This is by no means a ‘best of’ list but rather an attempt to capture a few things that struck me as I read through each post. With one exception, the highlights below are in the same order as the list from Monday.

Again, a big thank you to everyone who participated this year. Happy reading!

My favorite Leadership Day post this year

Rob Jacobs (@eduinnovation). What Do You Think You "Hired" Your Technology To Do?

You want to give your student access to the web to look up information and learn information literacy skills. That seems implicit to you. However, your students want to use the web to share information. You wanted them to consume, they wanted to produce and share. You have “hired” the web to do a different job than the students have “hired” it do. You “hired” Google Docs so students could work in small groups in the classroom on projects. Your students “hired” Google Docs so they could collaborate with people, including content experts and other students, across the globe. You “hired” technology to aide student collaboration is groups of 2-3. The students “hired” technology to aide collaboration in groups of 200-300. . . . Are you ready for that? Can you deal with that?

Leadership & Vision

Carolyn Foote (@technolibrary). Stepping out of the bubble.

How do we step outside of what we know so we can experience it in a new way? And how can we get new ideas when we are so immersed in day to day management of our own districts?

Fred Koch (@fkoch). Leadership Day 2010.

I have come to believe that “it” is so big, so complex, so multidimensional that “it” is nearly impossible to define. Basically what I am saying is that “it” simply means different things to different people. There are leaders who truly believe they understand “it.” The problem comes when we try to define and articulate “it.”

Jon Becker (@jonbecker). Who are the thought leaders in educational leadership?

If professors of educational leadership truly want to be the thought leaders and to be a part of any sort of school change process, they need to . . . stop publishing their high-quality, thoughtful work in journals that nobody who does the work of school leadership reads. One of Jon’s best posts ever.

Kristen Swanson (@kristenswanson). Leadership Day 2010.

Kristen’s emphasis on leaders making just ‘1 upgrade this year’ is a great strategy. The first step is always the hardest. After that you have momentum…

Pam Moran (@pammoran). Staying Relevant as Leader and Learner.

I’m convinced that we administrative leaders have an obligation to initiate new learning, become skillful in the use of new tools that accelerate and advance our learning work, and share with others what we are learning. . . . Becoming an educator with the contemporary knowledge and skills to influence and teach others is as essential an expectation of administrative leaders as it is for teachers. Our kids don’t wait around on someone to tell them to learn a new technology and neither should we.

Queenie Lindsey (@tandemteaching). An Open Letter To Administrators| Leadership Day 2010.

A superb Top 10 list of things teachers need from administrators if they are to better incorporate digital technologies into their instruction.

Scott McLeod (@mcleod). “No thanks. I choose to do nothing.”

Can I exercise blogger’s privilege and say that I liked my own post (and the discussion that ensued there)?

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (@snbeach). Leadership Day: A Day Late.

Riffing off Clay Shirky’s new book, Cognitive Surplus, Sheryl asks: What if we, as educational leaders, took the time we all spend watching our favorite shows on TV and used it for design thinking: inspiration, ideation, and implementation?

Tim Gwynn (@tgwynn). How About Some Walk To Go With That Talk?

Use technology to enhance your life as well as the lives of your teachers, staff, and students. Please keep talking about it, because that dialogue is important. However, show us that you know technology is a crucial part of education. It’s time to walk the walk. Let’s see action.

Tim Stahmer (@timstahmer). What Do You Do All Day?

Apple employs many creative and talented people and [Steve Jobs'] primary role is to clear the obstacles, foster collaboration, and allow them to use their talents to the greatest degree possible. I would hope our leaders, both inside and outside of the education structure, would view their role exactly the same way when it comes to improving student learning. Unfortunately, these days things seem to be heading in the opposite direction. To more standardized classrooms, rigid, narrow curriculums, and prescriptive teaching designed to meet the growing demand for more standardized testing. So, I wonder how things might change if Steve Jobs was leading American education. Instead of Bill Gates.

Lists

Natalie Wojinski (@mswojo). Leadership Day 2010: Dear Administrators.

I love it when Natalie says: Please get over your fear of NETWORKING.

Planning & Implementation

Justin Bathon (@edjurist). Rubber ... Meet Road: Leadership Day 2010.

Justin shares a fantastic reflection on lessons learned (and continuing challenges) for a statewide education innovation initiative. There are lots of good things happening in Kentucky. I’m heading down in early September to check it out (and help out a little).

Safety & Security

Kevin Hodgson (@dogtrax). Leadership Day 2010: A Webcomic Message.

1. The comic strip format is super fun! 2. Kevin’s principal says, “Take chances. I’ll be in your corner, don’t you worry.” We need more principals and superintendents saying this!

Standards

Doug Johnson (@blueskunkblog). CODE 77Rubrics for Administrators.

Undaunted by the enormous challenge, Doug creates his own technology leadership rubrics for administrators.

Teaching & Learning

Becky Fisher (@beckyfisher73). Educational Leaders Must Be Self-directed Learners.

Here's a worn out school scenario: a student brings a device to school and starts pulling it out during "full frontal teaching" episodes or worksheeting activities. The teacher is disturbed by the fact the student is "not paying attention in class," collects the device and sends the kid to the office. The principal fusses at the kid for "not paying attention in class" and informs the kid that the parent has to come to school to pick the device up. The parent comes in the next day to pick the device up and the principal talks about how important it is for parents to support the school in these discipline matters. Where in this scenario does anyone other than the student think about the quality of the classroom experience the student was opting out of? Where in this scenario does anyone other than the student realize the potential power of this "device?”

Brian Ford (@bf_teach4chnge). Marx and School 2.0: My Leadership Day 2010 Post….In Time for Happy Hour (somewhere)…

Brian channels Karl Marx: What the workers can do (their productivity) is limited by the owners’ control of the tools. It’s one of the many ironies and paradoxes of capitalism – that there are many situations in which relinquishing control would actually yield owners a greater surplus of goods/services, but the last thing owners give up (besides profits) is control. . . . [When it comes to educational technology,] liberate the means of production!

Carl Anderson (@anderscj). An Invitation Letter to Parents.

Carl proposes that every technology-savvy teacher send a letter home to parents. An awesome idea.

Josie Holford (@JosieHolford). More Educator Luddites Please.

We need to . . . establish a whole new ethos of luddism in our schools. The educator luddites I have in mind are people who have always understood school to be more than  test prep and who see themselves as far more than the agents of a standardized testing industry. I see them leading the way to create inquiry driven schools where students and teachers are not too busy to think. Schools where the technology serves the learning rather than drives the teaching and where the demand for original work is a collaborate effort to solve compelling problems to which no one present knows the answer. In such a school, the curriculum is not driven by the textbook, the flow of information is not unidirectional, learning is networked and students and teachers work together across the boundaries of age and experience as active seekers, users and creators of knowledge. In this rosy picture, individual schools form a kind of globally aware and networked cottage industry of creative learning.

Paul Bogush (@paulbogush). Acoustic Teaching.

Before you decide to push technology into the curriculum, I would just ask that you pause and find out if you will be amplifying mistakes? or allowing some teachers to do more? The best guitar teachers want their students to start off unplugged. Drum teachers start off their students with a simple drum pad. . . . Forcing technology into poor lessons won’t make them sound any better, it will just allow their impact to be heard farther into the future.

Rich Haglund. The 1908 ISTE NETS, or, how chalkboards revolutionized teaching.

Rich discovers the 1908 version of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T).

Ryan Bretag (@ryanbretag). Walk in the Shoes of Your Students.

Ryan says: I issue this challenge to school leaders: walk in the shoes of your students for a day. Seriously. Open your calendar now and secure a day during the year where your administrative team can experience first-hand what it is like to be a learner in the school community and what teaching and learning really looks like from the eyes of your students: classroom experience, halls, lockers, homework, extracurricular, polices, teaching, learning, engagement, school goals, school vision, etc. I so love this idea and know that it’s done in some places. I’d add that the experience should go from door-to-door, to include the ‘powering down’ and ‘powering back up again’ that many students do before and after school.

Sean Nash (@nashworld). Principals as Teachers and Principals as Teachers Part II - Early Feedback.

Sean’s two-part series on principals serving as part-time teachers in online courses. Also, I wish more school districts understood Sean’s statement that “As a district we can sit the bench and ultimately swallow the future options that arise from the state level or worse . . . or we can get really smart and make our own breaks on the local level.”

Steve Moore (@stevejmoore). What Are You Building? 

Essentially, every piece of great technology is about relationships between people and ideas. . . . I urge you . . . to start a conversation about what you’re learning and with whom you’re connected to. Only from that seeking out of new knowledge - through whatever barrier reducing “technology” is available to you - will there be true benefit.

Tools & Technologies

Jacob Williamson. Good Intentions.

Jacob takes exception to Edline’s claims that it ‘provides the world’s leading technology solutions that help schools improve student performance by harnessing the power of parental involvement, supporting teachers, and engaging the learning community,’ noting that it’s actually 0 for 4 in its claims. An excellent reminder that we should examine vendors’ claims critically and be clear about what ‘effective technology use’ really means.

Well, after sorting through all of the Leadership Day 2010 posts, tracking down incorrect URLs, deleting a few nonexistent items, and reviewing some attempts to recycle old posts, I believe that I have the definitive list of 114 total posts. You can see the updated Google spreadsheet or read through the roughly categorized list of posts below (Twitter IDs are in parentheses where available).

UPDATE: See also Leadership Day 2010 - Some highlights

A big, big thanks to everyone who participated this year. There’s LOTS of good stuff here, as usual. Happy reading!

Leadership & Vision

• Blake Skidmore (@blakeskid). Pick Up the Mouse Your E-Mail is Ringing. I will be gliding through building technology at schools, and how to take some concrete steps for "old dogs learning new tricks".
• Carolyn Foote (@technolibrary). Stepping out of the bubble. How can we step out of our own bubble and dream?
• Chris Atkinson (@ChrisLAtkinson). What Kind Of School Will You Lead This Year? Use Doug Reeves’ Leadership Matrix to assess where you are as a school and where you need to be.
• Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann). Leadership Day 2010: Be The Best Version of Yourself. Being a good leader means first being a good person.
• Dale Holt (@Daleholt). Be the shaker. The snowglobe is best when shaken. We we lead we need to not be afraid to shake things up.
• Damian Bariexca (@damian613). Leadership Day 2010: From the Ground Up. Not all administrators are leaders; not all leaders are administrators.
• Darren Draper (@ddraper). On Administrators' Choice to Do Nothing. My take on why change is so hard to come by in leadership behavior.
• David Bill (@dcinc66). Requirements for change. What is needed to institute change in a school? In my mind, they include the following - vision, understanding and persistence.
• David Fleming (@mrdfleming). Reflections on Leadership. What I expect from administration regarding technology use in school.
• Diane Lauer (@MrsLauer). Stepping Up and Staying Relevant. Three years ago I sat in the audience listening to a speaker chide a group of school administrators with the prompt, “How many of you are on Facebook?” My hand rested in my lap, my eyes surfed the room. There were very few hands raised. The gauntlet was thrown. “Are you willing to become dangerously irrelevant?”
• Ed Allen (@horizons93). Leadership Day 2010 - The Time Is Now. Let's adopt an admin and give them a supportive push!
• Fred Koch (@fkoch). Leadership Day 2010. Too many school leaders are wearing racehorse blinders - so they don't know what they don't see...
• Heather Hersey (@hhersey03). Tech Leaders, Don Ginty and Rob Mancabelli. A profile of two technology leaders and how they approached a school's tablet program and 1:1 pilot.
• Jaime Dial (@DrDial). Never be afraid to lead. Be careful when making generalizations about leaders; you don't have to be an administrator to lead.
• Jeff B (@jbtheater11). Leadership Day 2010 - A letter. A simple (but kind of frustrated) letter to any administrator with a few suggestions and book recommendations.
• Jeffrey L. Hunt (@jeff_hunt). We Need Educational Leaders Who Can Move Us to the Next Level -- Forward is Not Far Enough. It's time for leaders to take schools to the next levels, embrace digital technologies and focus on learning.
• Joanne Robert. Take Risks, Trust Your Staff & Inspire. A letter to administrators from teachers "tired of waiting" giving advice for a low-tech, baby step, non-threatening approach to high-techness; it really sounds like begging but then I'm frustrated with the slowness of it all.
• Joe Bires (@joebires). Learn by Doing. Schools should practice what they preach; learn by doing.
• Jon Becker (@jonbecker). Who are the thought leaders in educational leadership? Where I throw ed. leadership professors and school leaders under the bus, only not really.
• Jonathan Ferrell and Britt Pumphrey (@jonathanferrell, @brpumphrey). Moving Forward. Two young teacher's perspective on what it means for a leader to be moving forward in the realm of technology and education.
• Jonathan Martin (@JonathanEMartin). Learner-in-Chief: Leading in 21st century education. Today more than ever, leadership is about learning, and those of us who aim to lead learning must be ourselves Chief Learners in order to be Chiefs of Learning.
• Kevin Creutz (@kevcreutz). An Administrator's Responsibility. Administrator's must be lifelong learners
• Kristen Swanson (@kristenswanson). Leadership Day 2010. Upgrade and supercharge your leadership with these ideas!
• Kristin Hokanson (@khokanson). Keystones the Cornerstones of Leadership. Lead, Connect, Innovate, and Explore, Turn up the HEAT and recognize that anyone can be a leader
• Linda Clinton (@Linda704). I'm Not In It to Win It I'm In It for You. A post inspired by a line from a pop song.
• Lisa Winebrenner (@EdTech4Me). Leadership Day 2010 Call to all bloggers. Reflection of last year's post to this year and links on how far Google Apss Education Edition has come in 4 years.
• Megan Howard (@mmhoward). Leadership: Adapt, Innovate, and Inspire. Musings about verbs: adapt, innovate, inspire --- and why walking slowly through the halls is a sign of good leadership.
• Michelle Baldwin (@michellek107). Leadership Is... In thinking about leadership, I wanted to be less preachy than I usually am, and instead concentrated on qualities of good leaders.
• Mike Meechin (@innovateed). Tough Conversations - Have Them! Calling all education reformers! I encourage you to find those in charge and have them sit for the tough conversations. The movement begins here, with us, and these conversations.
• Nathan Barber. Administrators as Technology Leaders: Is Being Tech-Savvy Enough? Administrators must understand not only the limits of their own tech knowledge but also when to empower tech experts to carry out the technology vision for the school.
• Pam Moran (@pammoran). Staying Relevant as Leader and Learner. I fear being dangerously irrelevant so I work hard to stay relevant as leader and learner- with a little help from friends, both F2F and virtual.
• Patrick Larkin (@bhsprincipal). Leadership Day 2010 - Two of My Goals For This Year. Resource sharing rather than resource hoarding.
• Pernille Ripp (@4thgrdteach). Do You Dare to Look in the Mirror? Reflection on whether you are a multiplier or a divisor.
• Queenie Lindsey (@tandemteaching). An Open Letter To Administrators| Leadership Day 2010. Dear Administrators: 3 teachers reveal exactly what they need from you to implement technology in the classroom.
• Renee Moore (@TeachMoore). Dear Angela. A heartfelt letter to one my former students, now an elementary principal, encouraging (not shaming) her to explore what technology integration can do for their school, especially for our high-poverty, digitally disadvantaged students.
• Rodd Lucier (@thecleversheep). The Three 'R's of Educational Leadership. Educational leaders need to take Risks, to conduce Research, and to build Relationships.
• Roger Crider (@rcrider69). Its not that difficult. Why doesn't administration understand that with a little vision and commitment things would improve greatly.
• Roger Pryor (@pryorcommitment). Paintings in an exhibition: change metaphors and a couple of views on leadership. Sometimes we may feel the urge to charge into a battle for new ways of doing things, trumpets sounding and hooves thundering. There is a quite satisfaction to be had, however, from 'leading from behind' and seeing some of the more clever cows lead the herd to new grazing.
• Scott McLeod (@mcleod). “No thanks. I choose to do nothing.” Are school administrators guilty of 'willful blindness' when it comes to the societal transformations that surround them?
• Selena Ward (@thetechtiger). I Have Some Hope. This is my yearly letter to my principal.
• Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (@snbeach). Leadership Day: A Day Late. Leaders "kill their TV" to make time for Design Thinking: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation to reculture and shift their school/district.
• Sylvia Martinez (@smartinez). What leadership looks like. “What works” is variable to an almost maddening degree.
• Tim Gwynn (@tgwynn). How About Some Walk To Go With That Talk? When it comes to technology in schools, leaders are talking about it all around us, but the talk doesn't mean much until they step up and start using the technology as well.
• Tim Stahmer (@timstahmer). What Do You Do All Day? Does the leadership in your school have an "insanely great" approach to their role like Steve Jobs?
• Todd Williamson (@twilliamson15). Consistency, Vision, and Bravery. Three necessary values for any educational leader, in any century, with or without technology.
• Tony Baldasaro (@baldy7). Reflections on 2st Century Leadership. Reflected upon the 21st century leaders and offered three traits of high quality leaders, one of which a former boss of mine did not have.
• Tony Keefer (@Tonykeefer). Big Thinking: Leadership Day 2010. One teacher's ideas that may help administrators think big about embracing tech.

Lists

• Darcy Moore (@Darcy1968). #leadershipday10. Quotes and the inevitable list of 10 ideas contained within...
• Dave Meister (@phsprincipal). Leadership Day 2010 Practical Steps to Promote Technology Integration. You too can be an administrator that is leading technology integration in your school!
• Dolores Gende (@dgende). Leaders Among Equals. The six BEs that educational administrators demonstrate while BEing Leaders among Equals.
• Harold Shaw (@hshawjr). Leadership Day 2010. What I think we need from admins
• Justin Tarte (@Justin_Tarte). What should busy administrators be reading (or watching)? - Leadership Day 2010. Top ten for aspiring, new, current, and retired administrators who want educational and technological reform in an educational setting.
• Mark Carbone (@markwcarbone). School Administrator To Do List. School admins are busy and wear many hats, they should focus on a critical 'to do' list.
• Mary Beth Hertz (@mbteach). My Top 10 To-Do List for Administrators. A (hopefully) succinct checklist of things Administrators can do to make sure they are leading their school into the 21st Century.
• Morgan Kolis (@Room5Friends). "Leadership Day 2010" (What would I want my administrator to know about technology?). This post provides a list of 10 things I would LOVE for ANY administrator (principal, special ed. director, curriculum director, Superintendent, etc.) to know about TECHNOLOGY IN REGARDS TO SPECIAL EDUCATION (Yes, the two really can go hand in hand!).
• Nancy Caramanico (@ncara). 7 Ways for Leaders to Stay on Top of Tech. Emerging tech trends can serve as a 'crystal ball' into the future of learning
• Natalie Wojinski (@mswojo). Leadership Day 2010: Dear Administrators. Administrators, just follow these five simple steps to a happier, healthier technology integrated school.
• Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom). Some Questions To Ask... What questions should educational leaders be asking in their buildings for districts everyday?

Online Learning

• iNACOL (@nextgenlc). Leadership Day 2010: Online and Blended Learning. This post provides a quick summary of how blended learning models can be beneficial, as they provide learning opportunities that may not exist elsewhere.
• Michael Barbour (@mkbwsu). Leadership Day 2010 – Advice On Virtual Schooling. A letter from a K-12 online learning researcher to administrators advising them, "Don't believe the hype!"

Planning & Implementation

• Becky Searls (@beckyjoy). Leadership Day 2010. How one district provided laptops for teachers...with a catch!
• Justin Bathon (@edjurist). Rubber ... Meet Road: Leadership Day 2010. Lessons and challenges from leading a real statewide education reform effort in Kentucky.
• Maryna Badenhorst (@marynabadenhors). Visionary Leadership and e-learning. The roles and responsibilities of schools in the integration of e-learning:  Where will we hide in this e-learning storm that is brewing on the horizon?
• Taber Akin. Leadership Day. A small list of technology successes in ISD 191.

Professional Development

• Cheryl Oakes (@cheryloakes50). Leadership Day 2010 call to action be part of this! A group of administrators and technology coordinators went into action, collaborated and designed a summer professional workshop for any administrator involved in evaluating staff, in Maine, presented by local teachers who are already demonstrating the NETS-S standards in their classrooms.
• Jon Orech (@jorech). More Than Just a Spark. The start of a new school year brings optimism and new ideas; how do we sustain them long term?
• Kyle Pace (@kylepace). PDopia: Planning The Perfect PD. Want to evoke real change and move forward with educational technology? It all starts with providing quality PD to your staff.
• Mau Buchler (@maubuchler). Only After You've Done Your Homeplay! A more effective way of doing PDs for teachers who want to start using technology.
• Paula Naugle (@plnaugle). Leadership Day 2010 - My Take. I suggest 10 ways leadership can "walk the talk" about integrating technology when doing staff development.

Safety & Security

• Kevin Hodgson (@dogtrax). Leadership Day 2010: A Webcomic Message. I went the route of creating a webcomic to add a touch of humor to the message that teachers need the support of administrators (and sometimes, administrators need a little help from their teachers)
• Mark Barnes (@markbarnes19). Mr. Education Administrator: tear down that wall. Ronald Reagan may have said it first, but it's worth restating: Mr. administrator, tear down that wall -- the firewall that is.

Standards

• Beth Still (@bethstill). ISTE NETS for Administrators: How Do You Measure Up? This post goes through the five NETS for Administrators and provides some insight from the perspective of a teacher as well as provides a jumping in points to help administrators become tech-savvy.
• Doug Johnson (@blueskunkblog). CODE 77Rubrics for Administrators. 10 Rubrics to help the brave administrator judge his/her competence with technology use in schools.

Teaching & Learning

• Alynn Coppock (@ACoppock1). Driving Toward a New School Year. After reading Drive by Daniel Pink, I was inspired to blog about this thought-provoking read and how it relates to leadership and the 1:1 environment.
• Amanda Dykes (@amandacdykes). Time To Step Up. I am not a leader, far from it, but I have a big mouth and not afraid to use it!
• Barbara McCormick (bmccormick65). Leadership Day 2010. Going Global with 1:1 inspires a community.
• Becky Fisher (@beckyfisher73). Educational Leaders Must Be Self-directed Learners. "Nobody told me I had to..." is not an excuse for a leader.
• Brad Flickinger (@bradflickinger). Exploit Their Passions. A How-To Guide to Exploiting Your Teacher's Tech Passions.
• Brian Ford (@bf_teach4chnge). Marx and School 2.0: My Leadership Day 2010 Post….In Time for Happy Hour (somewhere)… Using Marx's idea of liberating the means of production as an analogy for school and tech leadership.
• Bridgette Wagoner (@B_Wagoner). Pragmatism is Not the Answer, Part II: Tech Integration. We are so concerned with fast, practical results that we’ve forgotten that real, substantive, lasting change happens as a result of changing the underlying belief systems of individuals.
• Carl Anderson (@anderscj). An Invitation Letter to Parents. In this post I show how online Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) can be leveraged to effect change in your school and increase parent involvement in support of student, teacher, administrator, and systemic learning.
• Catherine Victoria Parsons (@vgloucester). Make Learning a Quest. Learning should be more like questing in an MMORPG - embrace the process and not the target.
• Cathy Stutzman (@Stutz01). Collaboration and Lemon Pancakes. What would school be like if every teacher could engage in meaningful conversations with school administrators about curriculum and educational pedagogy and if every student could learn alongside teachers and administrators?
• Chris Lindholm (@clindhol). Projected slides is not tech integration. Stand and deliver teaching with tech is still bad teaching...
• dan greenberg (texasbuckeye). Leadership day 2010. How can we get administrators to make honest assessments about technology they, themselves, might not fully grasp?
• David Edwards (@davencvps67). Are We Helping the Trophy Kids Learn and Grow? Are we meeting the expectations of the "trophy kids" (the net generation) with the learning environments we build?
• Dominic Giegerich (@Giegerich). Aretha said it best - "R E S P E C T" Sit teachers down like 3rd graders in PD or treat them like adult learners and give them the respect they deserve?
• Edna Sackson (@whatedsaid). Learning Principles. Know what you believe about learning, before you think about implementing change!
• Eye On Education (@eyeoneducation). What role does technology play in differentiated instruction? Some administrators feel that if classroom teachers use technology in their classrooms that their classrooms will "automatically" differentiate. What role does technology play in the differentiated classroom?
• Jonathan Cassie. Technology and Education 1.0. The Greeks got it right; our use of technology has to catch up with what they taught us 3000 years ago.
• Josie Holford (@JosieHolford). More Educator Luddites Please. A call to reclaim Luddism and to build a class of educator Luddites who can learn and lead against the grain of narrowing definitions, factory school and standardization and toward what it means to be an educated citizen in a networked world.
• Michael Shepherd (@smichael920). Curriculum Design. What does our pedagogy look like? What would you like learning to be like?
  At a recent staff meeting we asked these questions of staff and the result was more questions!   But questions that have helped us move the curriculum forward."
• Paul Bogush (@paulbogush). Acoustic Teaching. It’s the songs we write and sing as teachers that make a difference, not the instruments we play them.
• Rich Haglund. The 1908 ISTE NETS, or, how chalkboards revolutionized teaching. The ISTE NETS-T could have been written 100 years ago, and teachers who haven't mastered their subject don't have room in their brains to contemplate using (or letting students use) new tools to teacher (or for students to learn) the material.
• Rob Jacobs (@eduinnovation). What Do You Think You "Hired" Your Technology To Do? When leaders put education technology into the hands of students they discover that new tools, in new hands, creates new and often unanticipated results.
• Robert Dillon (@ideaguy42). Hitting the Target, Missing the Point. Winning the testing war is great, but truly preparing children for the future is morally responsible.
• Ryan Bretag (@ryanbretag). Walk in the Shoes of Your Students. On this Leadership Day 2010, I issue this challenge to school leaders: walk in the shoes of your students for a day.
• Sean Nash (@nashworld). Principals as Teachers. An invitation to bring principals directly back into the fold of teaching through the use of modern digital tools.
• Sean Nash (@nashworld). Principals as Teachers Part II - Early Feedback. Part two of an getting an idea "on paper" about employing principals to become intimately empowered in a digital teaching landscape.
• Stephen Lazar (@SLazarOtC). Technology is a Tool. Administrators need to remember that technology is a means, not an end in itself.
• Steve Moore (@stevejmoore). What Are You Building? Whether we use TNT or a telegraph, we need to learn how to use technology to break down the barriers of learning and relationships.

Tools & Technologies

• Cheryl Robson. Beyond Techno-Bling: When Boring is Good. Let's get past the bells and whistles and really put the technology to work for us.
• David B. Cohen (@CohenD). Tech It From The Top! If you’ve lived this long, and you believe in lifelong learning as one of your professional principles, then it’s time to do more than use email and Facebook:  isn’t it about time to retire the “aw, shucks, I can’t use any of that new-fangled technology stuff the kids use”  excuse?
• Frank Buck (@drfrankbuck). Leadership Day 2010: Why Blog? For the principal who wants an easy way to communicate with faculty and staff that is fun for both reader and writer, a blog is the way to go.
• George Couros (@gcouros). #LeadershipDay2010 – The Tools I Use. I am smarter because I found a bunch of smart people.
• Ian McCoog (@imccoog). plain and simple, the blog. It's nothing fancy but blogging is one effective and not "too high tech" means of communication.
• Jacob Williamson. Good Intentions. Why good intentions aren't enough.
• Joquetta Johnson (@accordin2jo). What Tools Are You Carrying In Your Digital Briefcase. Briefcase, backpack, or brown paper bag… It’s not about the container, but its contents.
• Karen Weil (@KarenTBTEN). In the Clouds: Cloud Technologies... and Start Pages. Can a well designed 'start page' link elementary students with engaging (and safe) technologies?
• Larry Fliegelman (@fliegs). Leadership Day 2010. How to keep with it all as a busy principal: RSS helps us "know it all."
• Lyn Hilt (@l_hilt). Leadership Day 2010. Reflecting upon the things I've done as an administrator to help my teachers "rethink" their practices.
• Monte Tatom (@drmmtatom). #LeadershipDay10. The value of staying current with 21st Century Leadership Skills.
• Pattie Thomas (@pthomas1). This Blog Belongs to YOU! Parents and the community deserve to know what happens behind the doors of the school house. A blog does just that!.
• Susan Carpenter (@SusanF95). Have Terabyte...Will Travel. This is the most amazingly convenient way to have access to everything you need, all of the time, from anywhere!

Check out the hashtag!

• #leadershipday10

Posts from past years

• Leadership Day 2007 – Summary
• Leadership Day 2008 – Summary
• Leadership Day 2009 - Summary spreadsheet

Since the past three have been so successful,* I am putting out a call for people to participate in Leadership Day 2010. As I said three years ago:

Many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators) need help when it comes to digital technologies. A lot of help, to be honest. As I’ve noted again and again on this blog, most school administrators don’t know

• what it means to prepare students for the 21st century;
• how to recognize, evaluate, and facilitate effective technology usage by students and teachers;
• what appropriate technology support structures (budget, staffing, infrastructure) look like or how to implement them;
• how to utilize modern technologies to facilitate communication with internal and external stakeholders;
• the ways in which learning technologies can improve student learning outcomes;
• how to utilize technology systems to make their organizations more efficient and effective;
• and so on…

Administrators’ lack of knowledge is not entirely their fault. Most of them didn’t grow up with these technologies. Many are not using digital tools on a regular basis. Few have received training from their employers or their university preparation programs on how to use, think about, or be a leader regarding digital technologies.

So… let’s help them out.

How to participate

1. On Friday, July 30, 2010, blog about whatever you like related to effective school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs, wants, etc. Write a letter to the administrators in your area. Post a top ten list. Make a podcast or a video. Highlight a local success or challenge. Recommend some readings. Do an interview of a successful technology leader. Respond to some of the questions below or make up your own. If you participated in years past, post a follow-up reflection. Whatever strikes you.
2. The official hashtag is  #leadershipday10
3. TO ENSURE THAT I FIND YOUR POST, please complete the short online participation form AFTER you post on Friday. This will allow me to mention and directly link to your post when I do my summary post a few days later. Everyone also will be able to see the complete list of submissions. If you want to link back to this post or leave a link to yours in the comment area, that’s okay too!

Some prompts to spark your thinking

• What do effective K-12 technology leaders do? What actions and behaviors can you point to that make them effective leaders in the area of technology?
• Do administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders in their organizations?
• What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that administrators can take to move their school organizations forward?
• What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that can be taken to move administrators themselves forward? Given the unrelenting pressures that they face and their ever-increasing time demands, what are some things that administrators can do to become more knowledgeable and skilled in the area of technology leadership?
• Perhaps using the new National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A) as a starting point, what are the absolutely critical skills or abilities that administrators need to be effective technology leaders?
• What strengths and deficiencies are present in the new NETS-A?
• What is a technology tool that would be extremely useful for a busy administrator (i.e., one he or she probably isn’t using now)?
• What should busy administrators be reading (or watching)?
• How can administrators best structure necessary conversations with internal or external stakeholders?
• How should administrators balance enablement with safety, risk with reward, fear with empowerment?

Here are the ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT posts from the past three years

• Leadership Day 2007 – Summary
• Leadership Day 2008 – Summary
• Leadership Day 2009 – Summary spreadsheet

A badge for your blog or web site

I hope you will join us for this important day because, I promise you, if the leaders don’t get it, it isn’t going to happen.

Checklist

• Post on Friday, July 30, 2010 about effective school technology leadership.
• Complete the short online participation form so I know where to find your post.
• See others' posts.
• Publicize as desired using the #leadershipday10 hashtag.

* Footnote 

Last year I intended to individually summarize and link to everyone’s posts (like I had in years past), but I was wholly unprepared for the sheer volume of participation in Leadership Day 2009 (see graph below). I apologize to everyone for not doing what I had done in previous years. I am extremely grateful to Karen McMillan and Dennis Richards, who together did the bulk of the aggregation of the posts that are listed in the 2009 summary spreadsheet above. That list would not exist without them. I think I’ve got a much better system now, so I hope my struggles last year won’t be a barrier to your participation in this year’s event. We’d love to have your perspective!

Here are some excerpts from blog posts about last night’s opening keynote by Jean-François Rischard for the ISTE conference…

Joanna Bobiash:

The keynote was disappointing. It did nothing a keynote was suppose to do. The speaker only depressed us with the world ending in 20 years and making fun of government. His slides were only words and hard to read in a huge theater. There was no energy or inspiration that came out of this speech. The audience was too polite (for the most part) not to leave and many had trouble staying awake.

Joe Bires:

The ISTE keynote was certainly a case of failed execution (were there any pictures at all and could anyone read that text?). The purpose of an opening keynote is like a leadoff hitter in baseball; to get on base and start something.  He started nothing, except to dampen expectations.  However ultimately it isn’t his fault it’s ISTE’s, you have to have the right person in the lineup at the right time and he just isn’t a motivating opening speaker.

Kevin Bushweller:

The speech was heavy on the global big picture, with charts, diagrams, and lists on a large screen on the stage, but there were not a lot of specifics about how education, and more specifically, educational technology would help solve those problems.

Erik Hilton:

Speaking of old methods, let’s talk about the keynote with Jean François Rischard. I am sure that somewhere in all of those  Power Point slides was a message.  However, I missed it because it was simply not at all engaging.  I was sitting at the Blogger area and I enjoyed the heckling from them much more than I enjoyed the presentation.  It was a strange thing to be sitting in a group of innovators and people who are working in the system, looking for ways to bring it into the 21st century, while the keynote speaker was droning on with an incomprehensible Power Point presentation.  It was an interesting irony, to have the keynote speaker at a conference that seems to showcase innovation and new technology tuned out because it was, well I’ll just say it, a boring presentation.

And here are some Twitter responses…

Ross Rogers:

Michael Richards:

Finally, David Wees, Ryan Berardi, and Peter McAsh asked if perhaps the audience’s reactions were overdone, too harsh, or should have been directed more privately to ISTE rather than blogged and Tweeted publicly…

Ryan Berardi:

Peter McAsh:

David Wees:

This year's keynote was awful.  The way the presenter talked, the disconnect between what he talked about and what most of us are here for, and the use of his PowerPoint slides was just horrendous.  Here's a mindmap, created by @dwarlick (click on it to open the full image in a new window). . . . I'd like to say that the response from the audience, while probably accurately describing his presentation, was a bit harsh.  Maybe people on Twitter on the #ISTE10 channel were expressing concern about their own presentations tomorrow.  My recommendation to them, don't follow #ISTE10 during or shortly after your presentation if you have any self-esteem at all and want to keep it.  I'd love to have seen a few more supportive folks, but the typical crowd mentality of "okay he's down now let's jump on him" cropped up yet again and pretty much everyone was negative.  Let's try and avoid this kind of negativity for each other's presentations in the next few days, shall we?

Any other thoughts regarding the opening keynote speaker? Are David and Ryan right? Are we creating an environment at ISTE that’s too tough on presenters?

Two pictures of the Edubloggercon group this year at the ISTE conference (Henry was our youngest participant):

The folks who weren’t able to make the first picture (aka the “straggler group”):

More pictures are on Flickr at the ebc10 tag and/or the iste10 tag and/or the ISTE10 Flickr group.

Here are a few resources to help you navigate the ISTE conference:

• Official conference web site
• Conference Ning
• Changes in the conference program
• ISTEVision
• Edubloggercon
• Exploring Excellence lounges (including ISTE Unplugged)
• The Daily Leader (conference newspaper) - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Want to keep up with the absolute latest breaking news and information?

• Follow the #iste10 hashtag on Twitter
• Follow ISTEConnects
• Visit the ISTE Community Ning
• Follow the #ebc10 (Edubloggercon) hashtag on Twitter
• See the bloggers who are at ISTE
• Watch the ISTE Flickr group (also see everything tagged with the iste10 hashtag and see the Where’s the Bear? contest)
• Visit the Facebook ISTE and ISTE Conference walls
• See everything tagged iste10 on Delicious
• See the ISTE 2010 group on Diigo
• See everything tagged iste10 on YouTube

There are numerous information channels for the conference. What important ones did I miss?

For its upcoming conference, ISTE has put forth its “backchannel code of conduct.” In short, it reads:

1. Be nice
2. Be clear
3. Be open

There are more details, but that’s the short summary. Sounds pretty good to me.

What do you think? Is there anything that you’d add to the list? Is it a good idea for ISTE to have a code of conduct for the backchannel?

I head to Denver tomorrow, eager and excited for the ISTE conference. I’ve got a plan this year; there are some things I want to learn and some conversations I want to have…

Things for which I’m scheduled

• Saturday, June 26 – Are your policies getting in the way of your progress? (at the TIE+ISTE Leadership Bootcamp)
• Sunday, June 27 – ISTE Leadership Symposium
• Monday, June 28 – 1–2–3, CASTLE PD! (at ISTE Unplugged)
• Monday, June 28 – CoSN CTO Leadership Forum

Things I hope will happen (if you can help with any of these, please come say hi!)

• Have my usual rockin’ awesome time at Edubloggercon. Some of my best conversations and learning each year are here.
• Faciliate our proposed discussion at Edubloggercon. Sylvia Martinez and I are proposing a conversation about the challenges of being an outside speaker/consultant. I don’t know if we’ll make the final agenda but I hope so!
• Learn more about Google Voice. I need someone to help me get the most out of my new phone service.
• Learn more about Google Apps for Education. I’m interested in talking with educators who are using this well with students in their school organization.
• Learn more about the School of One. I’d love to talk with someone who’s seen it in action!
• Learn more about robust learning software that does a good job of working with students at higher cognitive levels. These may be more like simulations or video games than traditional computer-based learning programs? Can I find software that’s doing performance assessment, not just fact assessment?
• Learn more about essay grading software. I’d like to see how this software class has changed since last time I looked at it.
• Maybe find funding for some CASTLE projects? This may be what draws me into the vendor area. I need to talk to some larger companies about some potential project sponsorship opportunities.
• Learn new things that aren’t even on my radar. This usually happens a great deal for me, so I’m not too worried. Maybe I’ll pick up some tricks/tips for my new iPad!

Other thoughts

I’m deliberately leaving much of the conference open. I want to reserve space for spur-of-the-moment conversations and serendipitous interactions. If you want to chat - even if we’ve never met before - please come introduce yourself!

Trying to reach me at the conference? Try @mcleod on Twitter or call/text me at 707–722–7853. I’ll also be hanging out a lot in the Bloggers’ Café.

What’s your plan for the ISTE conference? Hope to see you there!

One the one hand, we have…

On the other hand, we have…

See also: NECC - Vendor excess (aka Do pink Cadillacs really sell printers?)

On the Internet, we write ourselves into existence.

That’s a wonderful thing. It allows us to reach audiences that we otherwise wouldn’t reach. It allows us to try on personas - and perhaps to reinvent ourselves - in ways that may be difficult in our everyday, face-to-face interactions.

But it also can be misleading.

Several recent incidents have caused me to revise some of my pre-existing beliefs about a few fairly prominent education bloggers. I now think and feel differently about them than I did just a few months ago, simply because I now have more information and thus a more complete picture of who they are.

I’ve been thinking about this as I get ready to head to the ISTE conference later this week. I won’t necessarily be wary as I interact with my edublogger peers, but I may be just a little less willing to accept things as they appear on their face. Not much, just a tiny bit. Most of the time people are as they appear - face-to-face or online - and I’d rather be a naive, trusting optimist than a negative, surly skeptic. But we have to recognize that we all also have secrets, ones that may remain uncovered because of geographic and/or interactional distance.

That edublogger who’s active in Twitter every evening and has a bunch of followers? He seems cool but maybe he beats his kids.

That edublogger with 20,000 subscribers and a heart of gold online? She seems great but maybe she’s cheating on her spouse. Or a cutter.

That charming, effervescently cheery and witty edublogger that everyone loves to hang out with at the conference? He seems wonderful but maybe he’s embezzling funds. Or a kleptomaniac. Or a drunk driver.

As you head to the ISTE conference later this week, or simply interact with folks online, I leave you with the thought:

Can you ever really know that edublogger beside you?

Update: I'm not as pessimistic as this may read. I'm just thinking out loud here...

Image credit: In order to exist online we must write ourselves into being