[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

On June 28, I invited
bloggers and readers to participate in Leadership Day
on July 4.
Specifically, I asked participants of the blogosphere to write about effective
school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs, etc. A
variety of folks participated in the conversation:

  • Jeanette
    Johnson
    listed her Top Ten (Not So Good) Reasons Why Educational Leaders
    Don’t Embrace Digital Technologies
    .
  • Sylvia
    Martinez
    affirmed the importance of student leaders, saying that while we
    wonder where the future technology leaders ‘will come from, there they sit
    in front of us everyday, being ignored.
    ’
  • Chris Eldred has never
    worked under an administrator that made technology a priority of any kind. In
    fact, his current principal admits that e-mail isn’t a priority so no one
    e-mails her.
  • Along the same lines, Max
    at backbythebell
    wondered what it will take before administrators
    see enough benefit in IT tools to actually promote their usage in schools.
  • At Books
    and Bytes
    , RSS was identified as a perfect tool for job-embeddded training
    for administrators. An attempt also was made to aggregate
    all of the posts
    with the schooltechleadership
    tag
    .
  • Susan
    Brooks-Young
    listed some technology tools that she regularly recommends to
    principals.
  • Jennifer
    Lubke
    thinks that principals should let teachers count online participation
    in academic learning networks as required inservice hours.
  • Gerald
    Ardito
     affirmed the importance of leadership when
    it comes to technology and was appreciative
    of being in an encouraging and supportive environment
    .
  • Christopher
    Shively
    sadly noted that his university’s school administator certification
    program has had very little coverage of technology issues.
  • Tracy
    Rosen
    recognized that she ‘can not expect the teachers … to try something
    new if [she is] not willing to learn as well.
    ’
  • Steve
    Poling
    thinks administrators should be actively reading blogs by other
    administrators, teachers, and even students.
  • Similarly, VWB
    at A Library By Any Other Name
    highlighted a few blog posts that
    every administrator should read.
  • Jason
    Bednar
    believes that there is a lot of power in using wikis.
  • Carolyn
    Foote
    listed a number of different activities that can be used to facilitate
    technology conversations with administrators.
  • Kyle
    Brumbaugh
    noted that he wants to be a leader that works to five education
    ‘independence from the industrial age.’
  • The
    Coordinator’s Office
    described a successful technology training
    initiative that included administrators.
  • Glenn Moses said that
    independence and school leadership ‘don’t seem to hang out too
    much.
    ’
  • Brandon
    Waggoner
    does not believe that administrators need to be tech-savvy
    themselves to be effective technology leaders.
  • Doug
    Johnson
    helpfully listed some past articles and other resources on K-12
    technology leadership.
  • Dana Huff said that
    ‘many administrators don’t see the need for certain uses of technoogy …
    because they felt they got on all right, thank you very much, without them, so
    why should others need them?
    ’
  • Ruth Okoye said
    that principals who are falling behind in technology should staff to their
    weakness and lead by example. She also listed some helpful things that even
    non-tech-savvy principals can do.
  • Finally, my
    own post at the TechLearning blog
    emphasized the importance of appropriately
    designing professional development for administrators. (see also Patrick
    Higgins’ take on my list
    )

Thanks to everyone who contributed to Leadership
Day
, including the numerous people who commented on the
invitation post
, the TechLearning
blog
, or Dangerously
Irrelevant
. Maybe we’ll do it again next year!