Instructional leaders and Servant Leaders are critical to the progress and success of learning institutions. Whether school culture is top down, bottom up, or flattened, the work begins with the leader who is responsible for the caretaking of the culture, and progress of mission and school improvement. Web 2+ tools are pervasive in the lives of students, outside the school doors. Bringing those tools in, as 23 Things would show, can dramatically impact learning and instructional practices.
21st Century Skills are critical for students to develop. For this to happen, school staff need to master the same skills set. Incoming new teachers do come with a technology skills set, and perhaps including Web 2+ tools. But the culture of schools tend to be early 20th Century institutions where collaboration and communication among staff and the global society is in its infancy. How can we as leaders build a 21st Century skills based culture? Part of the answer is to model and walk the walk. 23 Things will provide some answers.
Blogs can be an effective tool for adult learning. 23 Things is an obvious example. As a leader of a writer's group, I developed a writer's version of 23 things, modeled from 23 Things for Teachers. As school leaders, the same can be done for staff, developed alone, or better yet, collaboratively with school improvement or other teams. I look forward to seeing more of how 23 Things can be used by administrators.
It will be interesting to see where you thoughts lead while doing double duty -- both from a teacher and administrator perspective.
ReplyDeleteHi RESA23Things,
ReplyDeleteThanks Teach. I'm excited by the possibilities in the different perspectives. My work explores and supports the connections between the groups.