Where There Is No Path: Making a Great Leader in EdTech

Cross posted on EdtechDigest

What makes a great leader in education and technology these days? As I travel down the road of my professional career, I am constantly asking myself this question. Who out there is someone I can turn to, emulate? If I want to be considered a great leader, then what qualities should I possess? Is it knowledge of content? Should I be proficient in all use of technology hardware and software? Should I have a vision for the future and lead on the edge? What will it take for people to look at me and say, “He made a difference”?
Having started my teaching career in a very poor, inner-city school where over 85 percent of the students live at or below poverty level and just as many are Hispanic and speak English as their second language, I have learned a lot. Sixteen years ago, I was placed for my student teaching in a state-of-the-art, brand-new school where urban-trained educators out of Boston College such as myself were recruited and encouraged to come and stay in Lawrence, Mass.
During my student teaching, one of the most trans-formative things in my career happened to me. I took part in a study with Harvard Smithsonian Institute with Annenberg Media. I was asked to take a look at a single aspect of the curriculum that I was teaching, to find out what I didn’t like about it—and change it. Part of the curriculum that was given to me was for Science. It was pathetic. The whole curriculum was based on big discs called “Windows on Science”—the teacher was expected to follow a script from a book and to share science with their students through watching a video.
To make a long story short, I wanted to bring the fun, excitement and inquiry back to Science. I actually wanted to pull some of the technology out of it. I wanted students to get their hands on learning. In any case, the best part of the study was that—for the next two years—I was asked to be reflective on my teaching style. During the study, I was asked to regularly watch a video of myself after my teaching and to comment on it. I was asked to reflect on my teaching style. After it was over, the following year Annenberg came back and asked me to reflect on how the study had changed my teaching. To this day, I still do just that. I reflect. I look back on what I have done, and I ask myself, How can I do it better? A great leader will do just that, reflect.
My first few years of teaching, I was given six computers plus a teacher computer—a laptop. Though I had more access to technology than most of my peers did, the problem was that most teachers at this point had no idea what to do with it. Yes, my school was “cutting edge”—we had spent more in our K-8 school than most other schools. We had a built-in television studio, access to loads of software and plenty of opportunity to integrate technology in learning—but most of us had no idea where to start
At the time, I was given access to the whole Lotus suite that existed then. It was much like the Microsoft Office we know today, only made by IBM and Lotus. I had no idea how to use half of it, but I told myself that was no excuse. Near that time, I joined a group that helped transform our school from a K-8 school with over 1,300 students into a school-within-a-school. We were going to make our school one of the first middle schools in the district. During that summer, while planning for this change, I taught myself how to create and work with a database. I had never seen one before, but we needed a custom schedule for our students that first year and I wasn’t going to shy away from a challenge due to lack of knowledge; fear of not knowing was not going to stop me from finding out.
I started teaching myself the software, staying up countless hours at night—and I figured things out. I started having my students do project-based learning while using technology. They were presenting, making slide shows—they were integrating. I helped launch the television studio within our school and our students were producing a live broadcast daily. I was not going to be intimidated. I had received next to no formal training, but I knew this would engage my students. In my eyes, a great leader doesn’t shy away from a challenge. Instead, they face it head on and they do not back down. To this day, I still love to learn from those leaders who are blazing the trail. I know that they may make mistakes along the line, but mistakes are what help us grow.
A few years later, I was transferred to one of the oldest schools in my district, a marked contrast to where I had spent the first five or six years of my teaching career. I found myself in borrowed space while waiting for my transition to another, brand-new school. Man, was I humbled. I used to complain about things where I worked, but these people had nothing. They were teaching in a school building over 100 years old and most of what was in it looked like it had not been updated in nearly as long. In my room alone, the wiring was so poor that the fuse would blow about every 13 minutes. Things were changing, but not fast enough for me. Nonetheless, what I learned was immeasurable. I learned to be humble. I realized that there were many teachers out there operating just like these teachers, and had been for years.  They didn’t have the tools they needed to help them succeed. If they did, those tools were purchased with their own money. I realized that great teachers know when they may not have everything they need, but can still manage to inspire their students, other teachers and people around them. We as educators can still make a difference in the lives of many, even when we have so little. I learned the meaning of the old saying, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Even where most see failure, great leaders still see potential.
The next year, I was transferred to another state-of-the-art school within my district. Here is where I started to think I had reached my peak. Everything I could ever need or want was given to me. Once again, I was given a brand new television studio and the gift of being able to launch it and mold it into what I thought was best for our school. Every classroom had four PCs plus a teacher computer. Every classroom had a large-screen TV. My room had started as a wireless laptop lab, but was quickly transformed into a desktop PC lab and the laptops were placed in carts for teacher use.
Within a few years, we were given additional hardware such as business-quality video conferencing equipment and software such as Discovery Education streaming content, as well as many other resources. Problem was, there was lack of vision. Many people didn’t know best on how to use and integrate the equipment. Little if any training existed. It was here I learned that, if I was going to learn any of it, I would (once again) need to teach myself.
I had so many tools at my disposal; I started to figure things out. Every teacher computer had a video card installed. With this card, I figured out I could connect the computer in the classroom to the TV hanging on the wall, so I simply went around and started connecting computers. I reached out to others in the district and I sought help as needed. Boy, I thought I was the cat’s meow. I was giving up my planning period and I training others in my building. I was transforming my school and I thought I knew everything a great technology teacher needed to know, but I was also starting to feel like I was no longer being challenged any longer, and this began to worry me. I knew from back when I first started teaching that a great leader is one who knows that a day where nothing new is learned is a wasted day. I was not ready to start wasting days. I had too long to go.
One day, I reached out to a career counselor to give me guidance. I knew there was so much more potential for me to become a great leader, but I didn’t know where to start. I had to learn much more if I was to become that great leader I wanted to be. What happened there changed my life.
Of the many things she taught me that I found useless as an educator, one thing in particular stuck: she told me that I needed to get myself on “LinkedIn”. Little did she know at the time how powerful professional networks could be. I joined and started looking to others for guidance. I had a look at what other great leaders in the instructional technology world were up to. Steve Hargadon was one of the many who turned me on to the power of professional networks. It was then that I learned there was so much more I could learn from others. It was here that I found my passion to share with others what I was learning, too. A great leader, you see, doesn’t live on an island. If he wants to truly lead, he has to realize that his true strength is in helping others realize their potential by being that support in times of need. A great leader realizes just how small our world truly is and helps others realize the impact we all can have on each other.
So, here I am tonight—still contemplating the questions: How can I become a great leader? What qualities does a great leader in educational technology truly possess? What do I have to do to help others reach their potential and give them the training and skills they truly need so to become just that leader? How do I truly support them and in turn become that great leader?
One thing is for sure, a quote I learned back in my Eagle Scout days still rings true in me today. It’s from an unknown source—undoubtedly some great leader (sometimes Ralph Waldo Emerson is given credit for it), and it goes like this: Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Who Needs Ed Reform Anyway?

Origionally Posted on EdtechDigest

Whatʼs all this talk about tech-fueled education reform lately, anyway? Why change anything?
Why can’t kids simply learn like we did when we were little? Look, I turned out okay and I never had access to all of that tech gadgetry and blended, mobile mumbo jumbo thatʼs out there now, when I was a kid. Don’t people know that all of this technology is expensive? Whatʼs wrong with students carrying around a bunch of big textbooks in their bag, anyway?
Okay, okay, so you child carries around twenty-five to thirty pounds on their back all day? Considering the current Letʼs Move movement, moving that kind of weight is good exercise! Yeah, I know. They do take up a lot of locker space, but how much trouble can it be for a student to go to his or her locker every time he or she needs a book? Sure, most trouble happens when students linger at their lockers chatting it up and hang out unattended, but teachers can figure it out, right?
Whatʼs that? Your school doesnʼt have lockers? Well, canʼt students just store their bags in the classroom? They donʼt take up that much room, do they? You say that a problem with this is that you know what else a student might have in their bag that they take out during class instead of the needed book? Well, surely you can figure that out, too, canʼt you?
Whoah, hold on—wait a second. Okay, youʼre saying that your textbooks are five, even ten years old? Worn? Written on? Written in? Missing pages? Well, how bad is that, really? How much can this world change in a decade, seriously? Plutoʼs still a planet, Bush is still President, and whatʼs all this talk about Common Core, anyway?
Sure, digital textbooks and content are cool—so what? You think they can be rapidly updated? Alright, alright. Well, fine. Who doesnʼt want an iBook? You canʼt get everything you want. Sure, I wish I had one when I was growing up. I suppose, if I had one back then, I guess Iʼd probably love learning on it, watching the videos, digging through interactive images, getting real-time, immediate information, taking instant- feedback quizzes, digital notes, even creating my own book.
But really—thatʼs gonna cost a pretty penny! Wayyy more expensive than any textbook! I mean, whatʼs a textbook cost these days, anyway? Canʼt be nearly as much.
What?! iBooks are much less expensive? Seriously, how do you figure? Well, canʼt a teacher just fill their students in on what theyʼre missing, anyway? I mean, an iBook isnʼt that cool, is it? Think about it: we could save double.
Sure, sure. Kids these days. Theyʼre interactive learners. Theyʼre growing up in a new media age. They watch more television than we ever did, play more and better video games, and are always online. Sure, most carry a thousand songs in their nano pocket device thingies, anywhere, anytime, blah blah blah. Theyʼre mobile, theyʼre totally wired, connected, plugged in and so on. They can connect to anything anywhere anytime anythis anythat and get any answers theyʼre looking for if they can just formulate the question. But letʼs stay focused—what does that really have to do with learning?

Granted, all of this new social media mobile yeah yeah technology is definitely cool— donʼt get me wrong. I myself have an iPod, iPad, Wii, laptop, netbook, desktop PC and smartphone. Sure, a lot of that stuff really helps me—with my job, communication, filling downtime, socializing with far-away friends and family, my whole life depends upon it— and yes, when itʼs down or I totally misplace it for about four seconds I totally freak out—but cʼmon, really? Why canʼt kids go for eight hours or so without it? Itʼs a learning environment! Theyʼre not business people! Let them read tattered texts.
Okay, really, Iʼll be fair: they can just bring the devices they have from home—to school! Problem solved—errr, wait a sec. District what? Policy? Youʼve got policies against it? Well, teachers are great for that. Theyʼre on the front lines—Iʼm sure they can figure that out, too.
In any case, all of this talk reminds me of when I was a kid. What I mean is, whenever I didnʼt do (or didnʼt want to do) my homework—Iʼd tell my teacher how my little brother destroyed it on our way in, or how my dog ate it, and Iʼd ask the teacher if I could bring it in the next day—or, Iʼd just not do it. Sometimes Iʼd just lose one of those million papers they would give me, Iʼd run out of notebook pages, or I had no way to get it on paper that day and Mom and Dad worked, so I just wouldnʼt do it. Other times the worksheets were just too boring. Boy, those were the good olʼ days! At the rate weʼre going, kids today canʼt get away with that. Technology solves too much. But Iʼm sure the teacher…
I know—Iʼve been leaving quite a bit for the teacher to figure out. And sure, they have to teach my child every day. Yes, Iʼve heard it all: overcrowded classrooms, mile-wide, inch-deep teaching to the test, aligning to Common Core State Standards, busy answering calls, requests, and emails, emails, emails from parents and administration. They go on for hours about all they have to do. When I have a lot to do at work, I just sit down at my computer and get it done! I surely canʼt do it at home—the kids are running around—itʼs so distracting! A nice quiet office is so much more conducive to optimal production.
Whatʼs that? Some teachers only have one computer in their class? And the students are on it? Seriously, when do they ever get their work done? No wonder teachers take so long getting back to me! Canʼt they just find a quiet space and respond immediately? When I need to type something, it only takes a few seconds. Gotta print something? Even faster. Whatʼs that? Teachers have to print to the photocopier? Hey, thatʼs not so bad. Oh, you’re saying that other teachers have been using it for lack of great content and theyʼve made so many copies itʼs now broken? Well, hereʼs their chance to learn something about technology, right?!
Seriously, though. Canʼt we change some of this? I mean, how do they work this way? This would drive me crazy, Iʼm quite sure.

But you know what? Iʼm also quite sure with all those students they serve and keeping track of all that learning that those teachers get paid like doctors. Theyʼre making it possible for our students to succeed in life with 21st-century learning, after all—and god knows I want my student to get a first-rate education, to be able to compete in a global economy, to be ready for their future, to have access to the best at home and at school.
I want them to have the best education in the world. I do. I want it all! Truly, I do! So…what will it really take? Maybe this is something teachers could use some help on—I’m betting, somehow, we might be able to figure this out together.