This post is my contribution to Leadership Day 2014.
The term is thrown around in circles often and it is something that I have focused on in my work with students. What I concluded around the term was “the opportunity to use technologies to make a significant impact on the lives of others.” In schools, we have focused on the notion of “digital citizenship” for years, but the term seems to be very neutral. In reality, if I live in a city, I am a citizen in that area. Is talking about the mere existence of “being online” enough for our students? Are we really setting high expectations or as educators, have we set a rather low bar for what our students do online because we are unsure of the space and how to use it ourselves? And really, is it “digital citizenship” anymore in a world where every single student in our school has grown up in a world with Internet?
Not settling for the “status quo”, many administrators have jumped into the space to experiment, themselves, on how social media can make an impact in the work that they do in schools. Starting off as “citizens” in the space, many educators have played around with technologies to see how it could impact learning and relationships amongst both peers and students. The transition for many though, has gone into the leadership space, where they are sharing some of their learning in an open space to focus on making an impact on the lives of not only those students in their school and classroom, but helping teachers help students across the world. Although “Digital Leadership” has been a quote that has been used often in this type of work, the main components of leadership have not changed, but only amplified and accelerated. From experimenting myself and observing others, I have seen how “digital” has made a significant impact on not only the notion of leadership, but also the work that is underway in schools.
Accelerating Innovation
Innovation can simply be defined as doing things “better and different”, yet it is often used to replace the term (mistakenly) for technology. Innovation and technology are not necessarily synonymous although some organizations simply replace the word “edtech” with “innovation” in job titles, without really changing job descriptions. Innovation is a human endeavour and is really more about a way of thinking than it is about the “stuff”. Yet, the way we use technology now can really accelerate the process of innovation in schools and districts.
Two key components that are necessary to innovation are networks and remix. Great teachers have done this for years without social media, but with the ability to now connect with people all over the world, innovation can definitely be amplified. Networks are crucial to innovation, because they increase the ability to learn and share ideas with people. Concentrations of people in a specific area (known as “spikes”) already exist in our world. In North America, if you want to be a movie star, where do you go? If you want to become a country singer, where do you go? If you answered “Hollywood” and “Nashville” (in that order), you have identified a “spike”.
So where do “spikes” exist in education? Until now, there has been no real place since schools are all over the world. But with the thoughtful use of social media by educators all over the world, “spikes” have been created through a ton of teachers connecting through mediums such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. These types of networks are crucial to this accelerated growth and though often people complain that they can become an “echo chamber”, the changes and iterations to many ideas are really creating some great ideas that are impacting education. Things such as “Genius Hour”, which gives students the time to explore and create based on their own passions (paraphrased), are going viral, and although there are many that would suggest this type of learning should be the norm for the majority of time in our schools, implementing some of these ideas in small steps, are usually crucial to major changes.
As Chris Kennedy stated in his recent #LeadershipDay14 post, “you cannot microwave change”, that being said, change can happen a lot quicker now than it has before. This social sharing through these vast networks has been the spark for many great ideas.
That is where remix comes in.
Again, great teachers have always done this, but now, they just have a greater opportunity and community to tap into. Finding the idea is one thing, but making it applicable and work for your community, situation, and more importantly, your students’ needs, is where this is crucial. Seeing Josh Stumpenhorst share the idea of “Innovation Day” in Illinois, I watched as Jesse McLean made it into “Innovation Week” within Parkland School Division in Alberta. Remixes and iterations of this day/week, have been shared, remixed, and made applicable to kids of all ages all over the world.
The network is where the information has been found, but the ability to remix it for your own context is where innovation happens. This becomes a massive game of “telephone” where the idea starts off one way, but by the time it ends up in a specific spot, it could look totally different.
A Flattened Organization
This used to be done in our schools through an administrator seeing a great practice in a classroom, having the teacher share it in a staff meeting, and then others implement it in a way that they have seen makes sense for their students. It worked, but it was a much slower process and often relied on teachers being empowered to shared by their administrators. What “digital” provides is often an instant look into the classroom without waiting for those “once-in-awhile” meetings.
I remember in my first year of leadership, one of my mentor principals had shared how she believed that she was a better teacher now as a principal, because she saw teachers “teach” all of the time through visiting their classroom. I made this something that I implemented often in my work as an administrator, but my instructional leadership alone could only go so far. I wanted other teachers to see what I saw.
Having teachers watch other teachers in action is probably the best professional development any educator could get, but the reality is that because of time, space, and funds, this opportunity is often limited. What I wanted to see was the teachers creating this visibility into their classrooms through the use of social spaces. Instead of waiting for the meeting, a teacher can simply blog, create a video, or even tweet ideas of things that are happening in their classrooms.
This “visible learning” shared by the teacher, shows that learning and leadership can come from anywhere within your school. Many leaders have challenged this idea with the reasoning that teachers should “just talk to each other” and that digital shouldn’t replace that. From what I have seen, it has actually been the opposite. Conversations are often initiated from these “quick shares” that go on in the staff room, or after school. I have seen greater face-to-face connections because of this sharing, not only at the school level, but at the district level as well. It also shows that anyone can learn from anyone, the kindergarten teacher can make an impact on the principal, and vice-versa.
When we truly flatten our organizations this way, it makes us all better, because we not only better appreciate one another, but we tap into the “wisdom of the room”. We can do a lot more together than we ever could do apart.
Empowering Voice
There are many things wrong in the world of education today. Initiatives are often changed and it seems politicians are more concerned with “making a name” than “making a difference”. Traditional media has also hurt education in many ways by focusing on the bad stories that come out of school, rather than the good. It is not the idea that as educators we need to speak up now more than ever; education has always been in need of good public relations. It is just now the opportunities to share our voice are numerous, and we need to take advantage.
Through the constant sharing of not only what happens in school, but the way things are changing, we have the ability to not only connect on a global scale, but also locally. When I grew up, the sole concern of my parents was safety, but with a mass sharing of knowledge, comes a higher expectation from the public. The more we are informed, the more we expect. It is human nature for not only education, but for all organizations. This, in my opinion, is so positive to what we are trying to do with schools.
School websites have often shared things such as sporting events or concerts at schools, but they have not focused on conversations with our community. As many schools are trying to move forward in a much different time than many of us grew up in, it is essential that we not only share what is happening in our schools, but engage in true, two-way conversations with our communities. The more parents are brought into the learning that is happening in the classroom, the more likely their children will be successful. We have an opportunity to not only share our voice as educators, but we have many more avenues to hear the voices of our community, and more importantly, our students.
For example, Leyden High Schools, located in a suburb of Chicago, has recently turned over their Twitter account to an individual student in their school, one week at a time (found at twitter.com/LeydenPride). You are able to hear the experience of students in the school from their viewpoint, not the view of a school that is trying to “brand” it’s message. What this school has displayed (on several occasions) is that a school is defined by the experience the students have, and that they should not only engage them in conversation, but empower their kids to share their voice openly. They are not focusing on developing the “leaders for tomorrow”, but by empowering student voice right now, they are developing the leaders of today. Any great leader knows that their legacy is not defined by creating followers, but by developing leaders.
Empowering our teachers to share their voice and open the doors to what they do in the classroom, also gives our community a new perspective on what it is to be an educator, and how we are willing to go above and beyond for our kids. There are bad teachers in schools. You will find this to be true in any profession. Yet those teachers are in the minority, while the stories that were shared about them, through the media, were in the majority. What has changed is that many of our great educators are changing the narrative by sharing the incredible work that they are doing with students.
Unfortunately, there is still the mindset in many organizations that administrators need to “control” the story that is sent out about their schools. The feeling is that with every blog post, tweet, website, etc., approval must be obtained before it is shared. This is not leadership. Our job is to not control talent, but to unleash it. If you hired the teacher to work with children in a classroom, shouldn’t we be able to trust them to send out a tweet?
A teacher sharing their voice publicly, is often deemed risky. Although there are pitfalls and negatives that can happen, the positive far outweigh the negatives. As leaders, we can not simply ask our teachers to take a risk and share their voice with others, but model it ourselves. Often we promote that our staff “take risks”, but unless they are willing to see their leader “put themselves out there”, they feel it is not a chance that they are willing to take. Through these stories from our schools, we make a connection with people that “data and numbers” simply cannot convey. Stories from the classroom, are the ones that touch the hearts of our communities and other educators, and often lead to meaningful change.
Our voice as an education community is more important now than ever. How are you as a leader empowering others to share their voice?
Concluding Thoughts
The main components of leadership have not changed in the past few years because of the “digital revolution”, nor will they change in the future. Perhaps we just have a better understanding of the definition of “leadership” and how it differs from “management” (although both are crucial components to successfully leading an organization). The difference digital makes is that we can accelerate, amplify, and empower in a way that we couldn’t before. Great leaders take advantage of every opportunity in front of them, so that they can empower those that they serve. Cale Birk, a principal in Kamloops, BC, recently said that “better is not easier”; as leaders, we shouldn’t be looking for an easy way out. This work is tough, but the most important element is not necessarily where we are, but that we are moving forward.
It is pretty easy to say “do this”, but it is much better and more valuable to say “let’s do this together”. If we can show that as leaders we are willing to embrace change, and jump in to many of these new opportunities for learning with our communities, the impact we can make not only with our staff, but more importantly, our students, could be monumental.
