All Principals Should Be Tech Savvy

Is it necessary for an administrator to become proficient in using a variety of technologies? Understand how the tools work? Become truly “tech-savvy?” The answer, increasingly, is yes. In addition to daily interactions with my personal learning network, two recent reads and a meaningful experience at ISTE 2011 have influenced my thinking about the role of the administrator in 21st century teaching and learning.

Igniting the Heart of Learning in the Collaborative Age

Guest author Sister Geralyn Schmidt writes: “Connectivity allows students to learn not only from experts in the field but from other students as well. No longer is one restricted to what can be accomplished in close physical proximity. But, to quote a comic book superhero, ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’ We have a duty, as educators, to instruct our students to a higher good, not just the good for me. With our guidance, they can become participants in myriad collaborative communities that can affect change for the betterment of society.”

Should We Shrink Wrap Our School Libraries?

Because of the state of the economy and Ohio’s school funding, our district recently pink-slipped 61 educators. Ten of those are library staff. Some districts in similar circumstances chose to close their libraries and shrink wrap their collections. We won’t do that. What we are doing is talking with designers, leaders, and librarians with experience and vision. We’re asking lots of questions, seeking models that do not replicate the stacks of the past.

Confessions of a Closet Constructivist

Most of our current classes structurally discourage cooperation and collaboration. For many hours of the day, our students are expected to sit and learn by themselves. I have to confess that all of the years I’ve taught, my classroom has been teacher-centered. Students facing the front. Me talking. Next year my classroom will be different.

How We're Cultivating Inventive Thinkers in the Middle Grades

Guest blogger Chris Preston shares three unifying concepts identified by his team during a year of action research around inventive thinking: The learning experience must be (1) authentic, (2) connected, and (3) collaborative. “At the conclusion of our instruction,” he says, “many students commented that they would approach solutions to questions much differently in the future: ‘It changed how I look at projects,’ one said, ‘by really opening up my surroundings to more insightful sources of information, and not focusing just on knowledge I can find here at school.'”

Constructing History in Our High School Project-Based Classroom

“This past school year,” writes guest blogger Margaret Haviland, “our exploration of World War I was designed to enable students to construct their own knowledge and their own meaning within a framework established by myself and my intern. This framed, project based, self directed approach was our method all year.” The task before her students: “Figuring out what they needed to learn, both to answer the questions we generated together and to understand the topics they wanted to more completely understand.”