Technology Standards

1. The new administators standards should definitely parallel the new teacher standards. To be an effective leader, an administrator must facilitate learning in his/her professional learning community, communicate with and model digital tools, promote digital citizenship, and lead in professional growth in the digital age. Administrators have to be instructional leaders in this digital world. For those of us who have been in education many years, it is not always easy to embrace this new world of technology; however, if we are to be effective leaders, we have to be receptive to learning the digital tools ourselves, promoting and modeling them, and keeping up with the "cutting edge" of technology for our teachers' and students' sakes. One particular obective of standard number 1 for administrators is to "foster and nurture a culture of responsible risk taking and advocate policies promoting continuous innovation wih technology." I totally agree that as leaders we have to be "brave enough" to take these risks so that we can create a learning environment for all that models what the world of education looks like today.
2. As I looked at the administrators standards and the six focus areas, it seems that all areas of focus have been covered. I do feel that there needs to be more monitoring by the administrators to ensure that technology infusion is realistically taking place in all classrooms. These words are found in the administrators standards: ensure, model, foster, nurture, provide, apply, create, participate, support, maintain, assess, evaluate, implement, and allocate. If all of these things are truly done by an administrator, then technology infusion will occur. The administrator must be a continuous visible participant and observer in these digital practices or it will be very easy for some involved to just fall back to "the old way of doing things."
3. My reaction to the administrators standards is one of agreement from the heart, but one of skepticism from actual practice that I have seen on the part of administrators. Administrators also need support from their districts to be able to implement this digital world. One particular objective under standard number 4 for administrators states, "allocate financial and human resources to ensure complete implementation of technology plan." This definitely needs support from the district so that the administrator will have what is needed to indeed take our teachers and students into the digital world of the 21st century.

21st century skills article and site

This appears to be an interesting and very useful article and site. I plan to share it with my history teachers this week. We are trying to provide technology infusion in all the classes of the 8th/9th grade transition academy. This will be most helpful. Everyone should check it out!

Learning to Blog

It is so great that I am learning do this because I will be sharing it with the teachers in the 8th/9th Grade Transition Academy that I direct. I am planning professional development at the end of the month for them so that first we can create a blog for our "teacher group," and then we will follow up with the teachers learning to set up a blog for their students. I am trying hard to learn the digital language. As I talk with more and more teachers, I find that I am not alone at all in learning how to blog. My teachers in the transition academy are excited about learning this "digital language" also!

NEW "STUFF"!

Welcome, everyone! I have learned something new today!