School Leadership

To produce college-and-career-ready students, technology has to be at the forefront of learning. An administrator should have a clear vision and guidelines to ensure there is meaningful and purposeful technology integration within the curriculum.  Building leaders should create a strategic plan for the creation of personal learning communities and professional development to empower educators to increase their personal growth in technology. Administrators need to be focused on being an active part of technology integration through modeling, facilitating, and planning. The educational environment that is technology and media-rich fosters a culture of innovation which ultimately leads to academic

The idea of every student fitting into one box is long gone in education. More and more schools and organizations are putting their efforts into providing individualized learning that will allow students to work at their own pace and achieve success. With this is the growing use of technology to achieve the goals of proficiency and to provide students with effective and engaging lessons to master content. Technology in education is continuing to grow each school year causing state and local school districts to form policies to support the effective and transformational use of technology and its impact in classroom instruction.

As technology advances at a rapid rate, it's almost impossible for learning institutions to keep up with formal professional development. Digital learning coaches, facilitators, and teachers must be persistent and find informal professional learning opportunities to be on the cutting edge of technology and learning. My own curiosity has led me to grow my professional learning network (PLN.) The following are examples of how I engage in continual learning opportunities that deepen my content and technology skills and knowledge as explained in indicator 6a.

With recent advances in technology and access to the Internet, teachers can improve their connections beyond their face-to-face networks, ask help and support, and access vast quantities of professional knowledge

An analysis of research on educational leadership acknowledges the importance of the principal in the elementary and secondary school setting. As a leader, the principal’s role has developed from one of a managerial position to one of an instructional leader who also manages. Cheney and Davis (2011) note that “The old job of principal as administrative building manager is no longer sufficient to dramatically improve student achievement. The job has evolved into a highly complex and demanding position that requires strong instructional and leadership skills” (para. 5). Northouse (2013) states that “to manage means to accomplish activities and master routines, whereas to lead means to influence others and create visions for change” (p. 13).

Innovative use of technology continues to expand in public schools. The goal is no longer to purchase and teach students how to use technology, but to improve the integration of technology in the classroom so that its use is seamless and intuitive to the learning process. Technology leadership is integral to this improvement. Visionary leadership in technology provides structure, guidance, and support to education programs.

School districts are spending a large part of their budget on technology. The demand on teachers is ever increasing to keep up. Many teachers have not had the computer background that today’s students have been exposed to; this requires teachers to learn and keep up with current technology. Teachers can learn from their students just like the students learn from their teachers. Students have more exposure to modern technology and help the teachers learn. Technology can help make the job of the teacher easier and more efficient. A person’s attitude makes a difference in success with technology. Acceptance of change and eagerness to learn new things will make it an easier transition!

In order to understand how teachers connect to each other online, I draw on the literature about communities of practice. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) define communities of practice as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (p. 4). Characteristics of communities of practice within the workplace have been documented in sociological and anthropological literature (Wenger, 1999; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). Communities of practice are a useful means to manage knowledge and sustain innovation (Dubé, Bourhis, & Jacob, 2006). Within a community of practice, there are established norms and knowledge that newcomers learn. Communities of practice can connect people from multiple organizations as well as isolated individuals. New

The rapid development of technology and social media in education pose a wide array of learning possibilities and challenges in schools. As the new principal in ABC school district, examination of the varying circumstances of these relatively new phenomena in the high school setting will be crucial to the academic success and safety of students in an increasingly digital world. Furthermore, development of digital leadership skills for teachers, administrators, parents, and students will represent a trend toward positive social change. As the adoption of technology tools continues to increase in all demographics, a gap exists between the increasing ubiquity of these tools and the development of competent leaders and education programs supporting positive digital competencies. This response to the provided scenario will identify and address the challenges associated with transitioning to an influential leadership role in the ABC school district, while developing a collaborative school culture that will lead to collective responsibility, knowledge and accountability for an emerging future.

Three trends I have noticed in the Education realm of Technology are Project Based Learning, Data Informed Decisions and World-Class Standards and Personalized Professional Development. In defining Project Based Learning, this occurs where students are involved in identifying and solving a problem in and out of the classroom. Data Informed Decisions occurs where data is used to drive curriculum-based decisions in the classroom. School leaders and district administrators normally make these decisions for schools. World-Class Standards and Personalized Professional Development is defined as a new tool for teachers, as they are now conducting training by using computers instead of in-person. In today’s society teachers are taking the initiative of educating themselves professionally.

The goal of the study is to show that social media can deepen the understanding of the material by allowing open and quick communication between peers and teachers thus creating an environment for increasing engagement in the classroom.

The changing landscape of technology in today’s classrooms can be seen by observing students who were once thought of as a passive learner are now becoming active learners while engaging in technology infused lesson plans. Teachers today are using web-enhanced programs that allow students to actively process the information presented and to further research the presented information allowing students the ability to make their own choices on how to proceed with assignments. This has in turn changed the teacher’s role as to one of a facilitator (as was mentioned in this class in the beginning of the semester) by allowing the teacher to set the projects goals and deadlines while providing support and input for student led activities.

The professional development of teachers should be an important objective for school administrators, since teachers affect student lives daily. Understandably, teachers are required to receive formal training and certification, based primarily on subject matter content, communication skills, classroom management abilities, and student interaction. An important consideration is the professional development training that teachers receive and the method used to deliver the training. Of course, there is the traditional face-to-face method, but with organizations, seeking ways to reduce training cost and travel expenses technology is an effective alternative for training. Technology implementation increased to reach the needs of teacher

Near the dawn of the twenty-first century, Ertmer described two forms of barriers impacting teacher use of technology in the classroom. First, there were external barriers that teachers had to overcome including hardware, software, training, and support. Second, were internal barriers including their confidence in working with technology, views about how students learned, and their professed value of technology (Ertmer, 2012).

There are many ways teachers are choosing to use technology. Technology is a strategy that is very beneficial if used in the right way. There are so many different ways teachers can incorporate technology into the classroom. A survey was taken by teachers across