@McLeod, Circa 2006

In Scott McLeod's inaugural blog post of Dangerously Irrelevant, he said, "This blog is intended to highlight and help with the leadership issues related to K-12 technology. We can (and do) pour ungodly sums of money into teacher training, student programs, and infrastructure – these are all good. However, we will see few tangible, sustainable benefits in most places until they have leaders who know how to effectively implement, build upon, and sustain those initiatives. We need more effective technology leaders. We need them in formal leadership positions like principal and superintendent rather than informal, often powerless positions like media specialist or technology coordinator. We need them now." 


Indeed, we are still talking about the need for leadership, and we still need significantly better leadership from principals and superintendents when it comes to the meaningful integration of technology into education. Looking at this through the lens of an archeological dig (of sorts), the very content of McLeod's blog points to how we've changed our approach to #edtech reform.  


Here's a Wordle of McLeod's blog posts in August and September, 2006.

We can see that the word "school" has significant standing along with "technology," "schools," and then "students." The words "leadership, administrators, teachers, district, leaders, and student" also have ancillary prominence.

Here's a Wordle of McLeod's blog posts in October, November, December of 2011 and January, 2012.

Immediately, we see that the word "student" holds the biggest prominence in the wordle, followed by "technology," "learning," and "need." The word "School" holds a subordinate place in the wordle. If I squint my eyes, I can see "leadership" and "teachers," but I don't see "district," "administrators," or "leaders" at all. I think this represents a change of focus, a change in McLeod's internal dialogue. McLeod's own "shift" in focus (from writing about school reform to writing about student-centered learning) is exactly the shift that we must all make.

At Dangerously Irrelevant's inception, it was a blog focused on "formal" leadership issues involving meaningful technology integration. What it may have evolved into is a more eclectic, wide-ranging blog that focuses on student learning. The realization here is one of purpose. The intent of administrative #edtech development is to instill a deeper appreciation for and to cultivate a powerful inclination to leverage digital tools for student-centered learning. That is, the moment we all shift our focus--just as McLeod has over time--from focusing on administrative #edtech development to student-centered educational reform; that is, the the moment we shift our focus from #edtech reform in schools to leveraging #edtech for student-centered learning, then we are closer to the antithesis of administrative irrelevance.

The New Transformational Trend: People

The following graphic prompts us to peek into the future. Certainly, we all look to technology as a primary driver of change, yet the trends below are about people and not technology. This is not to say that we can't look at how the trends below work in, with and around social media networks, but what is easy to discern is that people of varying agency and ideology are driving these transformative trends, not digital tools alone. Indeed, the focus on "People" is a trend for transformation.

Created by Brian Solis Flickr: b_d_solis

So, let's cross-walk this concept (of the importance of people over technology alone) over to education and look at the digital tools being proposed as solutions to our "crisis." Teachers still scaffold remediation after classrooms have been "flipped"; teachers still accommodate, manage, and leverage iBooks after New iPads have been integrated; and teachers still formatively assess, elicit growth, provide support, and respond to varying learning styles after mobile phones have been successfully accepted into schools.

So, how does this realization change our conversations? How does this realization (of the both constraining and enabling influence of people on digital tools) change how we look for solutions? Are are concepts such as the "flipped classroom" fads that distract us from the real work, which is to develop people?

The Superintendency: It's a Calling

It all started with this. It's a great post with thoughtful considerations on becoming a building principal. My comment, however, was to also think about the superintendency:

"Yes, building administrators are retiring every day, but so are superintendents. Indeed, we need courageous building principals to take on the challenge of district leadership too!"

This prompted Curt Rees (@wiscprincipal) to charge me with the following homework:

Accordingly, here is my sponsorship and advertisement, encouraging building-level principals to consider becoming superintendents.

Under "Normal" Circumstances?

Here, Pew Research Center does a quirky overview of the "new normal," which includes increased accessibility at home, increased use of mobile devices, and increased use of social networking by all demographics. This all leads to the 8 "realities."

The emerging information landscape The 8 realities of the “new normal”

View more presentations from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

After clicking through this slideshow, what strikes you as concerning or inspirational? What "hits home" when reflecting upon our systems that teach kids, or that help them transition through stages of their lives? Is our blueprint agile enough? Do our information policies scale up to new medias? How do our attitudes and our skill-sets allow us to understand these revolutionary shifts?

AASA 2012

I am honored to have the unique opportunity this year to present for my colleagues at AASA's National Conference on Education. My presentation is on administrative compression in small, rural schools (PPT below). Check the current schedule of events for my most up-to-date time and location for the presentation if interested. You can follow the Twitter discussion for the national conference with the hashtag, #nce12.

The Part-Time Superintendent-WASDA/WASB

View more PowerPoint from bradfordgs

I am also exceedingly honored to be an eSchool News Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awardee for 2012. With company like William Skilling (@SuptSkilling) and Daniel Frazier (@DanielLFrazier), the award is certainly a humbling privilege, as it is a honor to serve the kids, teachers, and families of Wisconsin.

A Place of Our Own (Guest Post)

The following post was written by David Bell (@dtbell22) regarding a recent day of internal professional development. It was the single best day of teacher development that I have ever experienced, anywhere in my career. The peer-to-peer collaborative instruction resulted in high ownership. The boots-on-the-ground knowledge of actual tool implementation made for high interest. The embedded nature of the sessions substantially decreased distance between the act of development and the place where the new learning would be executed. Finally, hands-on, action-oriented sessions made for a great opportunity to play, experiment, problem-solve, and learn. I've never been prouder of the staff. 

On Friday, January 27th our faculty participated in an educational technology workshop. The exciting part is that we did not have to visit another school or have an expert guest speaker flown in. Teachers participated in 21 different learning sessions led by their colleagues. It was an opportunity for our staff to showcase the educational tools being implemented in their classrooms and to model how these technologies enhance instruction. The benefit to a professional development activity of this nature is that our teachers now have access to a local network of experts. I am confident that all teachers learned more applications that will strengthen their instruction.

Sessions included:

• Embedding Media into Websites  (Paula Niedbalski)
• Developing a Blog (Nick Bakke, @bakke3129, The Ed Tech Gurus)
• Using Google Forms in the Classroom  (Paula Niedbalski)
• A Paperless Classroom with Dropbox and Other Tools (Jodi Glaze, @KungFuSpanish)
• IPODs as a Testing Accommodation (Caleb Hundt, @hundtcaleb, The Ed Tech Gurus)
• How to Flip Your Classroom (David Bell, @dtbell22)
• Creating Screencasts with Jing (Brad Saron, @bradfordgs)
• Web 2.0 Research (Nick Bakke, @bakke3129,  The Ed Tech Gurus)
• Skyward Reports (Julie Lundeen)
• Digital photo presentations with Animoto (Nick Bakke, @bakke3129, The Ed Tech Gurus)
• Twitter:  Create your own Personal Learning Network (Ryan Alderson, @aldersonr)
• Skype and Facetime (Dawn Capwell)
• Picasa Photo Editing and Web Album (Caleb Hundt, @hundtcaleb, The Ed Tech Gurus)  
• Evaluating Apps and District Guidelines (Ryan Brown)
• The Instructional Uses of Document Cameras (Colleen Curtis)
• Google Reader as a Professional Development Tool (Colleen Curtis)
• Creating a website on Google Sites (Sarah Wallace, @WallaceSarahE and Karen Alderman)
• IPADS for Beginners (Alissa Sanders, @asanders329)
• Technology Assisted Instruction with the IPAD (Megan Menzynski, @MrsMenzy)
• Handwriting Recognition Apps on IPADS (Megan Menzynski, @MrsMenzy)
• Using Livescribe Pens on your Class Website for Remediation and Reteaching (Julie Lundeen)
• Using Google Forms for Formative Assessment (Paula Niedbalski)

A few pictures from the event:

Mrs. Sanders presenting on iPad Basics

Mrs. Lundeen leading a session on the Smart Pen and Websites

Mr. Woodhouse and Mr. in App Evaluation for District Guidelines

Mr. Bakke helping us set up Diigo accounts for research

Using iPods for testing accommodations with Mr. Hundt

This blog is crossposted here. 

My Digital Dictionary

Over the last three years, I've had the need to express particular ideas and thoughts that have not yet been captured by existing verbiage. Accordingly, I've taken it upon myself to coin the following new words:

Reader Fatigue: The cognitive exhaustion that is a result of continual flow of great information from a Google Reader. Synonyms: Mental Overload.

Digital Hording: The compulsive behavior (mostly by teachers) to save every bit of any file, program, or application on a home directory-no matter what the significance of the file.

Tweet Groupie: The sycophantic flatter who engages others on twitter for the purpose of self promotion as opposed to participating in and contributing to a digitally-oriented professional learning community. Self disclosure: I began my digital journey this way out of naivete.

Blog Crush: A high admiration and idolization of a colleague's blog, including the ideas expressed, connections made, and subsequent transformation triggered.

Post Prudence: The realization that comes once the colleagues you admire the most now follow you and your blog. Example: Once you know that @mcleod follows your twitter feed, you can't say stupid crap anymore.

Follower Balance: The idea that in a digitally-oriented professional learning community, you should be as interested in what others have to say as what you have to say. Hence, there should be somewhat of a balance between who follows you and whom you follow. Antonym: Tweet vanity.

Tab Collecting: The act of collecting tabs within your browser as a way of remembering that you want to tweet or blog about it later in the day.

4 O'Clock Push: The rush of tweets that appears from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. as a result of twitter users not wanting their bosses to know that they've been surfing the net while on the job. Note: Twitter users will collect tabs during the course of the day and then push them out after the formal end of the work day.

Tweet Noise: Random, unrelated, or hollow posts that are sprinkled into our personalized twitter feed. Used in sentence: Once I got past the tweet noise this morning, I found three wonderful blog posts that I bookmarked, and one that I commented on. 

5 a.m. Twitter Clutch: The unusual mixture of British twitterers that are just about to go to bed and the North American twitterers that have gotten up early, all of whom to converse and share insights on twitter.

One-Upman Twittery: The practice of outdoing others in one's digitally-oriented professional learning community by responding to a colleague's post with a parallel story about oneself with even more elaborate outcomes.

Have you ever experienced any of these? Do you have any terms that you have coined to describe situations or experiences you frequently encounter?