Thursday 10 April 2014

ICT - Leadership

Over the past two years I do not feel I have developed much as a leader and probably turned into the person that just does the stuff that others don't, as I get paid for it. This was never my intenetion when I took on the Assitant Principal role but has what has come out of it. Over the past two years I had lost my passion for teaching and leading learning altogether. I bacame a person that came to school did my job and left. Regretting the decision I made to leave by 1:1 digital room. I came to Coley under the impression that they were a mile a head with IT and digital learning everything was humming, staff, community and BOT were all on board and this was learning for the new work place.

However, after 2 years of getting the foundations set we are ready to take off and I am excited. We are at a 2:1 ratio with nearly 1:1 in the senior school. We have a mixed model of iPads and computers in the Junior and Middle school with the vision to moving to all iPads. I have hit obstacles and challenges both positive and negative along the way. I did not consider that when I gave staff 6 months to play on iPads that some may not even want? That what was the point? That some would come to me and ask for help? That possibly some people see me as unapproachable? These are the hard facts. I needed to go back to the drawing board and decide what to do. 1st step find my love of IT and learning agian I love IT and know the impact it can create in the learning environment used as a tool. I know we need to be connected! We are inspired by the unknown and the ability to access what ever I need to know at my fingertips. Prior to this year I have not been able to blend it into learning effectively at Coley as I simply did not have enough tools. It was just a rotation rather than a tool for learning. So what to do....

 I had a chat to our service provider about a management system for our iPads. They gave me a brief tour around Meraki. After 1 hour I left and thought great. I have just purchased 23 iPads and have a new lease of 53 coming, plus the the 15 odd we already had. I was excited. My fire had reignited. I wanted to get started, and in my true nature I wanted it done now! I couldn't wait for the tech to come in two weeks to show me another little bit. I started on an iquiry to teach myself. It was hard! There were sleepless nights, all weekend working, morning and nights dedicated to IT. Lots I did not know. Some times I had to stop and just have a break to come back too. I wanted to learn. I googled, facebooked and youtubed. I read the apple website a million times. I went on the VLN and saw I wasn't the only person having problems. I learnt from their feedback. Guess what??? I completed a successful inquiry! The iPads are now set up! I know the system inside out! Gee was I proud. Now it was time to hit them in the classroom.

 I learnt a lot from my first round of being a 1:1 digital teacher so this time my instructions were clear. My intentions on the links to learning were clear! I was about to educate. But it wasn't all about me and my class, I needed for this to filter down. So first point my team. T was already ICT savy and last conference they talked about growing from the grass roots up rather than being the gate keeper. I had been the gate keeper. It was now time to start sharing! I gave T the admin rights to set her students up with email. We discussed how we would be using them in class. I shared the blogs my class were doing. She liked it and tried! Wow this was going to be easy to filter through the staff. However, it is not! T is similar to myself we are loud and have lots of ideas, we will run with new things and embrace them. Not everyone on staff is like us and not everyone in my class is like that either. How can I get my staff as excited as us? I then came across this clip:


I wasn't buying in my staff.  They didn't know why we were moving to digital learning to help achievement.   I need to show them how they can it can be used in the classroom.  I need to show them what apps they can use.  

Hey and guess what?  This needs to apply in my classroom.  Am I actually taking notice.  So writing will always state why are we writing?  How are we going to do the writng?  What do we need to make sure that we are successful?  I need to provide this transfer.


So where to from here in ICT leadership.  1 st step is to run a staff meeting with the inquiry probe.  Why do we need ICT in classrooms?

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