Interesting perspective. One more reason we need to create high quality lesson powered by technology vs same old lesson distracted by technology.
THE ELEPHANT AND THE RIDER
Jonathan Haidt's metaphor of the elephant and the rider is useful here. In Haidt's telling, the mind is like an elephant (the emotions) with a rider (the intellect) on top. The rider can see and plan ahead, but the elephant is far more powerful. Sometimes the rider and the elephant work together (the ideal in classroom settings), but if they conflict, the elephant usually wins.
May be an interesting site to introduce teachers to during collaboration tools. Projects and ways to connect with other classrooms. Appears "Free" but I wonder if experts charge for time.
he is giving high school students a pivotal role in serving as technology troubleshooters, and he runs a monthly "tech night" for parents to teach them the skills their children are learning in school. Beyond that, Larkin designed a special "playtime" after professional-development sessions to let teachers experiment with new technologies, alongside experts who offer guidance.
He is modeling the commitment by blogging and tweeting regularly about ed-tech problems and solutions, and relying on his own virtual network of peers and experts he can reach out to for advice at any time, primarily via Twitter.
"Teachers have started their own blogs highlighting activities in the classroom," he says. "I never told them to do it, but I said, 'Wouldn't it be nice if a parent could find out what their child is doing?'
It found that high-quality leadership was "essential" to better use of technology, and that schools whose leaders had properly implemented 1-to-1 programs, for example, saw significant improvements in everything from test scores to dropout rates, over both schools without such programs and those without properly implemented programs.
And there are characteristics and techniques that successful leaders in the ed-tech field share—everything from risk-taking to regularly using pilot projects to test initiatives before expanding them.
It was once enough for school and district leaders to surround themselves with people who understood technology, but the leaders themselves didn't necessarily need deep technology know-how. That is changing, some say.
"Modeling is crucial. If you want your kids and teachers to be users of 21st-century tools, … you have to show that you can do it too," he says. "It shows that I'm still a teacher—I can still instruct and still learn."
Every two weeks, Cook schedules "Tech Friday" before school, in which teachers can highlight a particular app, software program, or technological device, or simply ask questions of others about various ed-tech tools or approaches. Sometimes, students give presentations about new technologies to the teachers during those sessions.
A hallmark of successful ed-tech leadership is introducing rapid-fire pilot projects, working out the kinks, and scaling up quickly if the pilots are effective,
Of course, not all pilot projects work, and it's vital to cut losses quickly.
flexibility
That approach of "high standards, but not standardization" is a characteristic of successful ed-tech projects,
The ability to adapt
"Seventy-five percent of what you learn is from making mistakes," he says.
flexibility
Johnson deliberately did not tell them which apps they needed
experiment
embodies the belief among a growing number of school administrators that getting educators to embrace digital teaching and learning, and to use technology more effectively, requires leading by example
echnology should be a tool to reach an educational goal, not the goal itself, she says.
But she emphasizes that the project wasn't about the iPad—it was about delivering programs that improved students' educational experiences.
"What would force someone to change if their results are saying what they're doing is excellent?" he asks. "But are they preparing the students for jobs that don't exist yet?"
Moran says she goes beyond standardized testing to evaluate success, looking at evaluating "authentic assessments" conducted by teachers.
The board recently adopted a formal district vision statement that embraces innovation and risk-taking, with the understanding "that it doesn't always lead to instant success," Vodicka says. That gives him the support and courage to venture into new areas, he says.
Even so, those ventures are calculated risks. All the ed-tech leaders interviewed for this article say they research, experiment, and test the initiatives they seek to put in place before fully enacting them
they all tap into extensive social-networking communities they have formed for themselves
Cook says he has learned more from his personal learning network than he ever learned getting his doctorate or during his first and second years as a principal.
But educators no longer have the luxury of hanging back on technology, he says. "I don't think it's OK anymore to say, 'I'm just not tech-savvy,' " he says. "If we're not, we're hurting kids."