Leadership

Delve into the best available information from research on technology integration and new compelling video clips of real classrooms where students are engaged in content areas using technology. Gain a better understanding of the stages of technology integration and how to support teacher growth. The course addresses recent policy as well as portions of the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A).

Learn through stories from real schools, videos from exemplary classrooms, and a variety of research-based tools, all with a special emphasis on the role of 21st century teaching and learning skills. Developed and made popular by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, these skills represent how and what students should learn within the context of a curriculum and how teachers should model them in their teaching. As you learn, you will develop relationships with other principals and administrators taking the course. An integral part of this experience will be reflecting, sharing, and communicating with this online learning community.

Develop a basic knowledge of shared leadership and gain insight into how it can help your school become a learning community. This four-week course introduces - definitions of shared leadership, school culture, and professional learning community and describes what these look like when they're present in a school - tools participants use to measure individual and school characteristics related to shared leadership - research on shared leadership and leadership practices identified as having a statistically significant relationship to student achievement - six functions of a school leader who effectively shares leadership: inspire, model, organize, monitor, support, reflect

Make an impact on student achievement by becoming intensively involved in curricular and instructional issues. To be effective, share leadership with assistant principals, instructional coaches, teacher leaders, and leadership teams. While other areas are important and equally urgent, teaching and learning must be high priorities if student achievement is to be improved.

This book suggests ways in which the research-based strategies in Classroom Instruction That Works can be used with educational technologies, such as word processing and spreadsheet applications, multimedia, data collection tools, communication software, and the Internet.

Technology alone has little effect on improving student achievement. However, it can be a powerful tool to support the nine instructional strategies identified in Classroom Instruction that Works. This article from Learning & Leading with Technology (February, 2004 31(5)) briefly explains how the following technology tools can be used to support the nine instructional strategies.

I'm a big Ken Robinson fan and have pointed to him many times such as in this post on his TED talk from 2006 (and see Sir Ken's ideas on public speaking here). Even if you saw the TED talk, you will enjoy this 15-minute presentation (given sans slides, as is the Sir Ken Robinson style) that he delivered in April of this year to an international crowd of school superintendents at the Apple Education Leadership Summit in San Francisco.

Instead of using scare tactics and statistics that are misleading, we must paint a realistic picture and use statistics appropriately. Rather than pass legislation that puts constraints on schools, Congress needs to fund online safety education and public awareness campaigns that show the true picture. "You can't get there from here." it's not just the punch line of a driving direction joke. For us educators, whose destination is the realization of educational technology's potential, that punch line sometimes seems closer to the truth than we like.

Tech visionary Lawrence Lessig made a sobering prediction Tuesday at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference: "There's going to be an i-9/11 event," he said, "an event that demonstrates the instability of the Internet, and that inspires the government to a response." He said he believes this digital disaster - a major hacker attack or other act of cyber-terrorism in the next 10 years - will prompt the U.S. government to clamp down on Internet freedoms in an online parallel to the Patriot Act.

After four years of work, this Wisconsin district's effort in creating its own online assessment program is paying off for teachers, students and the bottom line.

Most people try to cope with ever more demanding jobs and escalating targets by working longer hours. Sometimes it seems to be the only way, even if the impact on lives and relationships is almost wholly negative. But what if responding to workplace pressure in that way is dealing with the wrong issue - trying to manage and extend time, when what you need to be doing is managing your energy levels?

Respectfulness towards others is the key to a more civilized workplace The challenge for life at work is this: how to be a "business" person and a "human being" at the same time. How to be compete, yet cooperate; be hard-nosed, yet ethical; keep one's nose to the grindstone, yet still take time to "see" and acknowledge others; be professional, yet personal; to make a profit and yet not be greedy.

Integrity is both a part of who you are and what you do. It is about being true to your values, no matter what. And if those values are admired by others, you have the makings of a great leader, particularly in times of change. We often have two sets of values: normal values and stress values. In most situations, with normal values at the fore, we follow social rules of consideration and trustworthiness. But when pressured, our underlying stress values come to the fore. For many people these are more about personal survival and any thought of putting others first goes out of the window. Where that stress line is where we flip varies greatly between people. Some get selfish at the slightest discomfort, whilst others resist the temptation for a while longer. Integrity means pushing this barrier much further out, even to the point of self-sacrifice.

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

When - Thursday, August 21, 2008 2pm, ET Description - School administrators across the country are working hard to offer healthy and attractive choices in their competitive food and beverage offerings. Still, concerns persist about inconsistent information, community support, student acceptance and revenue implications.

Think you have the skills it takes to succeed as a leader? Take our quiz and find out if a climb to the top is in your future.

Fortune asked the top ten companies to share their best practices for developing leaders in a global economy.

First Things First, a framework for school reform, has one goal: to help students at all academic levels gain the skills to succeed in post-secondary education and good jobs. In the process, FTF helps districts and schools meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind. FTF districts and schools commit to: * Strengthening relationships among students and adults. * Improving engagement, alignment and rigor of teaching and learning in every classroom, every day. * Allocating all resources - budget, staff, time and space - to achieve the first two goals. Our partners achieve these changes using three strategies: * Small learning communities. * The Family Advocate System. * Instructional improvement.

It's time to recognize that conventional management ideas are broken - and start thinking of something better.