Bill Ferriter makes some very startling claims in his article How to Become a Digital Learner. The first one is that "few teachers look to administrators when selecting instructional practices worth pursuing.” (Ferriter, 90) He talks about surveys take in North Carolina (the state that he resides in) to support this. In these surveys only 45% of teachers viewed their principal as their main source of instructional leadership. (Ferriter, 90) He believes that technology is quickly over taking the principals roles in influencing teaching and learning. At first I disagreed, but then the more I reflected on this I realized that it might be true. Ideas and practices in education are constantly changing, there is so much to keep up with, one person would have a hard time effectively keeping up with that. Technology overs some pretty effective tools to do that, such as a RSS (Real simple syndication). A RSS basically can be set up to watch websites that you find valuable, then the website post new information if alerts you. What an amazing time saver.
As an administrator you have many responsibilities discipline, parent meeting, administrations meeting, teacher evaluation, state mandated reports to be filed, etc. If you are trying to keep up on new practices in teaching all by yourself you will fail, your teachers will be ahead of you and ultimately begin to give your ideas less and less creditability. Administrators need to embrace technology and tools like RSS to keep up on teaching trends and practices that can help them to reach goals they have set. RSS can also assist you in keep up with changes in education and thus helping you to set realistic and effective goals for the future.
Also, Educational Leaders need to embrace technology that teachers and staff already have such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and even social networking as a way to learn. It seems as so many administration still view these things as waste of time and having no educational value, but that is so wrong. Conversation that students are having with one another and their teacher through blogs or social networking are absolutely astounding. I have a friend who teaches high school government and she has set up a Facebook page that is only open to students in her government class, but they have the most amazing discussion on there. The other night I stopped by her house at about 7:30 and she was having a group chat with about 15 of her students about some news story that had been covered that night. These kids were choosing to get on there and a chat and talk about government. It was amazing. Administrators much begin to embrace this type of learning if they want to achieve future goals that they have set.
The learning environment in classrooms today is not what it was when most administrators were teaching. Technology is the key to staying up to date on new practice and educational expectations of both government agencies and future employers. Technology is also the key to engaging students in the learning process.
Some free RSS are:
Ferriter, Bill. “How to Become a Digital Learner.” Eduationtional Leadership. August 2009, p. 90 -91.
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