Working At The Edge

Make School Different: Digital leadership & Transformation

Entrepreneurs, Leaders, Managers

By

In the educational leadership domain, we frequently hear the argument about being a leader, not just a manager. (Here is a nice breakdown, or just enter a search into Google.) This morning, I ran across this article that added “entrepreneurs” into the traditional leader/manager dichotomy: Understanding Three Archetypes: Entrepreneurs, Managers, Leaders. One of our greatest […]

5 minutes that got me thinking…

By

Watch this teenager school educators on the dangers of Common Core… (not embeddable on WordPress.) I’ve seen this video shared numerous times over the past few days on social media, so I thought I’d watch it. Interesting it is. Nice to see a students with the willingness (and ability) to communicate his feelings on one […]

Leveraging Social Media to Build Capital and Develop Relationships

By

This past week I attended the 2013 PASA/PSBA School Leadership Conference and had the fortunate opportunity to present a workshop along with two colleagues, Michael Roth (@mqroth) and Lynn Fuini-Heten (@lfuinihetten), on social media and how we are using it in Salisbury. Participation in the session exceeded my expectations with an audience of 50+, primarily […]

Limited vision?

By

I located this quote/photo on George Couros’s blog, Principal of Change. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with a variety of educators on the topic of teaching and learning with technology. The above quote from Clay Shirky reminded me of the limited view so many educators have of how technology […]

Managing Digital Distraction

By

The graphic below was created in response to some results from a survey we administered last spring connected to our technology initiative, Teaching and Learning 2014. A consistent perception over the past two years of surveys has been that a laptop computer in the hands of a teenager is a digital distraction. This feeling is, […]

Making the Time for Social Media

By

It’s sometimes a challenge during the school year to keep from getting absorbed in the “urgent” things that need to get done. Personal learning time is often the first thing that gets sacrificed. With the summer, though, comes a gentler pace that allows for more reflection and the opportunity to more easily commit the time […]

The Seven Essential Life Skills and Policy

By

The 7 essential life skills outlined in the video below are nothing new. We have been talking about these skills for nearly a decade, when educators started to feel the need to prepare students for the “21st century.” Here are the skills: Focus and self-control (this is the idea of attention and managing distractions) Perspective […]

Superintendents and Technology

By

The Gallup Organization and Education Week recently teamed up to survey superintendents across the country. The organizations plan to administer  similar surveys for superintendents four times annually. The first survey asked questions about Common Core Standards and the potential of technology. While only about 2,500 of 12,000 superintendents responded (NOT representing a nationally representative mix). […]