Leadership Day 2010 #leadershipday10

i have to admit that this past year i have done lots to expand my pln – two areas of focus have been my RSS feeds and my twitter follows. it really is amazing what people/educators are missing out on if they are relying on traditional means of bettering their practices in the classrooms. i can say with certainty that i have never thought about what i’m doing (or what i have done) so much as i have since engaging with others as through twitter and blogging. at any rate, i missed leadership day, due to craziness and life in general but instead of saying ‘oh well i’ll do it next year’, i’m just going for a late submission 🙂 oddly enough leadership day occurred the day before i was asked to engage administrators on what effective use of technology in the classroom looks like, it will be a short session but it couldn’t have come at a better time given all the recent blogging. while there is no official angle for the conversation, it seems best to begin with asking them “what they are looking for” when they enter the classroom for a walk through and perhaps finding a place to converse about what they would like to see. how do they know technology is being used effectively? what is the best example they have seen? a great point brought up by a colleague of mine, and in several blog posts around this subject, is how do we get administrators to make honest assessments about the use of technology in ways that they are not experts in? lots of administrators came up through the ranks in paths that did not involve technology, so what do they need so that they can be the honest evaluators? tough stuff. not sure where the conversation will go or how it will be framed, but i feel it might be best accomplished by using technology is seamless ways. wouldn’t it be a bit of a contradiction if i were to facilitate an conversation about technology and use none of it? i was thinking about bookmarking and showing a few blog entries – maybe if they this group sees what is happening in the blogosphere and considers some of the points being made…well, maybe.

 

inspiring words from TIME

TIME’s most recent issue feature twitter as the cover story, never has there been a more appropriate time with respect to what i do.  aside from the run down of what twitter does and how it has impacted our culture there are some wise words that can be found near the end of the article, a succession of 3 paragraphs that had me puffing out my chest and renewed (in a sense) my faith in the innovation of our country.  here is the excerpt…

But what actually happened to American innovation during that period? We came up with America Online, Netscape, Amazon, Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, Craigslist, TiVo, Netflix, eBay, the iPod and iPhone, Xbox, Facebook and Twitter itself. Sure, we didn’t build the Prius or the Wii, but if you measure global innovation in terms of actual lifestyle-changing hit products and not just grad students, the U.S. has been lapping the field for the past 20 years.

in a time when we are constantly hearing about jobs being outsourced and the standing of US know-how being called in to question in light of the accomplishments in other parts of the world, it was nice to see that there is a different type of change being influenced by products and innovations right here at home.  the article is a good one, check it out.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604-1,00.html