Proactive Visionaries (EdTech Leadership)

This term, I have been greatly enjoying participating in the second in a three-part series of additional qualification courses through the Elementary Teachers' Federation called Integrating Information and Computer Technology (Part 2).  As the course draws to a close and I reflect on which aspects made the greatest impact on my teaching, one learning experience stands out in my mind.  During the second half of the course our focus has been on staff development and EdTech leadership.  One of the Articles we read, which has had a significant impact on helping me to refine my thinking was the article by Lisa Mills, entitled Qualities of a Good Leader.  The article lists many important qualities and I agree with them all, but we were asked to identify which two we thought were most important.  I chose being proactive and being a visionary as being the two most important qualities in an EdTech Leader.  It really is essential to have both of these qualities to lead anyone anywhere but especially in this field.  Having one or the other won't be effective.  What good is having a vision of the direction of education technology if you aren't proactive about implementing anything?  Even worse would be to be proactive without a vision.  That means you're an early adopter of technology but haven't thought through what the educational benefits might be if any.  That is just busywork not leadership!  By the time we were given the task of developing a three-year strategic plan, I felt that I had a much clearer focus.  To complete my plan, I would just need to get in touch with my vision and think about what proactive steps I could take right now in the role I currently have in the school where I currently work to help achieve that vision.  That's what I did and the ideas just flowed.

I am not a principal, vice principal, chairperson in my school or digital lead learner for my area, however the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession  states that, "Members are to promote and participate in the creation of collaborative, safe and supportive learning communities. They should recognize their shared responsibilities and their leadership roles in order to facilitate student success."   So that says to me that even without an assigned role or title I have a mandate.  ANY teacher has the authority to be an EdTech leader in their school and ANY teacher can collaborate with colleagues to achieve their vision.  I may not have control of the purse strings, but working with the technology available to me and by putting together numerous small learning communities at my school around common interests, there actually is a lot I can do to make my vision a reality.

The great thing about taking this course is that I already have a learning community within that course of like-minded individuals.  I love how we bounce ideas off of one another in our online discussion forum.  One of the things we also do frequently in this course, is post our assignments for peer review and feedback.  I have benefited greatly from input of my classmates and before sharing my plan with anyone at my school, I posted it in our D2L virtual classroom, As always, there were helpful hints and insights.  Then, after that, I shared with my principal, using Google Forms and Docs of course!  He is super supportive about teachers using technology to enhance learning so I know that he'll encourage me to form learning communities to pursue some of the things I am keen on doing such as going paperless to help our environment, redefining how we deliver feedback and take anecdotal notes with Google Forms and DocAppender, as a well as connecting classrooms across divisions via Google Classrooms.  

The learning doesn't end here for me.  I'm looking forward to taking the third course in the series this summer so I'll be ready to hit the ground running with new educational technology skills and leadership abilities.  I don't know what the future holds, what roles I may play in the future, but I know one thing, for the rest of my teaching career I want to be an early adopter. of many new educational technologies, some of which I can't even imagine right now...a very reflective early adopter.  In brief, I want to be a proactive visionary!