Leadership is not about you
By audhill | July 20, 2008
I’ve just recently tapped into a conversation that is going on among edtech people. It is a conversation that is always going on among edtech people. Namely: how do we get people to change… how do we get teachers to use technology and administrators to demand teacher use of technology.
It has been my belief that the failure of administrators to get buy in from teachers on any particular change is more about the way in which leaders view leadership than it is about teachers. Leadership is not about grand plans, paradigm shifts or hiding the cheese. Leadership is about getting the best out of your staff… whatever that “best” is.
In my view, that means a balance of control and letting go of your idea. Pardoxically, giving up the reins, being willing to see your precious ideas morph into something else is the best way to achieve your own ends. It comes from a fundamental recognition that a successful climate (in business or personal life) is created when each best self finds expression, not when each self gets with your program.
On ChangeThis, Michael Kanazawa makes this exact point and it highlights a simple truth. As he says in his last paragraph If you believe that people hate change and that it is your job to change them, they will hate it. If you believe that people thrive on change and that your job is to unleash it, you will tap into a limitless source of ingenuity, energy and drive that will allow you to consistently take your big ideas into big results.
Topics: education, leadership | 2 Comments »
Flickr? I don’t even know her.
By audhill | July 20, 2008
Lately, I’ve taken to reading Scott McLeod’s blog. Maybe because I dont’ update my own blog often enough.. I’ll post my comment to his post about all the things he gets from twitter, youtube, flickr, facebook and ning. (ps… here’s my flickr. )
The social web is about people and connectivity, right? So every blog, tweet, Skype chat, comment, Flickr photo, YouTube video, Facebook update, or Ning post - they’re each another gap-filler for me. Chink by chink, brick by brick, pixel by pixel - the picture becomes more clear and complete. Is this someone with whom I want to connect? Is this someone with whom I want to converse? Is this someone from whom I want to learn? That’s the power of Twitter (and blogging and … ) for me.
That all sounds good, but you use up a lot of your time filtering content that way. I don’t think that’s a good use of my time, although I do spend a lot of time “filtering” too.
This week I have an elderly mother who has fallen again. a new puppy that needs my time and training. A 12 year old car that is dying. a few doctors appointments I haven’t made. A neice who needs to know me. A few blogs I like to read. Two blogs I’d like to update but don’t. An animation I’d like to create. A few friends I’d like to spend time with. An apartment I’d like to clean. A hundred books I plan to read. A class I’d like to take. A body I’d like to exercise…. you get my point.
Everything CAN NOT be fit in. Something has to give and I have the right and the obligation to decide which things will give. The people who make time for every blog, every youtube video, every twitter are taking time from other things.. which is fine.. great even, if it enriches their lives, and they don’t mind the trade off. Personally, I’m trying to put technology in a balanced place in my life… so that I have more life offline than on.
I love to read good blogs, see great videos, meet interesting people (and have them ignore me ( : P ) But now I need to pick and choose and be mindful that every choice IS a choice to use the precious time I have on the planet. Even the act of responding to this blog is questionable. The pool awaits. My husband has come in twice to see what I’m up to. I haven’t made lunch. My dog wants to go to the river. My mother needs me to figure out what to do next.
Topics: education, living, personal | No Comments »
Manifest
By audhill | July 6, 2008
People who spend most of their non-working hours online surfing and chatting to no really useful end forego exercise, activity, time in nature, time with friends and family. Studies show that kids who spend all their time playing video games (on and offline) tend to do more poorly in school and, at the extreme ends, erode their offline relationships and become increasingly more reclusive.
I love to use technology to educate children. However, in context of this conversation… is there a limit I should be looking to? A fairly well known edublogger once told me that technology should accompany a child everywhere… even on a walk in the wilderness, they should have their handhelds or their cell phones to document what they observe.
My thought at the time was that this view was in contradiction to my sense that there is a need for people to become more quiet inside. To do one thing at a time rather than multi-task their whole lives away. To be more meditative as a way to be more meaningfully engaged in their lives. To reach into the self rather than always extending outward to the other. To learn how to hold their own attention. And yes, even children should learn how to spend time with themselves, how to vividly experience the ordinary and pay heed to the deceptively simple. Where to learn this very essential task in a world that wants only to stay as plugged in as much as possible?
We talk about using video games to educate children who spend all their time playing video games. We create online blogs to educate children who spend all their time in Facebook or MySpace. Our rationale? Find them where they live. And… of course, it makes some sense to reach them where they are and to educate them about other applications for their social media tools. I like my social media tools. I love the internet and all the creativity I find there. But, are children disadvantaged by cruising the net all day in school, after school and all night long instead of being involved in activities that use or, better yet, still their bodies, minds and emotions? Do we provide them with too many distractions? We want them to interact with a broad variety of people, but is the gain the same when it’s online as when it’s off? We use video games and other tools to “reach” them, but how often are we actually substituting our creativity for theirs by giving them so many predigested images and storylines?
Creativity is most fertile in a mind that is flexible and learning from a variety of experiences (plugged in and unplugged) Being in nature doesn’t require any intermediary. A conversation with people from distant places is meaningful and wonderful, but so is knowing how to have a conversation with the person in front of you. While we’re all loving technology with slavish devotion and almost born again zeal… let us remember to remember that it’s good to turn off the computer and go outside… every day.
And psst… don’t forget to tell the kids.
Topics: edtech, education, personal | 5 Comments »
Book Trailers
By audhill | June 27, 2008
I haven’t been writing on this blog for a while… but in case I’m still on anyone’s feed.. I have to brag.
My students created great book trailers in my class this spring. I was very proud of them. Please go take a look. And comment! I’d love to know that someone has been able to see them. I’m also starting a wiki about book trailers to help teachers in my school community with getting up to speed on how to create them.
Topics: edtech, design, education | No Comments »
If Yale Can’t Do It….
By audhill | March 9, 2008
A charter school opening in 2009 in Washington Heights has got the solution … just pay teachers more. The school is the brainchild of Yale graduate and former Teach for America middle school teacher, Zeke M. Vanderhoek.
His idea is that if teachers were paid real money (in this case $125,000 a year plus bonuses for better performance), schools would be successful. His plan (as per the NYT) is to attract the best and brightest by spending more money on them, and to make up the shortfall by taking only a $90,000 salary himself and having no assistant principals, no disciplinary deans, no attendance secretary, and only one or two social workers. He’ll have a longer school day and a longer school year. The teachers will do all the admin work themselves, and they’ll teach low performing and area students with 30 kids in a class.
Basically, his idea is that if all the teachers were as bright and ambitious as he is, schools wouldn’t need all those frills… like low class size, time to create curriculum, disciplinary deans and social workers to handle the raging, hormonal distractions that threaten to interrupt every day.
Good luck with that.
Topics: education | 4 Comments »
By audhill | March 6, 2008
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Hey Kids, there’s code behind that curtain!
By audhill | February 20, 2008
I’ve I just got the okay to explore wikis with my kids. Wikispaces is the one that was first suggested, but I’m also looking at ones with more utility.. I’m looking at editwiki, pbwiki… any other suggestions?
We need a wiki that gives us control, security, flexibility, and options for designing pages and text. It has to haveaccess to the code view. Students in my classes will work in the wysiwyg editor, but I want them to also learn to use rudimentary html code. It makes sense for them to learn how to retrieve the hex for a color that isn’t available, manipulate text when an option isn’t available, add a link to a comment, resize a picture, or clean up all that overcoded microsoft word. Most importantly, I want them to begin to think about what goes on BEHIND the scenes in a wiki, blog, webpage, word document…
Topics: education | 2 Comments »
looking in the mirror
By audhill | February 20, 2008
Topics: for fun, personal | No Comments »
Brave New World Order
By audhill | February 10, 2008
There is so much spin on how innovative and transcending the new world is. How much is going to change for nearly everyone. I’m not so sure. For one, I’m not so sure how new any of this is… it seems to be that new technologies are layered onto universal ideas and repackaged as a totally new world. Most of the markers you list here are the same markers that have always measured the successful.
Great Collaborators and Orchestrators who are able to communicate a global business opportunities to a local market and implement the company’s goals.
Great Synthesizers who are able to take new discoveries and make products from them.
Great Explainers who are able to teach or explain complex ideas in simple terms.
Great Leveragers who are able to identify problems and solve them quickly and permanently.
Great Adapters who have the deep, versatile knowledge and attitude to be able to adapt to new opportunities quickly when they become available.
Green People who will work in research and development of environmentally friendly and/or renewable energies.
Passionate Personalizers put a personal touch on mundane jobs that make them marketable.
Math Lovers are people that are able to create mathematic algorhythms that organize and manipulate the digital data that people will need to use.
The Great Localizers can translate the global economy into local opportunities.
Secondly, not everything is wonderful. I do not believe, for instance, that constant self marketing for your survival is accomplishment. A chronic state of insecurity marketed as the new expectation is less about a brave new informational age then it is just a modern twist on the devaluing of workers I reject it as a good, even if there are true elements for some.
Of course, a curious, adaptable and constant learner with a positive attitude will always rise in nearly any environment. My husband calls this making your own luck. But, they aren’t the only ones to rise. In the political world it’s not always what you know and I don’t see that the political world is so very changed. Personality, position and type go a long way. If people like you… you go far (even if you’re none too bright) If you’re what is expected for the job (race, gender, interests, age, looks, credentials, connections etc) you have an edge. The brave new world has yet to surplant human nature or bias.
Finally, I think that the local phenomenon is underplayed. A lot of what is referred to here will not affect most people all that much. I could be wrong, but I think it’s pretty likely that most jobs are going to remain localized for most people. More people will be nurses, doctors, teachers, police, medtechs, child care workers, store managers, contractors, firemen, hairdressers… etc. etc. then will be live in some rarefied flat world of growth and innovation without end. For most of us, the local world is the world.
Topics: Uncategorized, education | 3 Comments »
The only way out is through
By audhill | February 10, 2008
I opened on Scott McLeod’s post about a technology facilitator named Pam who felt misused by the response she got from teachers and administrators to her presentation on web 2.0 tools. My thought is that the best use of a bad experience is self reflection. When people don’t respond the way we want them to.. when their views are different from ours.. when we feel misused or underappreciated, whatever else is going on, it’s always ALSO an opportunity for us to look at ourselves . It’s particularly important for creating bridges… it’s useful when we need to move on… it helps us to keep the focus on the things we can control. This was my comment.
Topics: education | 1 Comment »