You are Never Alone

This is a question that many principals, educators, and administrators both here in Australia and worldwide are asking themselves: and the answers are not simple.
We all know that it involves a bit more than just rolling out the computers, ramping up the wiring and fibre optics, handing out some laptops, training the teachers and so. And where does it fit in the whole school ethos?

It is certainly the focus of a conference that I am presenting at next month. The Second National Leading a Digital School Conference is being held in Sydney on 4-6 September. Keynote speakers are Dan Ingvarson and Kevin Richardson. I am presenting twice. My focus is really about what leaders can do to encourage their teachers to augment their professional learning environments, and how to stimulate professional evidence. My premise is teachers who are involved in online communities develop further skills and confidence because of their involvement, and take their understanding of ICTs to another level.

Here’s a definition to think about: A digital school is one where the teaching resources and the administration and communications systems are predominantly digital. The school continually strives to take advantage of the opportunities afforded within the digital paradigm to further enhance the quality and effectiveness of the education it provides. It is the growth of digital resources used in the teaching and learning process that is showing the way for “digital development” in the school’s total operations.

So a new book on this subject has crossed my desk at an opportune time. Called leading a digital school: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE, edited by Mal Lee and Michael Gaffney, an imprint by ACER press (ISBN 978-0-86431-896-1), it contains contributions by the editors and Michael Hough, Allan Shaw, Glenn Finger, Roger Hayward, David O’Brien, Greg Whitby, Peter Murray, Karen Bonnano, Dan Ingvarson, and John Hodgkinson.

Among the topics covered: planning the digital school, fostering digitally based teaching and learning, engagement with digital technology, ICT infrastructure and support, staffing the digital school, and the nexus between home and school.

One of the features that I like in the book are the sets of “exercises” that the leader can undertake: questions to ask specific people, audits to run, situational analyses to conduct, and then, in the Appendix, “templates for discussion groups.”
These include self evaluation questions, group exercises to involve staff in, and questions whose answers will give the school community a better understanding of what needs to be done.