What Is Leadership?

I spent the better part of two days watching the Global Leadership Summit at a satellite location. I have three reflections. 
  1. I am not sure that we should abstract leadership as something to study. Everyone that spoke had a different measure of what made great leaders. No theme became evident. Having been to the summit before and read several books and articles in the last couple of years on leadership, to me no unifying theme has emerged. One feeling has emerged. I am less and less confident of my leadership ability the more I hear about leadership. I should probably stop learning about leading.
  2. Emerging from the mire is this:
  1. Leaders learn. Mostly by listening and other less important means.
  2. Leaders do something. The something is probably new in their environment and based on their learning. There are not certain outcomes.
  • My best thoughts after the summit circle around values. I think I am merging thoughts from Jim Collins and Patrick Lencioni.  I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what simply stated core values inform all our decisions. I have spent more time thinking about how we communicate them to the community. We have core values that guide most of our decisions, but they could be clearer. I also woud like to see us empower more people to use simply stated core values to make decisions. I have also been noodling around about my own simply stated personal core values.
    • I am ready for there to be more people around so I can listen to them. Then I can do something.

    Really? More Test Scores? Is That All There Is?

    I attended the Model Schools Conference two weeks ago. It was quite a gathering and there were a lot of challenging and inspirational speeches. The sessions are led by one of four groups of people, Model Schools Consultants, school employees of found model schools, school employees of created model schools, and corporate conference sponsors (these were noted in the program).  

    The conference impressed me in a lot of ways. Presentations across the days and topics had very similar formats. It was obvious to me that behind the scenes all presenters had been given tips and tricks and encouraged to follow them. Presentations started with objectives. Many worked off the same template, even if they were not a consultant. Presenters referred to research, although they could have cited it more often. Finally, and to me most noticeably, presenters gave evidence of success. 

    The success is what made me scratch my head. It was test scores. A few places here and there were stories, but the exciting results were better test scores. If education reform is going to succeed at anything but standardized students it needs to figure out a way to simply present success without showing test scores. If that is all we show off computers will replaces teachers completely. 

    Teachers are important. Caring people do a better job of bringing out the individual strengths of others than bland technology. Relationships welcome new members into the club of readers and writers and physicists better than any computer can. Interested people bring out the strengths in others quicker and better than disinterested technology. 

    If we want education to look truly different, which many of the people at Model Schools did, we have to stop reporting results in the currency of old schools education: test scores.

    Presentation: Creating A Culture Of Learning

    Today I did a presentation entitled Creating A Culture Of Learning. The slides should be posted below. I thought it went well. If you look at the slides you find that I tried to set up a situation where I grounded some of our initiatives in a theory I am working through called conditions of the 21st century. I hate the buzzword, but I think there are some things that are different and am trying to base some of the things that we have found successful in the changing landscape to the world. I will gladly talk to anyone about the presentation, leave a comment.

    If you were at the presentation and have not already please leave me some feedback, either in the comments here or in the form. Also, if you were there I gathered a lot of other ideas about conditions of the 21st century from you and the link timed out and I lost them, so if you remember yours add it to the comments here. Thanks a ton.

    There are a lot of links in the presentation and I think that Slideshare.net maintains those.

    http://www.slideshare.net/weathertation/creating-a-culture-of-learning

    Student as Contributor: The Digital Learning Farm

    Title
    Student as Contributor: The Digital Learning Farm
    Alternate Title
    I am sweet, why hasn't the world listened to me?
    Presenter
    Alan November, Senior Partner, November Learning
    Notes
    "The real revolution is information and relationships."
    "We are techno lusting nerds."
    If feed back on homework is not immediate then the mistakes made start to sink in and become part of the brain pathways. By 36 hours without feedback ideas are set and the homework has done more harm than good.
    "All learning is social."
    "Kids are more interested in listening to a child explaining something than a teacher."
    'Every teacher is a learner and every learner is a teacher."
    "Kids will work overtime if teacher invites them into the teaching and learning process."
    "Why don't we bring kids to staff development?"
    Reflection
    I love Alan November's ideas. I was surprised to find out that most of the young teachers at the conference had not heard of him but felt like his message was old and tired. They said they had it all through their education classes. I was glad to hear this but also somewhat surprised, not all new teachers have caught the vision.

    Student Cell Phones in Learning

    Title
    Student Cell Phones in Learning
    Alternate Title
    Lot Of Interesting Things To Do With Cell Phones
    Presenter
    Liz Kolb, Lecturer, University of Michigan, and Adjunct Professor, Madonna University

    Presentation

    Notes
    Liz thinks very creatively about how to use cell phones in learning. What I appreciate most about her is she think way outside the box on how to use tools, which I also like to do. 
    Jumbli.com - online word game. no control but could be a fun bell ringer.
    contxt.com - online business cards. Could also be used to build scavenger hunts.
    dailybooth.com - public place to send pictures to from cell phones, like a twitter for cell phone cameras.
    It is time for me to figure out google voice.
    She showed off scvngr.com which I love but is a big deal to get ready.
    Reflection
    Liz was off her game today.

    Getting Teachers to Adopt Technology: What to and not to Do

    Title
    Getting Teachers to Adopt Technology: What to and not to Do
    Alternate Title
    This guys gets it.
    Presenter
    Rushton Hurley, Executive Director, Next Vista for Learning, and Teacher, Santa Clara Unified School District, CA
    Presentation
    Notes
    Two things technology must do for him to use it
    1. Save him time.
    2. Teach kids better.
    Six Don'ts and Dos
    1. Don't require teachers to be experts in technology. Do remind them of their expertise.
    2. Don't tie everything to standards. Do show them something fun.
    3. Don't sit everyone in a lab for training. Do allow for regular and short sharing time.
    4. Don't limit technology to labs. Do showcase what can be done outside the lab. This ones is a little less important int our 1 to 1 environment.
    5. Don't buy expensive software a teacher has not used. Do learn what is freely available.
    6. Don't blanket the school with expensive hardware. Do use targeted spending to focus purchases. No matter what you do you are going to tick someone off. Do not shoot for equity shoot for putting stuff in rooms where it will get used. If the people who do not get the technology a mad and they do something about it, great. If they are mad and they don't change give more stuff to the people do stuff. If you flip this around the people who get mad are the people doing stuff, and you want to encourage them not discourage them.

    Storytelling for the YouTube Generation

    Title
    Storytelling for the YouTube Generation
    Presenter
    Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager, Discovery Educator Network, Discovery Education
    Alternate Title
    Kids tell stories in thousands of new and different ways, let them!
    Presentation
    Notes
    "I do not give assignments, I give creative briefs."
    You can make interactive choose your own adventure videos on YouTube.
    Reflection
    Step 1: Watch all the videos linked in the presentation in class.
    Step 2: Give kids a topic.
    Step 3: Give kids a due date.
    Step 4: Watch awesome material on your topic.

    Seems simple doesn't it?

    Steve's main point: let your learners have the freedom to create. They will. And they will get better if you keep letting them.

    My laptop has a webcam, now what?

    Title

    My laptop has a webcam, now what?
    Actual Title
    So many teachers and student use these things around here, I wonder if other people need to know the power?
    or
    It was the catchiest title I could come up with and I am working on a theory that catchy titles are the key to presenting.
    Presenter
    Me.
    Presentation
    See attached photos of slides. They will not be of much value since they each need the story and the slides do not have video. Sorry no audio. I wish I had the ability to remember to record myself at these things.
    Reflection
    I love presenting. It forces me to reflect on my teaching and tech coordinating and bring out in front of people what good is happening around me. I tried out two specific new things this year that I think may have helped.

    First, I spent a lot of time on my title. It may not seem like it but I did. The title above is the best I have ever had. I liked that it was current: many PC people are new to having a webcam. I liked that there was no mistaking what the presentation was going to be about. I thought it communicated that there would be stuff in here to try out on Monday (a way teachers often decide what to do at conferences) while I knew I would get at picture theories of education during the whole thing. I wanted more than my current average at MACUL of 15 people in the room.

    Second, I think I realized that there are three tiers of presenting at conferences. First tier is the true story tellers with a big philosophical point. Dan Meyer, Alan November, Will Richardson, David Warlick, Gary Stager all weave stories and presentations to make you think big thoughts. Second tier presenters show you a lot of things that you can do and try to weaver their big picture stuff into that. I think this is second tier because I might only get a few nuggets out and I will probably have to find them myself a little. Plus it is easier to make these presentations. Line up 25 good ideas and go. There is another tier but I would like to stay positive. 

    If you look at the slides, my presentation was essentially 21 good ideas about using webcams. I weaved through that some good rules of teaching, and how to use other devices than webcams that you may have around to achieve some of the same goals. I was really happy with how it came together.

    I think my title worked. I had about 50 or 75 people at the presentation. The room was pretty big, so it was not full, but close. Aside from my title I was in the room that on the program had me right below all the headliners. That probably helped. The room I was in was literally the farthest room from anything, which might have hurt. I was very happy with the turnout. And I think no one left, which is another good sign for my title. I got a lot of positive feedback from the people who stayed after as well.

    I could do some things better. 
    • I need to put my slides up before the show so that my sharetabs.com link includes a link to the slides. 
    • I need to make my sharetabs.com before the morning of the event.
    • I need to be ready to present 20 minutes early so I can greet them at the the door. By ten minutes left when I was ready to meet people at the door the room was half full. By the way, greeting people at the door is an essential and under utilized presentation technique. 
    • I should consider the whole presentation being websites, although with all the videos that are of unknown copy write status, I really could not.
    • I should have short Google Form for evaluation that people can go to for feedback.
    Overall I was really happy. The audience really tracked and seemed to enjoy it. I was very comfortable. I am glad MACUL sees fit to continue to allow me to present. Now I just have to think of a topic.

    Cache the Excitement!

    Title
    Cache the Excitement!
    Alternate Title
    I use my passion to be a better teacher.
    Presenter
    Cheryl Lykowski, Teacher, Bedford Public Schools
    Reflections
    She was great. She loved to geochache and has developed several lessons for kids to use geocaching. I love it when teachers bring what they love into the classroom. Her resources and a recommendation seemed to be well developed and thoughtful. May be environmental science will be experiencing this soon.