Leadership is key.
I can't emphasize how important leadership is.
If you see a school that ended up disbanding a one-to-one program it is often because they
didn't have strong leadership in place.
So if nothing else leadership has to be the driving force when it comes to implementing
a technology program in your school.
Leadership needs to create a vision and that is where things need to begin rather than
with a tool, it needs to begin with a vision from the leaders in the school.
We'll use the number 9 here.
What does the 9 stand for?
Really started at the school board level and their support and saying that the status quo
isn't good enough for our kids, that we want to provide every opportunity we can for them
to learn and grow.
I've heard it said before that your zip code shouldn't determine what you're able to learn.
There's big city opportunities here in rural Iowa.
Technology helps make that happen.
Rural poverty in Iowa is a real thing.
Some of these pieces of technology students may not have accessibility to through their
own home.
Six years ago the administration said we're going to hit technology hard and that was
scary.
The teacher's ability to be very flexible and to learn on their feet as they go, I think
that is invaluable to the culture that we have grown here.
It's really not a top down driven system.
Anything that is mandated kind of has that negative twist on it.
The teachers know that they're free to try things, they're empowered to do what they
know is best for their learners.
Fabulous.
Do you agree with him?
Our administration is very supportive.
They come in, they want to see what we're doing, but they give us wings and they let
us fly.
If we have suggestions they always want to hear them and they will find a way to make
it happen.
I think what the teachers have felt is they have permission to fail forward.
Anything that they want to try in the classroom a lot of times they'll run it by me, but not
always, they know what they do is good teaching practice.
It can't be taught them, you have to invite the educators into a conversation, they have
to be a part of the decision-making.
Try to I guess model everything we want from our teachers needs to come from us as an admin
team.
Really that's not in my personality to be on social media and that's something that
I've got to step out of my comfort zone with.
We've got a school Twitter account.
If I'm asking our staff to reach out and connect with other people on Twitter, become part
of the Iowa Ed chats, then I'll put myself out there and become part of that situation,
which has helped grow some nice professional connections.
And those connections were harder before technology.
It wouldn't work if we just said do this, do this, do this and didn't do it because
they need to see us failing forward also with it.
We need to rethink how teachers approach their jobs.
We have to almost give them opportunity to fail and to be risk takers.
They need to be able to try new things, if it doesn't work, okay what did I learn and
as a result how can I do it differently the next time with or without technology that
will make it a better situation for our students?
Part of preparing educators to take advantage of everything great that technology provides
is preparing them to do it and giving them the time to try things out, create an environment
where they can take risks, where it's safe to fail, it's okay to experiment because that
will help teachers feel better about teaching with the tools and methods and processes that
maybe they haven't been teaching that way for their entire career, it's brand new, well
they feel safe, they can take that risk.