point a to point b » Russo’s Ramblings

Educational Administration vs. Educational Leadership

Michael — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:11:15 +0000

As I finish the first couple of weeks of my first administrative job (assistant principal for our summer high school), it is very clear that there is a distinct difference between being an administrator and a leader. A principal needs to be both, but it can be easy to favor the former over the latter.

The first week has gone extremely well. Our program is for remediation and acceleration so there is a nice mix of students, and we have great teachers and support staff. Summer school is a well-oiled machine that needs light tendering to keep it on course, rather than drastic steering to make it go in a different direction.

Administrative duties come up constantly. Be it dealing with student scheduling issues, a parent with a concern, a student who has chosen to do something inappropriate, a teacher with a home emergency, or a required fire drill, the stream of tasks never seems to end. An administrator has to be able to handle these activities in stride as they are the primary things that interfere with the learning environment in the classroom.

Leadership duties are there constantly, but not necessarily in sight. Deciding how to act on scheduling issues, parent concerns, student actions, etc. is driven by leadership beliefs and can have long term consequences. It may be easier to resolve an issue one way, but may be detrimental to the bigger picture. Beyond daily actions, the need for program leadership – how the school serves the needs of the population – can be missed if one only focuses on the day-to-day.

What are some of the key program questions for our summer program?

What is different in summer school for remediation students that might help them succeed?
What is the learning environment like for the students? Is it challenging and engaging?
What courses are being offered for acceleration? Is there a need to alter these?
What courses are being offered for remediation? Is there a need to alter these?

These are some of the questions that need to be considered on a regular basis, as answers to these will have an impact on the answers to all the daily questions.

It would be very easy to get caught up in only dealing with the day-to-day tasks. Handling them takes excellent skills, but being content taking care of those items can divert attention away from the more important bigger picture. We have a great setup in our school, but program (leadership) questions and daily (administrative) questions are equally important to ensuring the continual growth and integrity of the school.

Image credit:
Keep your eyes on the objective by wildphotons on Flickr

Transforming

Michael — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:01:20 +0000

Typically my last post in June relates to how it is time to power down the blog, do some updates, tinker with the theme, and move into summer mode. This year this won’t happen for a couple of reasons. First, I’m very happy with how the blog has developed and become part of what I do. Things are humming along, and I don’t feel a need to change. Secondly, there is a transformation underway…

This past May I finished working on my administrative certification program for both School Building Leader and School District Leader at Canisius College. I am in the process of being certified through New York State (which is quite a process, but that topic would be a whole separate post). I will be able to apply for building or district level administrative positions.

This step allows me to move into another facet of the school structure, or another “life” as I like to think of it. Having been a student and an educator for many years, the opportunity to become an administrator is very exciting. I do not have agressive plans to pursue any administrative job that arises; rather I have opened the door for when the right opportunity comes along. It may be tomorrow, next week, or next year, but I am on the lookout.

One experience on the docket is to be the the assistant principal for our summer high school program. I was the intern for the program last summer and learned a great deal. I am looking forward to participating in such a great program. The staff is excellent, and the opportunity for students to both accelerate and remediate is great. The summer school experience allows me to get a sense for being an administrator.

This transformation is interesting and invigorating. I have long considered myself a learning junkie. I have also found that change every so often is a very good thing (as evidenced by my jump from music to computers a few years back). Change helps keep you fresh and (hopefully) on top of your game.

Down the road I picture myself in some sort of district level role as I do like working with systemic issues and solutions. Who knows what will happen, but the ride sure will be fun!

Image: High Tension by JGrindal on Flickr

How the iPad has Changed My Game

Michael — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:04:32 +0000

Since I purchased an iPad a couple of months ago, I have been really enjoying using it and seeing how it fits into my work and play flow. My kids really enjoy using it to see how it fits into their game playing flow. Students in school enjoy seeing how it fits into their before-school, working, hanging-out, doodling flow. I thought the iPad might be a popular item, but I had no idea what temporary rock-star status I would have simply by having one. I knew something was up when, while picking up food at a McDonald’s drive-thru, the nice young lady at the window looked in the back of the car where my son was playing on it and screamed, “Is that an iPad?!?!?! Cool!!!!

What has changed? I now have a small form-factor device that allows me to be in a meeting, workshop, or other group environment and be able to read documents, take notes, and research supporting information on the Internet, without having an intrusive laptop screen sticking up. I can easily pass the device to someone else to use as if it where a piece of paper, not a piece of equipment. This may seem like a small deal, but to me it really is a big deal. Now when I prepare for a meeting or conference, I do not print out copies of documents, I just make sure I have them loaded on the iPad.

A couple of things make this setup even better. The iPad relies on touch, obviously, but there are times when some type of pen would be handy. I found this out when I was trying to sketch a diagram at a conference a few weeks ago. Drawing with your finger is not comfortable when trying to handwrite. Enter the Pogo Sketch from Ten One Design – this handy stylus has a capacitive tip which allows you to use it on the iPad (and other touch screens) as if it were your finger. Another item that will help my workflow is an app that allows you to markup documents. Often in meetings you want to write notes on various pages – I have browsed the App store and there definitely are solutions for this – I just have to pick one and run with it.

I knew things had changed for me a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for a book. At the Summer School Conference for Administrators, a principal from Roscoe did a great workshop that related leadership to lessons from To Kill a Mockingbird. Having never read the book (amazing, huh?), I turned to the iPad to purchase/download it. I wanted to be able to read it on the fly among the many other things I do on the device. Interestingly, I could not find an electronic version in the iBook store, Kindle store or anywhere else. I *gasp* resorted to going to our school library to checkout a *gasp* paper copy! Don’t worry – I’m not saying that I don’t want print books – it’s just that there is now an option that blends multiple media into one place, and I’m hooked.

Let me put in the disclaimer now that while the iPad has a ton of possibility, it is by no means perfect. Do some things drive me crazy? Sure – the whole Flash-non-support deal is frustrating since there is so much Flash on the web. The App store is huge, but that results in thousands of proprietary ways to get something done, on a device that is very proprietary. I am very excited that Google announced a tablet, and if the One-Laptop-Per-Child concpet tablet ever gets going, that will be awesome also. All I’m saying is that right now, the iPad’s positives definitely outweigh its negatives.

So now I wonder, if this has really changed my game, how might it change the game for a student who is able to go through the school day with it? One-to-one initiatives are popping up all over (finally), and the iPad may be one solution for students. An iPad is a consumption device more than a creation device (we still need laptops or desktops), but the types of input and resources available make it a real possibility for student use. I’m going to try an experiment this week with a couple of students and let them take it to all their classes for a day. I’m really interested in how they think an iPad might (or might not) make their learning better. Hopefully I’ll convicne them to share there thoughts here next week. Stay tuned…

Communicating with Prezi

Michael — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:48:46 +0000

Prezi is a web 2.0 presentation tool that allow for much more control of how material can be presented visually. The easy-to-use interface lets you create interesting dynamic content very quickly. Courtesy of Twitter, I just learned of this short slide show demonstrating how Prezi can be used in the classroom:

http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/prezi.htm

My initial reaction to Prezi is that it is just another slick visual tool that will distract rather than enhance. Used well, that probably won’t happen and there are some definite advantages to what Prezi has to offer. I guess I’ll have to create a few and see how it goes…

Resistance IS Futile!

Michael — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:41:18 +0000

A little over two years ago I wrote a post titled, Is Google Big Brother, right after attending the NYS educational technology conference, NYSCATE. Basically I was concerned about how a for-profit company may use personal data in ways we are unaware of.

Now, looking at my Google Dashboard to check out the Google services I use, what I see is:

Buzz, Calendar, Contacts, Docs, Gmail, iGoogle, Reader, Tasks and 15 other services from the Google mother ship.

So much for being paranoid – while I was not watching, I was assimilated. Hook, line & sinker. I rely on many Google services to manage my daily life (especially Calendar, Tasks, and Gmail). All the work for the degree I’m working on in educational administration is produced, shared and stored in Google Docs. While I have resisted the Twitter rage for various reasons (though I did recently sign up for a Twitter account), as soon as I saw Buzz, I jumped on board. Maybe I was just finally ready for the microblogging world – who knows. As with many of the Google services, Buzz seems to put lots of pieces together in the right way.

The Google cloud rocks – I will still continue to read the privacy policies and have offline versions of critical documents – but you can count me one of the Google Army now.

Resistance IS futile!Creative Commons image courtesy of zsoolt on Flickr.

This One Got My Attention…the XO-3

Michael — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:59:29 +0000

Soak in this image for a few moments…

and now this one…

This is the next-generation concept design from the One Laptop Per Child team. This device does not exist yet, but the XO-3 as it is called simply looks awesome. I’m not sure what is the most appealing part – the slim design? The onscreen virutal keyboard? For many years I’ve been in the camp that tablet computers are the wave of the future (see this post). Like many, I’ve been disappointed by the design and/or price of current offerings.

It’s impossible to make judgement without being able to actually use this device. On appearance, it looks like this tablet could be the one that fills the mobile-tactile-interactive media device need.

What if it came in at the projected price of $75? What if it was in the hands of EVERY child in EVERY school IN THE WORLD?

It is still just a concept device, but as good concepts should be, this one just demands attention. I’m in…

See and read more about the XO-3 on the Laptop.org blog (images courtesy of that site).

Where in the World is Santa?

Michael — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Forget about simply imagining where Santa is on his busy night delivering presents. Thanks to the folks at NORAD, in partnership with Google, you can track Santa in Google Maps and/or Google Earth.

NORAD has been tracking Santa for over 50 years now. Check out this article at CNN on how the government’s primary missile defense operation got into the business of keeping up with Mr. Claus in the first place (it is a very sweet story).

In 2007, Google partnered with NORAD to provide real-time (Santa-time?) coverage of where the jolly man is, complete with YouTube updates from sightings around the world.

I’m getting more and more hooked on the capabilities of Google Earth, and just watching Santa’s journey for a little while, I learned so many more things about our world. My kids were captivated, and without realizing it, got a great geography lesson. Way too fun!

No matter what religion you celebrate…Happy Holidays!

Online Learning is Big Business

Michael — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:46:53 +0000

I recently attended a presentation by online learning vendors who have been awarded a contract by our local BOCES. They offer online courses for students who need to make up missed or failed classes (credit recovery) or want to get ahead or take a low-enrollment class (credit accrual). The vendors offered to us through this contract are Apex, Aventa, Florida Virtual Schools and Pearson NovaNET.

The three things I came away from these presentations with are:

Online learning is big business (as evidenced by the reps who flew/drove in from all over the country)
Online learning is an inevitable, rich, plausible model for delivering instruction (note the order I put those in)
Online learning is most effective when there is human interaction with real people along the way (read: teachers are still the most important part of learning)

IMHO, based solely on the presentations I saw (and not too much additional research on my part yet), the programs I like the most are the ones where students have access to teachers/experts as they experience the online course. Some of the products appear to have more of a support system for this while others seem more stand-alone. All of the reps talked about how human guidance was important (although not all the products had that guidance built-in).

It goes back to the basics of teaching and learning – anyone can be an expert in a content area. It is people who go beyond the knowledge and use their passion to connect with students who are successful in helping students achieve. All of these online systems offer the content in some rich-media, sequenced, accountable fashion. I think the ones that will be most successful for student learning are the ones that include the most important part of the learning process – people.

Image courtesy of Shira Golding on Flickr

Flashback Friday: Making the Connection

Michael — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:25 +0000

In a year-long review of items I wrote in this blog 5 years ago, this installment of Flashback Friday looks back to October 2004 and the post, Making the Connection. What I wrote:

Kids today are connected. When they go home, they do not pick up the phone anymore. They get on the computer and IM each other. This way, they can have group conversations and keep up with more people and more events at once. If one friend IMs 4 of his buddies about going to the mall, each can ask mom or dad at the same time, and within 2-3 minutes, everyone knows who is going and what time they can go.

We have the same connected environment for our classrooms. By using the WITS Notes pages, students and parents can stay connected to what is going on in the classroom. When teachers post assignments and events to WITS, everyone who needs to see them does automatically.

There is no IM section in WITS, but if the need arises, that can be created as well…

The Internet has broken down the walls of the classroom forever.

So where are we today? How about…

Kids today are connected. When they go home, they do not pick up the phone IM anymore. They get on the computer and IM each other They have been talking and texting on their phones since the final bell rang at school. This way, they can have group conversations and keep up with more people and more events at once. be constantly connected to those they want and need to be with. If one friend IMs Tweets 4 of his buddies about going to the mall, each can ask mom or dad at the same time, and within 2-3 minutes, everyone knows who is going and what time they can go.

We have the same no such connected environment for our classrooms. By using the WITS Notes pages, students and parents can stay connected to what is going on in the classroom. When teachers post assignments and events to WITS, everyone who needs to see them does automatically. How the always connected world of the mobile phone will come to be a part of the learning environment remains to be seen. Some schools are starting to dabble in this, but there are lots of concerns and issues surrounding it.

There is no IM section Twitter feed in WITS, but if the need arises, that can be created as well…

The Internet mobile phone has broken down will disrupt the walls of the classroom forever in ways we have not yet imagined.

That rewrite was more fun than I anticipated. The interesting part is that during those 5 years, the technology changed, the students adapted instantly, and the classroom remained the same. I wonder what my post in October of 2014 will look like?

Flashback Friday: WITS for Kids

Michael — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:00:01 +0000

In the last year or two many districts have been opening a web portal for parents and students to access information about what is going on in school (grades, etc.). For this month’s flashback, I wrote back in September 2004 about how our internal website, WITS (Williamsville Information Tracking System) was being opened for student and parent access (see the post, WITS for Kids).

Its hard to believe we have had such access for five years now, and in that time, WITS has become increasingly integral to the daily routine of teaching and learning. The developers who write the program behind WITS, Chris and Dan, are incredible in how they meet the needs of a diverse community of users, be it teachers, staff, students or parents. Looking forward, many of the new tools available on the web may influence how our school community interacts with WITS.

Happy 5th birthday, WITS for Kids!