Assessing a time when I was a teacher or a leader with technology really made me think whether I followed some of the qualities of being a leader or not. I found that quite a few of my colleagues had the same issues as myself; a lot of teacher-led activities and not enough hands-on. Quite surprising, really! Keeping current and being involved in communities to promote discussion, is key to honing one's leadership qualities. To be a quality leader takes an enormous amount of dedication and effort.
Collaborative Inquiry (CI) really interested me. While I had some idea about CI, I did not really know the theory behind it. Once again, my interest was peaked. I have tried to implement some of the CI theory into my lessons now and am on the road to implementing it in all my planning, I think! As anything new, you have to self-reflect and collaborate to see how and if you are progressing. I suppose that is another key to wanting to be a great leader, too!
I think I do a good job making my classroom a safe environment and also a friendly, open-door environment for both students and teachers. I really liked one of the videos that we watched about leadership and some of the quotes. Here it is:
The one quote that really caught my attention was: "Authority is a poor substitute for Leadership." How true that is. How many times in our working lives have we came across that attitude with our bosses? I try to be a leader that teaches by example and try to help whoever I can, whenever I can. Your time is free, give it generously as it costs you nothing! It is amazing to me how much time my colleagues give to students and are totally committed to their students and their learning. Throughout this course, I have remarked quite often how committed we all are to making our teaching more engaging for all of our students; as we are all committed to student learning and committed to students even with extra-curricular activities.
The activity that we all performed about programs for new teachers again amazed me; the amount of knowledge that we all shared with each other and the actual overall knowledge level of my colleagues astounded me. I learned about quite a few new programs and spent some time researching and trying different programs. Again, professional knowledge is abundant among all of my colleagues. Sharing is such a crucial part of building one's resources and all of my colleague did not hesitate to share when asked. The ideas to help new teachers out exemplifies the research, experience and overall knowledge of my colleagues; such a variance in the types of programs, also. I had not heard of some of the programs, like Comic Life, Voki and Adobe Spark to mention a few.
The PD activities that we created for a half-day teaching sessions for our fellow colleagues were extremely educational. They varied immensely and I retained a lot of new sites and programs to research and look into to use in my lesson planning and delivery. The commitment to ongoing professional learning is apparent in what all of us found. The amount of collaboration and research that we have shared is so immense that I have created multiple folders to keep websites, programs, hardware etc. I have had to be so organized to keep the folders easily understandable and easily accessible by the type of technology that I want to access.
Mentoring an older colleague at my school since the start of the year has taught me a lot about my leadership qualities; both good and bad! I have reflected about what I need to improve in and how to make a difference across the whole school. I have also realized how challenging it is going to be to implement my ideas and how crucial it is to have all parties on board; administration, teachers, students, community etc. Involving parents/guardians is a key concept to developing a successful technology plan. Sometimes, parents and the overall community in general are a forgotten part of a technology plan. Having the parents on board is crucial to getting the student to adopt a positive attitude towards learning and incorporating technology.
Being one of the tenets of professional knowledge, life-long learning is a must for all teachers who want to be leaders in technology. Ongoing professional learning and professional knowledge are key to our standards of practice as teachers. I want to be that life-long learner and want to pass that attitude on to each and every one of my students. Finding a balance in today's society with the vast amount of technology at our fingertips is our struggle moving forward. Time management is still a skill that needs to be developed in all areas of our lives including the use of technology for education, convenience and betterment; and not just for entertainment.
