Leadership Positions---The Realities and Responsibilities...

This week's class dealt with items that pop up when being a leader. In the readings, items such as interview teams popped up, which made me reflect upon my times interviewing for positions, and most certainly the interviews that will be in my future. Reading the attributes that are recommended when interviewing, I saw a few qualities that I feel that I have and some that I feel I lack. However, something must've stood out, because I've been hired a few times (I have yet to be fired, though. Let's keep that streak alive...)

Another part that stood out to me was the non-verbal communication that we give off. That's something that, in my circles, I'm notorious for. I'm not the kind to roll my eyes at someone, but apparently, I've always been one who isn't good at hiding irritation or anger. One of my old college roommates would always joke about seeing "the face", something that signaled to him that the meeting wasn't going well (we participated in many groups and activities during college...) It made me think---does the principal recognize any non-verbal signals that I do? What about the Literacy Coach? That's something that I need to keep an eye on...

Finally, the idea of data retreats was brought up. As part of my Learning Team, I'm looking at data for the entire school on a weekly basis. As a teacher, I look at it daily. I'm taking part of this course as an opportunity to try and improve my skills at data research. In other words, can I narrow my time dealing with data by narrowing focus onto data pieces that are important to the good of the school? Or am I just looking at a piece of the big picture? Sometimes, I tend to focus on my own little piece of the pie, instead of taking a step back and looking at EVERYTHING. Again, I'm hoping that this class gives me some strategies to use for a long time.

Well, that's all that I have for now. As always, leave me a message or an idea if I missed out on something. Later...

Technology and Leadership

This week's course began, and we jumped into a new topic---Technology and Leadership. The focus looks like it will be working on how to use our current skills and abilities as leaders to effectively incorporate technology into the school curriculum. I may be totally off, but that's the read I got in it.

For me, this class definitely has merit. I'm the Instructional Technology Leader for my school, and I'm also receiving opportunities to present throughout the district. With these opportunities come responsibilities. I want to serve well, but I want to be effective, as well. From what I see and interact with, I don't know how many teachers and colleagues are ready for take on leadership in this category, and I think that many feel uninformed in this area. Within my school, I feel like that questions and requests that I receive are more basic tasks, and I'm not sure how ready that my staff is for the higher level tasks possible. I see that throughout the district, to an extent, too. I want to be careful in these opportunities and positions as well---I want others to be comfortable contacting me.

As a result, I'll be taking in a lot of the class on a personal level. I don't feel as if I'm reaching as wide an audience as possible, and maybe tweaking my style a bit might change that. (Then again, I'm sure sarcasm doesn't help much, either, huh?)

Well, that's what I got for now. By all means, feel free to comment or continue the conversation...

The Website

For this last week of HTML, we were to design our own website. For me, this was stress-free. I've been toying around with this for the last year, and I currently finished up a series of websites for my students to use as portfolios.

As a result, I could've been casual about it, and just submitted something that I've done. However, I decided to add onto the existing site that I currently run, and the final project was creating a subpage in which my students could access information to a debate that they will be producing for me in the next few weeks. Setting it up isn't bad---my recommendation, though, is to really plan out what you want to do before you set out to do it. I had to draw out what I wanted to do before actually sitting down to design it.

Is this something to do with the students? Definitely. I think that I'd like them to design their own and get an actual "real-world" activity to participate in. So, yes, this is definitely something worthwhile to do.

Well, that sums it up for now. By all means, leave any comments, questions, or concerns if you have them.

Web 2.0

This week, we went into a comparison of Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0, and it was interesting. I've heard about Web 2.0, but I never really grasped what it was about until now. It's truly amazing how far the innovations have come in the last 10 years or so.

During the conversation, items such at Netscape brought me back to the days of Dial-Up, AOL Online, and a bevy of other innovations that existed in the past. Today, here I am toying around with my iTouch, and I'm sure that it's already on the fast track to becoming obsolete. I hope that I'm more prepared now for helping my class than I was a few years ago.

I think that's the key, here. This time, I'm aware of the tools that are out there. I try to look at this with a bit of humility---I don't have to be the innovator and creator of every tool; instead, I simply need to broaden my horizons and try out new items as they become available. In the last 1 1/2 of class, I've learned a ton that I've already used in the class. I hope to continue that in the future.

So, back to Web 2.0. Am I embracing this? I believe so. I currently have 45 students on Google Docs performing research papers in which they have to work with partners, and all of this is being done online. I believe that I'm preparing my students for the future; the scary part is, I don't even know that future looks like...

Continuation of Web Design on an Empty Stomach

Of course, when you've had stomach flu all week, then it's understandable to not want to eat. I mean, for real, it couldn't wait 'till AFTER break? Aargh....

Well, right now I have a webpage designed, and now it's just about adding bells and whistles to it to enhance or update it. I think that it's just a matter of me sitting down and doing it. I'm using the Google Sites application, and I've been using it for about a year, now. The page in question is something that I'm having the students use to plan out a project that they have to do throughout January. So, in other words, it's something that I will definitely use.

Other than that, I'm slowly but surely transferring all of my portfolio stuff from one site to a new one. I had already completed and submitted my first draft of my site, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that I had to re-do all of it through a template that I wasn't aware was in existence. Oops. Oh well, at least I have a lot of the hard work done...

Well, that's all that I have for now. I'd love to talk more, but I'm not sure that the stomach flu is gonna allow that... Gotta run!!!