The Lessons of Assertive Leadership

Forget about top down reform and the technocratic accountability system that has emerged in recent years. Educational reformer Dr. Michael Fullan, who spoke at the LHRIC’s successful Tech Expo 2011, believes today’s educational leaders can bring about change through improved relationships and enhanced values.

In his hour-long talk titled “Leading in a Culture of Change,” the professor emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the author of “Leading in a Culture of Change” said the key player is the principal of a school building who, in Fullan’s opinion, can turn the learning environment into one that is learning-enriched.

Fullan’s advice for today’s leaders includes the following:

• Pay attention to relationships. This is especially true for newly hired administrators taking charge of new districts. If you move too fast with change, “your culture will leave town,” warns Fullan. “If you move too slowly, you’ll get absorbed by the status quo.” Instead, listen and learn from those who have been there before you, and engage in fact-finding and joint problem-solving.
• Honor the “implementation dip” – leaders must have thick skins. Be resilient; do not take things too personally. At the beginning of your tenure, you won’t get the positive rewards you crave until change starts to sink in.
• Beware of “fat plans,” says Fullan. The size and prettiness of the plan is inversely related to the quality of action and the impact on student learning. Fullan has seen plans that are 31 pages long and that he considers “unwieldy.” They’ll work only if they’re action-oriented and if the words within them inspire others. However, if you choose the “skinny plan,” remember to make it memorable and actionable.
• Behaviors before beliefs – most people only change their beliefs after they’ve had some new experiences. Give them the new experiences, but don’t talk them into to it either.
• Communication during implementation is paramount – this is far more important than communication prior to implementation. Why? “Because communication in the abstract, in the absence of action, means almost nothing,” says Fullan.
• Excitement prior to implementation is fragile – we all know good leaders who are energizing, but who are often annoying, says Fullan. “You have to figure out how to be contagiously enthusiastic.” Fullan suggests you spread the good word through pep talks.
• Take risks and learn – good leaders should create a climate that encourages action and learning from mistakes.

To find out more about Fullan’s philosophy on educational reform, visit his website at www.michaelfullan.ca.

Adobe’s Creative Suite of Products Unveiled

About 20 educators turned out for an informative session on Adobe’s Creative Suite of products for schools, which was held April 4^th at our offices here in Elmsford. Led by Steve Adler, a solutions consultant for the company’s New York region, the half-day session was chock full of information on a new K12 school site license that includes Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Acrobat Pro 9, Dreamweaver CS5, Flash Pro CS5, and Fireworks CS5.

Before jumping into the technical aspects of these useful software products, Mr. Adler stressed the importance of moving students toward 21^st century readiness. “No matter what students pursue, the need for effective communication and collaboration across many types of media is critical,” he said.

Here at the Model Schools, we couldn’t agree more, and were delighted to feature this wonderful resource to our school district educators and to some of our BOCES instructors at the Center for Career Services.

There are lots of new bells and whistles in all seven products, which make their integration into the curriculum so much more effective, noted Mr. Adler. For example, Photoshop users can easily create stunning 3D logos and artwork from any text layer, selection or layer mask with the new Adobe Repoussé feature. HDR (high dynamic range) imaging can very easily be achieved with the new version of Photoshop, and puppet warping is another tool that can be used to slightly warp something, such as the elephant’s trunk that Mr. Adler warped to make it turn upwards toward its mouth!

The page layout program InDesign has some cool new features too. Students can create sophisticated page layouts for print publishing (think school newspapers) with this new version, in addition to interactive PDF documents that include video and sound.

To become more acquainted with this new suite of products, visit Adobetv.com, or contact us for more information.

The Buzz on iPads in Education

Close to 75 people attended a full-day session here at our Model Schools offices on the use of iPads in education and how the devices can be used in classrooms to improve student engagement and achievement.

Here in our local region, the Scarsdale School District is leading the way. In a presentation titled “Five Apps for the Connected Classroom,” Director of Technology Jerry Crisci and instructor Ken Holvig gave an informative presentation on the many apps that can be used on this versatile device.

“This has taken off in so many different directions,” said Mr. Crisci, who suggested that collaborating with each other is how most educators will discover what is happening in school districts across the region.

To show how this lightweight tablet (the new iPad2 has a 10-hour plus battery life) can be used in education, the presenters gave a brief demo on their top five picks for the connected classroom.

Among them were Flipboard, an app that reformats content into a digital, interactive magazine format; Wikipanion, which is basically Wikipedia for the iPad; Google Earth, with its thousands of aerial and satellite photos, city names, country borders, photos, road maps, and so much more; Dragon Dictate, a voice recognition application that allows users to speak and then see the recording in a typewritten format; and Google Translate, a free translation tool.

The amount of resources that students and teachers have access to is growing, they noted. Take for instance, KhanAcademy.org, which allows students to watch, practice and literally learn anything online for free. iTunes University is one of their favorite apps. “In my opinion, it’s one of the best kept secrets out there,” said Mr. Holvig. There’s no denying this powerful resource. Right now, users have access to more than 350,000 free lectures, videos, films, and other resources, and it’s all free. Check it out at http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/.

Dr. Dan Brenner, superintendent of the Roslyn School District, rounded out the day’s session with a dynamic talk about his district’s experience in rolling out an iPad pilot at Roslyn High School. Last summer, the district gave tablets to a select group of teachers and then had them trained on the use of the device. In December, the iPads were given to about 50 students. In a recent article in Scholastic.com, Dr. Brenner said, “We gave it (the iPad) out because it was a device to serve our needs. What’s generated interested was the fact that it’s a cool toy. What got us moving is it serves our needs."

The district’s intention is to create a paperless classroom, with students having access to novels, class notes, documents, folder systems, and other textbooks online, avoiding the need to carry heavy books into class. Students also have access to district email accounts from their iPads, which they use to communicate with.

For more information on Roslyn’s exciting pilot project, visit http://wordpress.roslynschools.org/wordpress/.

Local Educators Get a Closer Look at Ensemble Video

A half-day training session on Ensemble Video kept plenty of educators busy March 9^th as they learned the ins and outs of this award-winning video content management system.

Ensemble is becoming increasingly popular in K-12 schools and universities across the country, with some schools using the system for their online learning initiatives, which means that students can watch steaming video in real time or view recorded sessions.

Scott Nadzan, the company’s director of marketing and new media, led the session, which included an in-depth look at how teachers can easily organize, publish and share videos securely across multiple departments, organizations and across the LHRIC’s consortium.

Nadzan told participants that the flexible software solution is easy to deploy and support, and it integrates easily with a wide range of complementary video and Web technologies. As well as that, users are not required to be experts in HTML code. For schools, Ensemble has a wide variety of uses, such as creating videos to enhance educational activities and to showcase them among the community.

Model Schools Kicks Off with National Speaker

Thanks to Colette Connolly, Public Relations Specialist at Southern Westchester BOCES, for writing the following article for the Model Schools Kickoff Session on September 21, 2010:

Building relationships, establishing trust and forming professional learning communities are just some of the ways that educators can become connected leaders, suggested Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, in her keynote presentation to area administrators and instructors who attended the LHRIC’s Model Schools Kickoff Sept. 21.

Ms. Nussbaum-Beach, owner and founder of 21st Century Collaborative, LLC, a digital learning consulting business, and a partner with Will Richardson of the Powerful Learning Practice Network, stressed the importance of collective intelligence in changing schools for the better, and how a 21st century leader’s daily choices, if made wisely, can adequately prepare students for the future workplace. The RIC’s Model Schools division is collaborating with Ms. Nussbaum-Beach on an ongoing basis.

When asked what they thought a connected leader might be, many in the room responded with words like “collaborator,” “participant,” “engaged,” and “a learner with direction.” Ms. Nussbaum-Beach admitted that being a connected learner was sometimes “hard and messy,” but that learning the dispositions and values important to its implementation were invaluable.

Educators, she explained, must be good listeners and ask good questions, have the desire to share and contribute, be open-minded, believe that the contributions of all can lead to the advancement of individuals, and have the willingness to be a co-learner, co-creator and co-leader.

Knowing the proper “tool set” is essential to embracing these ideas, she added. Knowing the value of Twitter, for example, and using it as a networking tool and as a place to find resourceful information is invaluable to the 21st century leader.

In order to engage students in powerful learning, teachers must understand the shift that has occurred in education, that is, the shift from learning at school to learning anytime and anywhere; teaching as a private event as opposed to teaching as a public, collaborative practice; learning as a passive participant versus learning in a participatory culture; learning as individuals versus learning in a networked community; and acquiring knowledge on a linear basis as opposed to distributed knowledge.

Learning and teaching in a participatory culture means that both students and teachers must know the new media literacies, explained Ms. Nussbaum-Beach. Some of those include using proper judgment when it comes to evaluating the reliability and credibility of information on the Web; having the willingness to put collective intelligence into action, that is, pooling knowledge and comparing notes with others toward a common goal; being able to search for, synthesize and disseminate information through networking; and being able to sample and remix content in a meaningful way.

Working in a participatory 2.0 world has led some to withhold that sharing of information, said Ms. Nussbaum-Beach, because often educators are resistant to voice their opinions online. “The problem with educators is they have set themselves up as a culture of hoarders,” said Ms. Nussbaum-Beach. “We have to start thinking about mutual accountability and how we can begin to share information naturally.”

Ms. Nussbaum-Beach suggested that educators take a three-pronged approach to professional development. That includes becoming members of professional learning communities that focus on the sharing of ideas and experiences between teachers, seeking out global communities of practice or inquiry that include a diversity of opinion and therefore enhance change, and engaging in personal learning networks.

Participants were asked to examine their goals for the school year and create a culture of sharing. “Being an open leader isn’t so much about the tools you have, it’s about having a clear idea of the relationships you want to build, and it’s also about the honest, deep conversations you get from being involved in professional networking communities,” stressed Ms. Nussbaum-Beach.

“If we want to make a difference in students’ lives, we need to be open and share with each other,” she said.

If you are interested in the Powerful Learning Practice, and you wish to discuss options for how to involve your district in cohort-based learning, contact Leslie Accardo at laccardo@lhric.org.

"The State of the Stuff" - A Morning with David Pogue

(Ed note: Due to David's intrinsic wittiness and edginess, the author finds no need to add any other layer of humor or irony to this blog post. Reader, don't look for any deep pedagogical or philosophical message in this entry - this morning, it's in praise of "the stuff".)


And who better than someone who makes a living in part by reviewing gadgets. It's dangerous to predict the future and "not look like an idiot", but David shared 3 of the biggest changes and trends in pop culture, then opened up his box of toys (the "mobile gadget funhouse") to make sure we are keeping pace with the state of the stuff. Without further adieu, the three biggest changes/trends are:


"Birth of the iThing". It's not a phone, and not quite a laptop. (Funny thing about predicting the future: in 2006, David wrote that he was pretty sure that Apple would never come out with a cellphone. In fact, Steve Jobs offered Verizon a cellphone but wanted carte blanch as to the design AND offered a 5 year exclusive for Verizon. Verizon and ATT thought about it and said, no thanks. Sprint declined as well. Cingular said, "um, sure." History speaks for itself.)

The iPhone had features that no other device had, and did things that nothing has been able to do before, by way of these gorgeous little "apps" - slim, single purpose programs that turn the phone into just about anything. Most apps were either free or a dollar. (Music professor turned millionaire, part one: Ocarina, a nifty little app written my a music professor in 2007, turned around 1.5 million copies by 2009. Essentially, you blow into the microphone of the phone and play it like a wind instrument.)


"Cellphone meets the Internet". Why pay $2.00 for 411 on a cellphone when you can dial 800 GOOG 411 from any phone and be connected for free to your destination? Just by stating the city and business type, David found a Starbucks in Briarcliff and jokingly ordered 150 lattes for the TLI audience. Need a real answer with human intelligence behind it? Use ChaCha (800-2chacha) to speak a question, and receive a text answer. Apparently 10,000 freelance agents are paid .20 to research your answer and send it back to your phone. Nowadays we're looking at services that convert your voicemails to text that can be received via email or by text message with an audio recording of the actual voicemail, attached. Services like Callwave actually "listen" to your voicemail and send you the "gist" of it via text message, making its own interpretation of the key ideas. And Google Voice, for free, transcribes your voice mail.


Web 2.0 Takes Over. We all know by now that in a web 2.0 world, the audience provides the material. Facebook has 350,000,000 members and adds new ones at a rate of 5% each month. Microsoft bought 1.6% of Facebook at 240 million dollars and David reminded us that it's basically run by college kids.

Craigslist, offering free classified ads, may be killing the American newspaper. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal allegedly got one inch smaller last year.

And Wikipedia, where "any idiot says whatever they want and smarter people fix it."

(Dudes turned billionaires, part one:did you know that two young gentlemen sold YouTube to Google for 1.7 billion dollars?)

Other smaller success stories:
Domystuff.com - outsource a chore. List grunt work you want done, and individuals bid on who can do it the cheapest.
Prosper.com - make microloans to business plans and get 14% interest. Bank cut out of the middle.
Goloco.org - carpooling database. List a trip or commute; other people sign up to join you.
E-petitions.com - part of British government website - start a petition about anything. Non binding, thankfully, but everybody gets to keep tabs on what people care about.
Whoissick.org - click off your symptoms; form a data map of maladies. Google can pinpoint flu outbreaks 2 weeks before CDC does!
Snopes.com - discern fact from fiction, finally.

What does this mean?
With all this technology, innovation just "splinters" - there are no real "killer" apps.
Real time is better - email becomes outdated.
The ego generation cares nothing for privacy. No explanation needed.
Twitter people seem to be a cut above with an average age of 35, and an average income of 75K. Be on the lookout for a clever book that David is publishing, compiling the most clever of his followers Twitter feeds in response to questions he poses.
The challenge- things getting smaller, but our fingers are staying the same size. True enough!

The good news: it's true that no one is expected to know everything, and the "primary infatuated", as David calls them, are "geeks and the media." The rest of us can be confident that if we continually fix our eyes on the bigger vision, where schools continue to improve and modernize, the toys will always fall into place.

Creativity 2.0 - A Good Poke in the Eye from Dr. Stager

(NOTE: a very minimalist impression of Dr. Stager's afternoon keynote session on "Creativity 2.0". The author is being deliberately pithy. The brevity of this post is no way meant to minimalize Dr. Stager's session with us. Brevity is the source of wisdom, after all.)

In a nutshell: learning is natural. We should stop just "burping" into our Voicethreads and our Moviemakers and our other web 2.0 pet tools and really get down to the business of creativity. Some of these technologies we have fallen in love with are just "true and false" making a comeback wrapped around cartoon clips. Stop with the cut and paste collages and calling it technology integration. Our addiction to the "software du jour" produces limited fluency and superficial use which results in less creativity. Our "unhealthy worship of teen culture" has impeded the true mission of school: prepare children for adulthood - not the other way around. The projects we have kids engage in should reflect the artist's aesthetic: is it beautiful, thoughtful, and meaningful? Does it allow the students to "contribute to the continuum of culture?"

And to summarize: the technology DOES matter.

Thanks Dr. Stager for a meaningul poke in the eye of sorts to make sure the "good" doesn't become the enemy of the best.