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Visionary Leadership Paper

Chelsea Hobbing ( 800660693)

EIST 5100

Dr.Wilkins

4/11/18
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Introduction

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr.D at our school and his role is the

Technology Curriculum Facilitator. He helps provide support, insight and many ideas to

our scholars, educators, and administrators. He does an excellent job of staying

knowledgeable, accessible and active in the implementation of technology in our school.

Throughout our interview we discussed the importance of technology, how it creates 21st

century learners, what the classroom environment should look like when technology is in

use and implications related to technology.

Summary of the Interview

Through the interview it is clear that Mr.D feels technology is a critical part in our

scholars educational journey. He spoke to the fact that technology increases collaboration

through teamwork on projects and platforms such as Google Classroom. Additionally, he

discussed that technology is based in the four C’s, collaboration, communication,

creativity and critical thinking. All of these skills are essential is creating 21st century

learners.

Furthermore, Mr. D touched on the classroom environment. He said in order to

properly implement it in a classroom you must have your classroom set up so it is

conducive to facilitation, collaboration and a comfortable environment for independent

work. In a word of caution he said stray away from the traditional classroom set up. A

classroom environment set up for facilitation, collaboration and a comfortable

environment will lead scholars to success and engage them on a higher level.

Additionally, he spoke upon it being up to us as administrators to be the role models for

using technology. It is vast and present everywhere in our society, so the use of it in the
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school starts with us. Also, we must use technology to keep education relevant and

understand that using technology is not a choice, it is a must.

The biggest implication Mr.D discussed is the accessibility to technology for all

scholars. He has stated that in our area on average about 19% of scholars do not have

home access to technology and some areas are as high as 40%. Technology is being

utilized more frequently in schools and the expectation for school work, especially

heading more towards the upper grades is that they use technology to complete work at

home. Mr.D also mentioned there are programs that are good for support in this area,

such as Sprint’s Million-Dollar Project to provide hot spots to scholars in need. Overall,

he communicated the pertinence, relevance and execution of technology implementation.

Relevance to ISTE Standards

Mr.D naturally through his answers touched on many of the ISTE

standards pertaining to education, and my area of focus, administrators. The standards

that were most heavily addressed were number two, digital age literacy, number 3,

excellence in professional practice, and number five, digital citizenship. In number two,

digital age literacy, it speaks on modeling and promoting frequent and effective

technology use. Mr.D spoke on the importance of being the digital citizen you want your

scholars to be by using technology throughout the classroom, so scholars will start to

mirror this initiative. This standard also addresses equipping scholars with the proper

technology. Mr.D expressed how important giving scholars access to technology is, and if

possible implement a 1 to 1 initiative in order to help scholars be successful academically

and holistically.
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Standard 3, excellence in professional practice addressed staying on top of

educational research and best practices. He has paved the way for this by bringing in

programs such as, Hour of Code to give scholars and teachers real life access to

technological practices. Standard five, digital citizenship was also addressed, equitable

access to appropriate digital tools. He mentioned and gave us statistics to stay cognizant

of the growing numbers who do not have technology, so we can be ready and prepared

for those scholars. Also, he stated how important it is for us (administrators/educators) to

be the model of digital citizenship; this goes along with promoting and modeling the use

of technology. He spoke about scholars doing their own research, making sense of the

information, involving themselves and taking ownership of their own learning. In order

for this to happen we must foster an environment where technology is valued and ever-

present.

Value of the Interview

This interview was invaluable and I am grateful that I had this experience. It

helped reinforce what I have learned in class thus far. The biggest take away I have is that

it is up to us to model the use of technology and that it must be something that occurs all

the time, not just occasionally. As administrators it is our duty to show our scholars how

to be active digital citizens and that technology is a necessary tool for success, not just an

added component. Additionally, it will be important for me as an administrator to set the

precedence of what an effective classroom of technological implementation looks like

and sounds like. Collaboration and communication are key factors and products of

technology use. Another key take away I had is that there are plenty of resources to help

with the technology initiative. For example, Hour of Code, Google Classroom, and
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Sprint’s million-dollar project, these are all great instructional tools to help create an

environment where technology can flourish and scholars, teachers and administrators can

become fluent digital citizens. Comprehensively, it is clear that technology is a necessity,

not a choice and we must take ownership over this vision in schools.

References

C. (2016). CoSn Horizon Report. Retrieved April 9, 2018, from

http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2016-nmc-cosn-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

Dunn, C. (n.d.). Visionary Leadership Interview [Interview by C. Hobbing].

Appendix

1. How do you think technology shapes education?

Provides a greater access for scholars to take control of their learning. Through the

power of technology, scholars can become less reliant on a teacher to give this

information and being able to go out and find it for themselves.

2. What challenges do you see for educational technology currently and over the

next five years?

One of the areas I feel is an issue when it comes to education technology is closing the

digital divide that exists that can hinder access for scholars. When I say digital divide, I

speak to the issue of scholars who do not have the technology or Internet access at home.
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As education pushes to use more digital resource and tools, scholars may be required to

work at home and those scholars that lack access this becomes an issue. (Had to revisits a

report). According to Charlotte Digital Inclusion Project, approximately 19% of residents

in Charlotte lack Internet access at home and could reach up to 40% in some areas.

Within our community, places like the Charlotte library and Sprint are assisting with

these issues by allowing families to check out/rent hotspots that can be used at home, as

well many schools (like ours) providing programs like 1:1 to provide scholars with a

device they can use at home and school. It is important to realize that education

technology cannot be effective if scholars do not have access to the technology to take

advantage of the resources. As long as their is a digital divide that exist, there will be

scholars that will get short changed.

3. Coding in order to improve digital literacy is on the upswing. What are some

ways we have or will adopt this technology initiative?

One of they things we have done is get our scholars involved with Hour of Code. This is

a weeklong event that exposes scholars to coding in a way that would them through

games, task based activities, and real world challenges.

4. How will technology integration and curriculum help prepare our scholars for the

real world?

Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Critical thinking. These are the 4Cs of

“21st Learning”; however, these are all areas in which technology helps prepare scholars

for the real world.

5. How do you think the physical learning environment should look if technology

integration is apparent? What are the benefits of this?

The best way to describe how I feel about the physical learning environment can be seen

in this article.

https://www.edutopia.org/practice/flexible-classrooms-providing-learning-environment-

kids-need

Even in the present of technology, we must get rid of the standard desk and chair and

introduce a more comfortable environment that include areas for independent work,

collaborative work spaces, and teacher facilitation. In the article of one school that went

in that direction, one major benefit is that scholars became more engage. When

introducing technology, you can make each area fit the need rather scholars are doing

individual research in the independent areas, collaborating on a group project in the

collaborative space, or taking notes with the teacher.

6. What are some ways technology allows learning to be scholars led and

collaborative?

 Scholars become researchers and learn to critique the information they find.

Scholars can learn to answer their own questions by using the Internet and finding

the information and sources. We as educators must teach our scholars how to find

what they are looking for.

 Platforms like Google, allow scholars to share documents with each other to

collaborate or peer review each other work.

7. As school leaders, what is our role in helping our scholars become comfortable

utilizing technology and ultimately becoming creators of their own learning?

We must be intentional about using technology it in the learning environment. If we

think about our scholars now, they already use these technologies is their day to day live,

rather talking with friends, looking up a video on how to do the latest dance craze, or

playing a game. We must take the time to understand how we can apply what they

already know how to do and make it relevant to what they need to learn in the classroom.

As well, we must provide scholars the option of choice and not making the use of

technology linear. Allow scholars to design their own questions of research, their own

topic of interest (within the parameter of an assignment), and their own means of

delivering the project.