Dr. Scott McLeod of the blog Dangerously Irrelevant put out a challenge for all edu bloggers to write a post related to effective school technology leadership. Below is my contribution to Leadership Day 2009:
I have found that the biggest hinderance to effective school technology is not a lack of funding, resources, or technology. The biggest hinderance has been teachers who are unwilling to learn something new. For me, “life long learner” describes the ideal teacher. There are many reasons teachers find not to learn to use technologies to increase student learning. They may be overwhelmed with duties and tasks currently being imposed on them by administration. They may have lesson plans that they created 20 years ago that they have become so attached to they can’t imagine adjusting or scrapping them. They may have inadequate technology support so even when they do use technology, it never works properly and they throw in the towel. They may believe that they don’t have time in the curriculum to add “one more thing”. They may believe that they don’t have time in general to learn something new. All of these issues need to be addressed, but at the heart of every teacher needs to live one thing. A desire to learn. Excellent teachers need to be constantly learning, and modeling that learning process to the students they teach. They must be willing to adapt their lessons and teaching as the world changes to properly prepare the students they teach. For effective school technology implimentation, administrators need to change the culture of the school. They must nurture and encourage teachers as learners. They must ensure that teachers have the proper support so that when they do learn to use a new piece of technology, it is working consistently. I believe if administorators truly transformed the school into a rich learning environment for teachers and students, the technology use would naturally begin to fall into place.
