EMILY MACLEAN
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • About
  • Connect
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • About
  • Connect

Educational Leadership and Models of ICT Decision Making

5/10/2016

0 Comments

 
As an education technology coach, I can definitely relate to the article by Devolder, Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur (2010). On any given day, I am switching the hats that I wear in my role many, many times. I’m constantly moving from a coaching role to a consulting role to a coordinator role to an advocate and back again.

I would say the majoring of my time is split between leading professional development by supporting students and teacher and planning for implementation. Planning allows me to collaborate on curriculum development and changes with our teachers (Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010, p. 1652). I meet with year groups each week to support them in the planning process. I also spend a lot of time developing new school initiatives or developing policies related to my role. In terms of implementation, this includes me getting into classes to co-teach and support teachers and students. This role also always me to work toward implementation through formalized professional development sessions or one-on-one coaching.

As per Lai & Pratt (2004, as cited in Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010), my role does have a budgetary and resource allocation component but it is also shared with the director of education technology. Therefore I am not the one making the budget but suggesting ideas and reviewing others’ proposed purchases. In addition, I have to ensure that the resources we have are working for what we need them for and advocate for more resources when necessary.

In terms of the ‘nuts and bolts’ that Marcovitz (1998, 2000 as cited in Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010), I try to minimize my role in the technical and repair component of it. This is the role of our IT manager who is phenomenal at the technical side of our operations. That being said, teachers still come to me regularly to fix their problem. It is important for me to acknowledge when I am capable of supporting them and when I need to refer them to the experts. When possible, I do try my best to problem solve with teachers as it can be frustrating when things aren’t working and it is also part of my emphasis on building relationships whenever possible.

References

Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, R., van Braak, J. & Tondeur, J. (2010). Identifying multiple roles of ICT coordinators, Computers & Education, Vol.55(4), pp.1651-1655.
0 Comments

The Thoughtful Leader: Managing, Leading and Engaging

12/19/2015

0 Comments

 
Fisher’s (2009) work about leadership was a thought-provoking read that allowed me to be reflective of how I lead as well as how others lead me.

One of the clearest things that came out of the article was the need of a clear vision at all times. A leader needs to be able to effectively identify and communicate this to their followers. In order for engagement, the followers need to ‘buy-in’ to the vision and truly understand all aspects of it before they are effectively able to live and breathe it. This is so important for the success of an organization.

Another point that resonated with me was the need to motivate others. There are so many different ways of motivating people but in my opinion, empowering people to take lead in align with the vision and values of the organisation creates the most effective outcomes. This can be scary for a leader as they have to trust in the their followers and release some sense of control. This bottom-up approach allows those involved to gain a sense of self worth and contribution to the organisation.

The importance of managing alone will never be successful. In conjunction to managing, a leader needs to lead using both these skillsets intertwined to eliminate any disconnect. It was also noted of the consistency between these two needed.

I loved that note about leadership being personal. Recently I heard someone say that in leadership sometimes you just have to do something because it has to get done. For me, this is not personal at all. I think if you can’t justify why this is needing to be done and the true purpose and impact of what you are doing then perhaps this isn’t the best route. A leader needs to stay focused on what they are trying to achieve and have a deeper understanding of why they are doing it as it aligns to the vision.
​
Reference
Fisher, J. (2009). The Thoughtful Leader. Review Ontario Leadership Framework, Ontario Ministry of Education. (Dr. Fisher has kindly provided permission to use this resource). Click here to access
0 Comments

Leadership & Gender

12/9/2015

0 Comments

 
As a female in international education, I look to the hierarchy of my own school and other schools in my area. Time and time again I see a few females in the roles of senior leadership. In my school, we have 1 female out of 5 senior leadership members. It is very unbalanced. If you move a few steps down the hierarchy to middle leadership (year group coordinators, subject coordinators, etc), you will find an even number of males and females in leadership positions if not more females slightly. While this middle management tilt may be due to generally more females in the education field, there seems to be a glass ceiling effect that makes it challenging for females to move beyond to senior leadership. 
​
As an Education Technology Coach, I also very few females represented in these roles. Primarily technology roles are dominated by males. I am the first female ever in the technology role in my school and work with 3 other males. 

While I firmly believe the best person for the job should get a position, schools should be cognizant of what messages are perceived by others when looking at leadership teams. What does it say to your students when no females are in technology leadership positions? What does it say to parents and staff when all senior leadership consists of males? How does having different genders on a leadership team impact the perspectives brought to the table of discussions? ​
0 Comments

Building Community, Building Capacity

11/29/2015

0 Comments

 
A strong leader understands that at the heart of any community or organization lies the relationships it is built upon. Nurturing these positive relationships are essential to moving forward. Without people who feel comfortable and confident in a leader's ability, the battle to move forward likely will be short-lived. Building a community where people want to come together and support each other will help not only the students but teachers grow and learn together. As a leader, one of the challenging tasks is remaining positive and optimistic through every incident that occurs. However, positivity breeds more positivity and creating a community where these feelings thrive is essential.

The reason schools exist is the learning for students. A good educational leader must be enthusiastic and share a love of learning themselves. A leader supports others in creating a welcoming and safe environment for the students to take risks in their learning and inquire. But the learning must not stop with the students. Every member of the community must see the value in up-skilling themselves and trying new things. Students need to see their teachers as role models who continue to learn as well. Further to this, learning needs to radiate farther to every member of the community as building capacity always for knowledge and growth. A good leader understands that by building capacity in all members of the school community whether parents, teachers, teaching assistant or administration, it promotes life-long learners and a community that values each member and their contributions.
In education, often leaders become restricted to an office, tied down with paperwork and 'putting out fires'. It is important for the educational leaders of our schools to stay true to the reasons they got into education and lead by example in the classroom and around the school. I love seeing administration in the classroom with the students leading learning and learning together. This view is so optimistic for the whole school community, especially our students. It shows our students that everyone is still learning and growing, that students and their learning is the number one priority in the school and that inspiring students through education is the responsibility of every member of the community.
0 Comments
Forward>>

    Archives

    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All
    21CenturyLearning
    ACARA
    Accountabilitty
    Action
    Assessment
    AUP
    Beliefs
    Capacity
    Caring
    Challenge
    Change
    Classroom Management
    Coaching
    Code Of Conduct
    Collaboration
    Communciation
    Community
    Connections
    Connectivism
    Constructivism
    Creating
    Creative Commons
    Curriculum
    Design
    Digital
    Digital Citizenship
    Digital Literacy
    Distance Education
    Documentation
    EdLeaders
    Education
    EMT503
    EMT504
    ERR501
    ESA501
    ESA513
    ESC515
    ESC516
    Excursion
    Game Based Learning
    Gamification
    Gender
    Global Connections
    Google
    Gratitude
    #gratitude #positiveeducation
    Growth
    Growth Mindset
    Holistic
    Innovation
    Inquiry
    Inspiration
    IWB
    Labels
    Leadership
    Learning
    Literacy
    Mandarin
    Mathematics
    Mindfulness
    Mistakes
    Motivation
    Music
    Online
    Parents
    Passion
    Pastoral
    Pedagogy
    Perserverence
    Perspective
    Plagarism
    PLN
    Portfolios
    Positive Education
    Positive Leadership
    Presenting
    Privilege
    Professional Development
    Professional Learning
    Provocation
    Public Speaking
    PYP
    Reflect
    Reflection
    Relationships
    Research
    Responsibility
    Risktaker
    SAMR
    Sharing
    Skills
    Social Media
    Student Agency
    Teaching
    Technology
    TPACK
    Transformation
    Typing
    Values
    Websites
    Wellbeing
    Writing

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @msemilymaclean
© COPYRIGHT 2019  EMILY MACLEAN.​ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.