Changes

Playing the school change game was really enlightening. I knew principals and administrators had many items to consider when trying to institute change, but didn't realize the social aspect played such an important part. I recognized some of the types of characters on the board, as well. What should happen is this game should be played by all teachers entering the school of education during one of their undergrad classes. Is there an undergrad class that teaches Educational Leadership? There should be, if there isn't. I think if undergrad students had the opportunity to play this game they would have a clearer understanding of how "the educational system" works and makes changes. Maybe it could be held in one of the statistical classes, noting how school data plays out in the virtual game world. I appreciate the fact that the game was made and only wish it was around earlier, when I was taking undergrad classes. I would have understood where the administrators were coming from when they talked about making changes.

Looking at the information included in the Beloit list was enlightening. I wonder how teachers would have looked at the list if it were around when I was a beginning college student. The list would have read something like: Didn't know much about Hitler. Color TV's were invented. Transistor radios were invented. Data processing was done with cards. JFK was shot and killed, as well as Robert Kennedy. The Beatles, Bee Gee's, Supreme's, Elvis, and Doors were names of famous singing groups and singers. The Ed Sullivan Show was on every Sunday night. LSD was becoming a problem as well as "free love" and communes. Cults were starting and hippies were in. The Civil Rights movement was creating a lot of rioting; Nixon was impeached; blue jeans were in and finally, girls were able to wear slacks and jeans! Water was water, accepted as a free drink everywhere. Students were being drafted and burning draft cards, some escaping to Canada to protest the war. Scenes of the Vietnam War was on the news every night, the first time war was ever televised.  Recycling was a new thing to do, pollution a bad word. There are more I could add. To say the Baby Boomer generation wanted change was like saying water is water. I believe each generation wants its own way of making changes and there are those out there willing to fight for those changes. It doesn't come easy and some of it come with a price. 

I recognize myself as Haw in the video and book, "Who Moved My Cheese". I've not been one who "sniffed" it out, but I scurried to make the change when I needed to. I was more like Haw, throughout. He moves along with the change and makes some "A HA" statements on the wall as he was exploring. What we're doing now is like Haw. We're learning about making changes, taking risks, and the benefit of those changes. Nothing is ever static in life, as we go through the stages of our own lives. We grew from babies to toddlers, children to teenagers, young adults to adults, middle agers to senior citizens. Each decade brings its own changes and hopefully, we learn and grow through each one. It reminds me of the book, "Passages", about the different stages of life. We need to grow and accept that the world is in constant change. If we stick our heads in the sand, change will happen anyway, without us. If we want to make sure the changes are forward moving ones, we need to help lead in the making of those changes. 

To do so in the school system is to help teachers move forward with technology, introducing new concepts about teaching with technology and helping them learn it. It means I'll have staff development sessions for the staff, using current items such as digital storytelling, pod casts, wiki's, blogs and Web 2.0 and more. Then I'll be teaching appropriate use of those items to students, as they will be learning Web 2.0 skills as well. I'll continue learning new technology as it arises and offer staff development for those, as well. As I do so, I'll remember the lessons learned in the school change game: some may be resistant to change, but others will be looking forward with it. There will be many types of the same characters in the game, no matter what. I'll have to try and reach all.

What's with all the data?

One thing I found out about our school district is that it collects a lot of data, and it uses it, too. Much of it is on our district web site, posted for everyone to see. I have to give kudos to our district Director of Educational Research, Technology and Assessment, Derick Kiger. I never realized what a job he has in developing surveys, collecting data from staff, students, human resources, administration, and the community, not to mention the test data he has to analyze and submit. One of the reports he's generated has even won an award for our district. Without the data, the school would have to work harder to figure out what each schools needs are and what we can do to help fix those areas. For example, the parent survey given out over a year ago showed everyone that communication was a major issue that needed to be worked on. As a school, we brainstormed ways we could communicate our school goals as well as classroom activities, etc., throughout the school year. Teachers used many different ways to communicate with parents last year, including the school's web site. Many times throughout the year information was gathered about what was happening in every one's classroom and published on the web. Teachers sent out weekly newsletters, or even "Daily" news. 

The school academic goals were identified as reading and mathematics, as noted by the WKCE tests and OASD and state benchmarks. Each of my schools has been working on increasing reading skills and math skills this year. As this past year has ended, we'll again be looking at what the test scores say where we are and what goals we need to establish in the coming school year. I'll be using what I've been studying in this class, the data from the WINSS, the parent and student surveys to help lead our teachers in what we need to work on this following year, as we meet in August to define our needs.

I now have a greater appreciation of what Derick Kiger does. Without all his work in gathering data, assessing it and putting it into the AYP report, all of us would be working harder to understand what our needs are at each site that need to be addressed. Thank you, Derick!

Educational Leadership

Leadership roles comes in many styles. I find that I currently use the vertical leader role in the area of library curriculum as the district elementary librarians, along with the head district librarian, are working on seeing that the curriculum is aligned up and down the Kindergarten through fourth grade levels. We've then communicated with the two intermediate grade level librarians, and they communicated with the high school librarian in establishing the up and down curriculum for the coming year. We haven't finished, but we have begun tightening the instructional levels through the creation of common lessons across grade levels. As this is an on-going project, we've agreed to work on curriculum for a portion of our librarian meetings. I've been asking for the library curriculum to be worked on for a couple of years as I've seen the need to change come about with technology being at the forefront of change, yet the curriculum reflect old card catalog issues and teachings. With the arise of Web 2.0, pod casting, blogs, wiki's, social networking, cyberbullying, and research taking place more online than off, the changes in our teachings needed to reflect what we do, not what we have done.
I'm using the adaptive assertive style as well as the dynamic supportive style when I help with these curricular changes. I'm willing to listen to any and all ideas. I'm again, the impartial leader, willing to discuss and hear all sides before making a decision.
At school, I'm the subject area leader, as I'm the only librarian at two schools. I'm responsible for the library curriculum being integrated at the kindergarten through fourth grade levels. I try to meet with teachers at each grade level to find out what they're currently teaching, or will be teaching, and incorporate the appropriate library lesson with their curriculum. For example, when the first grade teachers are doing animal reports, I incorporate how to find information within the non-fiction books, using the glossary, table of contents, index, and citing their information on their paper. This may take a week or two to incorporate all the necessary library skills, depending on what follow up there is in the classroom.
At times this past year, I've been a host teacher for a student taking library courses and needing an experienced elementary library teacher to observe and have a practicum experience. As I found this experience to be very rewarding, I'll continue to host students.
During the school year, I've offered times for staff to come in and learn the basics of searching our Destiny library program. I've taught many of them and will continue to offer this service. I've also had the opportunity to instruct new library assistants in taking over the library when I'm at another school. I'm always available via my email or phone calls when I'm not there to answer pertinent questions.
Sometimes I serve as the technology leader when the computer resource person is unavailable and troubleshooting questions come to me. I'm on the technology committee at the district level, and communicate at times with the staff, as the need arises.

Web site design

At last our web sites were done and I got to see every one elses. I sure was impressed with all the ideas everyone had. I liked the way some of the class members were able to design nice looking web sites using what we learned with html, which is not the easiest thing to do. I got a renewed appreciation for web designers. There is a lot to learn about creating functional web site that's attractive, easy to navigate, and has relevant content to boot. I spent a lot of time redesigning what I had, once I got the idea of what I wanted to do. Getting the navigation I wanted placed on each page was easy, once I figured out exactly what I wanted where. The content of web links for each class I used was appropriate to each grade level. It was very time consuming, though, to get each one listed the way I wanted it. I did learn not to use a windows meta file picture, though. I had it working at home and even uploaded it fine, but once at school, the picture wouldn't show. I'm glad Mr. Sklar took the time to show me how to convert each one so I could have them in my presentation.
I was impressed with many of my classmates ideas. I liked the way in which many of them used different color schemes to go with what they teach. Tom's ski web site was great! I liked the way he inserted forms and had them linked to another where he could just gather the data without having to reenter it. Jim's ideas for his class worked great! I was impressed with the many different ways everyone presented their information. As a whole, I think I learned that I can create a web site, but I'm not a web site designer.