In an article at CIO Insight this week, Overcoming Application Overload, author Dennis McCafferty asks us if we need to revise our policies on keeping software applications. He says that too many companies are keeping applications that are obsolete and no longer return value. The article suggests that tech departments have to retire those applications that do not have a great return on investment.

I understand why it happens that we end up with so much legacy software. Application retirement saves money, but it is also hard work. It is work to find replacement software, transfer data, train users, migrate systems….and users are often the biggest obstacle, in schools and elsewhere.

Do you remember Blockers and Finders by Sunburst? It was an application for elementary school students involving making and testing conjectures. I remember it on an Apple II and the early Macintosh computers (LCII, LCIII…) and when we retired those older computers and replaced them with systems that would no longer run Blockers and Finders I nearly had an uprising of teachers who simply could not imagine moving on from Blockers and Finders.

Years ago, I worked with a High School Department Chair (Foreign Language), who, when the rest of the department was using OS X and Microsoft Office, was still firing up his Apple IIe and ClarisWorks every day because change was simply not in the cards for this teacher.

In the IT world we are all about change. I have a growth mindset and always want to know not just what we can do, but what can we do next. In schools, we are change agents in the IT department. We present a future that “could be” and nudge people along the path to get us there, even the ones who still fondly remember Blockers and Finders, Apple IIes and the Rhinehart (or Palmer) Writing Method. It was about ten years ago that I started upgrading our wireless networks to allow student and teacher devices on the network – the writing on the wall was clear to me. When we had our big show and tell day at the high school, teachers decided they liked the idea of being able to bring their own laptops in, but they were not in favor of supervising students on their own laptops, and it was a number of years before we could implement that change.

The best IT leaders embrace change (Be the Buffalo) but recognize that many of their colleagues do not. I think that we make the most progress when we anticipate the nay-sayers, the ones who want to hold onto Blockers and Finders forever, and listen to and reassure them that we will help them make the journey with us.

This article, 21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020, by Shelley Blake-Plock, asks us to envision schools without desks, homework, paper, High School Algebra I, and computers (as we know them).

Many in our field (that intersection of education and technology) will nod and cheer as they read. I wonder, though, how many parents of school-aged children still want weekly spelling lists, books made of dead trees (paper), and the 5-paragraph essay as the  primary product of student research and thinking, all leading to higher SAT scores and entrance to a competitive college. I think we have to do more outreach to parents and our wider communities to demonstrate what education could be and should be in the second decade of the 21st century.

One of the  items in Shelley’s list of 21 obsolete things is:

IT Departments
Ok, so this is another trick answer. More subtly put: IT Departments as we currently know them. Cloud computing and a decade’s worth of increased wifi and satellite access will make some of the traditional roles of IT — software, security, and connectivity — a thing of the past. What will IT professionals do with all their free time? Innovate. Look to tech departments to instigate real change in the function of schools over the next twenty years.

School IT folks – ignore this at your peril. It is the same message heard from Bob Moore when he was the keynote speaker at our Massachusetts CTO Clinic in April. Moore spoke about the changes that will enable CTOs to focus more time and energy on educational leadership and transforming the educational experience with innovative technology, and less time on managing the “stuff” of the technology department.

As we IT directors and CTOs focus more on transforming the educational experiences in our schools and on researching and spreading the word about innovative practices and relatively less time managing servers and data centers, it becomes imperative for technology administrators to have the broad skill set described in the Framework of Essential Skills (from CoSN). Skills like working collaboratively across departments, building community support, engaging stakeholders, and understanding and articulating the potential impact of technology in education become skills that are more needed in the next decade.

Based on my own experience and on the wisdom of people like Bob Moore and others, I predict that CTOs who have, in the past, concentrated in a narrow sense on boxes, wires, geek-speak, spools, tools, and devices will be marginalized in their organizations. On the other hand, those who manage IT in ways that maximize educational opportunities and who bring an all-encompassing perspective to their jobs will create new opportunities and will help play a bigger role in moving their schools or districts into an exciting future full of possibilities.

related post

I was talking to one of my colleagues (another Technology Director in Massachusetts) recently about the different levels of support for technology initiatives we have encountered over the years, especially in terms of support from the superintendent. She is working with a new superintendent who has taken a pretty strong stance on implementing technology, 21st century skills, and embracing digital communications with the community. The message is pretty much that if you don’t know how to do something, speak up and we’ll bring resources to bear for professional development and support, but if you won’t get on board, it would be best for all if you start looking for a job in another school district.

What a great message – if you’re willing to demonstrate continual learning and engage with the goals of the district then the district will help you get there. If you aren’t even willing, the district will help you get out of there. This position demonstrates an understanding that it is no longer optional – if you are an educator or educational administrator, then your feet have to be firmly in the 21st century and you have to be looking ahead. You can’t steer the boat very well if you keep looking at the wake behind you.

But for how many districts is this the case? Do we have a strong and viable vision that looks to the future and do we hold our educators accountable for embracing and engaging in that vision?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhf/824461180/

In this series of posts I am sharing DRAFT work of the ETAC and asking for your help.

Please help us through your comments here by adding to the description or by supplying us with a vignette. The vignette can be a very brief example or a “day in the life” – whatever you feel you can contribute.

There are 2 more groups that we are including in our white paper on technology leadership, and they are very important to the process. Please contribute whatever you can about the roles of the Superintendent and the Building Principal as relates to technology leadership.

In this series of posts I am sharing DRAFT work of the ETAC and asking for your help.

Please help us through your comments here by adding to the description or by supplying us with a vignette. The vignette can be a very brief example or a “day in the life” – whatever you feel you can contribute.

DRAFT – Committee written (not claiming as my work : )

“The profile of the administrator of technology in our schools must be clearly defined to ensure the necessary impact in teaching and learning for our current students’ future success.
Districts currently have an “administrator of technology” whose titles and responsibilities are defined in as many ways as there are districts. This position is currently new in the educational landscape due to the technology evolution.  The profile must be clearly defined to move the educational technology agenda within our schools.   This key administrator must be a visionary leader who guides the vision, mission and goals within a school district.  This person must posses the necessary skills, understanding and competencies to address the technical, educational and administrative roles of technology in education.  This position must reside at the central office level and be consistent throughout the Commonwealth to ensure key aspects of technology integration and operations are occurring.  The “administrator of technology” must be well versed in:

• the Massachusetts DESE curriculum frameworks, Technology Literacy Standards and Technology Benchmarks and National Standards (ISTE);
• adult teaching methodologies relating to professional development and support;
• pedagogy relating to teaching and learning in the classroom;
• laws and guidelines relating to and not limited to software licensing, online usage, fair use guidelines, etc;
• asset management for procurement, inventory, replacement;
• broad technical knowledge (Certification in the technical field is not required but extensive knowledge to oversee the technical staff and by having a working technical knowledge enables the TBA administrator role to use the infrastructure to enhance both the educational and administrative environment);
• data analysis as it relates to the multitudes of information available to districts including MCAS scores, student data and staff data;
• electronic guidelines relating to technology (CIPA, electronic records, policy/guidelines ex. AUP, Web Publishing, email, disaster recovery);
• project management (new building infrastructure, procurement, etc. and large deployment projects); and
• evaluation procedures for both teaching and technical staff.

Currently CoSN (Consortium of School Networks) at the national level is working on defining the essential skills and creating the standards for a national licensure for this key administrative role.

Reference Documents: CoSN Compendium 2007, The Emerging Role of the District CTO”

In this series of posts I am sharing DRAFT work of the ETAC and asking for your help.

Please help us through your comments here by adding to the description or by supplying us with a vignette. The vignette can be a very brief example or a “day in the life” – whatever you feel you can contribute.

DRAFT – Committee written (not claiming as my work : )

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963

“The primary goal of a school committee is to provide a proper education for the children in their community. In order to do that effectively, school committee members have several distinct powers and responsibilities. Their powers include:

• Authority to hire the Superintendent of Schools and other staff as delineated by statute
• Set policies
• Adopt a budget

School Committee members have three major areas of responsibility:

• Community responsibility
• Responsibility to school administration
• Relationship to fellow committee members

A 21st Century education prepares students for today’s global society and provides students the skills to navigate successfully within it. According to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills there are six broad categories and themes necessary for a 21st Century education.  They are:

• Information and Communication
• Thinking and Problem-Solving
• Interpersonal and self-direction skills
• Global knowledge and understanding
• Financial, economic and business literacy, and developing entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options
• Civic literacy

Technology is interwoven within all of these categories. As the educational television programming was important in the early sixties, the computer has become just as essential in the early 21st Century. Unfortunately, technology is very expensive. The problem is compounded in these hard economic times with tight budgets. As educational leaders, school committee members should model and support the use of technology to enhance student learning. They can model by creating a School Committee webpage or “web presence” or by creating “shows” on the local public access or educational channel. They can show support by recommending funding for requests for technology tools and software.
One tool for a technologically progressive school committee to use would be a web-based school committee automated communication product. This product would allow the community to access the meetings in process and share documents among administrators, school board members, and the public. This product also allows for multi-media presentations that can be accessed anytime and anywhere via the Internet.
A school committee should be actively involved with technology planning. At least one member of the school committee should be an active member of the District Technology Committee. As an active participant, this would insure that the school committee is informed about the district’s status in terms of technology, the four year technology plan, technology professional development and projects, grants, hardware, software, network infrastructure, e-rate, and student information management systems. A successful technology program relies on a high quality professional development program funded through local budgets supported by school committee members.
A school committee that understands that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other” (Kennedy) will take the time to understand that the students (often referred to as the millennials or digital natives) in our classroom learn differently. They are technology savvy and consider email passé. They are expert at texting and multi-tasking.  Technology and the Internet are tools they know and use. Our classrooms should be vital and alive with instruction that includes emerging technology such as web 2.0 tools, wikis, blogs, podcasts, and streaming video.
It is difficult for school committee members to balance community responsibility, responsibility to school administration and the relationship to fellow committee members. However to achieve the ultimate goal of a proper education that includes 21st century skills all parties must work together to achieve this goal so that our students will be career ready with the 21st  technological skills necessary to succeed in the ever evolving global society.”

In this series of posts I am sharing DRAFT work of the ETAC and asking for your help.

Please help us through your comments here by adding to the description or by supplying us with a vignette. The vignette can be a very brief example or a “day in the life” – whatever you feel you can contribute.

DRAFT – Committee written (not claiming as my work : )

“The staff of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) provides leadership and vision for the state. Districts depend on them to lead the use of technology in many ways, including but not limited to researching and disseminating best practices, prioritizing federal and state technology grant spending, creating and promoting technology standards for students and staff, and encouraging and strengthening the use of technology in all instructional and administrative areas.
Technology leadership is not the responsibility of just the technology staff, but also of the Commissioner of Education, the curriculum leaders in all subject areas, the researchers, the program managers, and all others who influence and work in education.  Through innovative and determined initiatives, strengthened by strategic collaborations and partnerships and guided by their existing goals, the ESE will enhance and sustain their position as the technology leader for the elementary and secondary educational community in Massachusetts.
The Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education’s webpage states that:
“We are guided by this mission…
“To improve the quality of the public education system so that students are adequately prepared for higher education, rewarding employment, continued education, and responsible citizenship. We carry out our mission in partnership with Massachusetts school districts and other organizations that provide educational programs and services. Students, parents, teachers and other educators, elected officials, business and community leaders, and the public all are stakeholders in the work of the Department to improve schools and raise student achievement.”
And by these goals…
1.    Qualified educators for every public school and classroom
2.    High standards for what all students should know and be able to do in the core subjects
3.    Adequate resources and support services, used well by schools, districts, and communities
4.    Valid, reliable assessment and accountability systems for students, educators, schools, and districts
5.    Timely, useful information to stakeholders, and
6.    Efficient agency management.”

Building upon these goals to provide technology leadership for the Commonwealth, the Commissioner, the Office of Instructional Technology, and all ESE departments and professional staff must ensure the following.
1.    All schools and classrooms have teachers who are highly qualified to teach students how to use technology to adequately prepare them for higher education, rewarding employment, continued education, and responsible citizenship, as well as educational administrators who are qualified to both lead and support them.  The ESE must guide the delivery of professional development, both online and face-to-face, in the use of technology for all educators, including administrators and teachers. Standards that delineate what administrators and teachers should know and be able to do with regard to technology must also be overseen by the ESE.
2.    The Commonwealth has rigorous and relevant 21st Century standards for what all students should know and be able to do in order to use technology for learning.  As stated in the current Massachusetts Technology Literacy Standards and Expectations, these standards must “help students develop technology literacy skills to learn the content of the curriculum, as well as to be able to succeed and thrive in their adult lives. These skills will help them function effectively in a world where new technologies continue to emerge and information grows ever more abundant.” In support of lifetime and anytime, anywhere learning, the use of online coursework and resources must also be championed by the ESE.
3.    All schools, districts, and communities know the meaning of “adequate technology resources and support services,” understand the importance of procuring these assets and keeping them current, and, as new technologies continue to emerge, stay knowledgeable on how to use them strategically and well. Particularly in difficult economic times, the ESE also needs to provide leadership to districts on how to fund these ongoing purchases, including hardware, software, and networking.
4.    All schools have valid, reliable assessment systems for measuring technology skills and knowledge, including those 21st Century skills that may be difficult to assess.  Technology should also be utilized to provide valid, reliable assessment systems for all other academic areas.  Online assessments must be utilized as appropriate and possible, as they provide timely results and often provide cost-savings.
5.    Vision and leadership is available to districts in the timely collection, reporting, analysis, and use of data and accountability systems to inform, enhance, and report on the teaching and learning process in all academic areas for all stakeholders, including  students, parents, teachers and other educators, elected officials, business and community leaders, and the public.
6.    Districts know how to use technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of all district management operations.
Achieving these goals will ensure that the ESE remains the statewide model for technology leadership, and will enable the Department to accomplish their mission of adequately preparing students for higher education, rewarding employment, continued education, and responsible citizenship.”

I am a member of a group, ETAC,  that is an advisory committee to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. A number of us are working together on a white paper about Technology Leadership. We think of technology leadership as a shared responsibility that all members of our educational communities need to contribute to. Our work is in DRAFT form. For each stakeholder group we have begun to describe how people in that job might take on a technology leadership role. In addition, we would like to add scenarios, or vignettes, that depict such leadership in action. I will post our DRAFT descriptions here and am asking you all to contribute to the product through your comments on this blog.

Please help us by adding to the description or by supplying us with a vignette. The vignette can be a very brief example or a “day in the life” – whatever you feel you can contribute.

Intro to our white paper (written by sub-committee):

“Many organizations have listed the characteristics and skills that are needed for leadership in general and technology leadership in particular: vision, innovation, communication, collaboration, respect, trust, goal orientation, the ability to inspire and motivate, planning and budgeting, teambuilding and staffing, professional development, change management expertise, ethics, safety, and equity are just a few of these.  This list is not surprising, yet the owners of these tasks might be.  Who are “Technology Leaders” and what should they be doing?
The simple answer is that leadership in technology is the responsibility of everyone involved in the educational process. From students to teachers to school committees to the commissioner of education, everyone has a role to play.
This position paper will describe some of the ongoing responsibilities of educational “Technology Leaders,” focusing on:

• The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
• The School Committee
• The Superintendent and Assistant Superintendents
• The district technology administrator, often referred to as the  Technology Director, the Chief Information Officer, or the Chief Technology Officer
• Central Office / Central Administration Directors
• The Principal and Assistant Principals
• Teachers
• Students.

It should be noted that this paper is only the beginning, as there are surely others who have a role in leading the use of technology in the schools, and much as technology is ever changing, so too are the roles of these leaders.”

I will, in the next several entries, post our descriptions for leadership in the various roles. Please comment on any or all. Thanks for your help.

John Kotter says that organizations have to transform themselves in order to survive. Organizations need to learn and grow in order to keep pace with the changing culture, economics, and global competition. He asserts that effective leadership is necessary to accomplish this and he articulates the following eight key steps that leaders must go through in the change process.

o n e
Leaders must establish a sense of urgency about the problem.
The leadership of the organization must create a sufficient sense of urgency around correcting the problem and interest people in the resolution.

t w o
Leaders must create a guiding coalition.
Kotter asserts that the leader must create a powerful guiding coalition, because one person alone cannot carry the vision for the entire organization. “Building such a team is always an essential part of the early stages of any effort to restructure, reengineer, or retool a set of strategies.”

t h r e e
Leaders must develop a vision and strategy.
There must be a clear vision for the organization and a strategy in place for reaching goals. When this is absent, employees may feel free to set their own direction. An effective vision should establish compelling reasons why the goals should be set and pursued.

f o u r
Leaders must communicate the change vision.
The vision and goals of the organization should get communicated to everyone in the organization, in both word and deeds, very often. “Clear, simple, memorable, often repeated, consistent communication from multiple sources, modeled by executive behavior, helps enormously.”

f i v e
Leaders must empower employees for broad-based action.
The organization must empower employees to act in the best interest of the organization. Employees must have sufficient autonomy to carry out their job. The leaders of the organization should remove obstacles so that employees can implement the vision.

s i x
Leadership team must generate short-term wins.
Kotter asserts that short-term “wins” are key to keeping motivation and morale high. Major change takes time and most people need to see convincing evidence, early in the process, that they are on the right track. Setting short-term achievable goals and then achieving them helps sustain interest and credibility.

s e v e n
Leaders must consolidate gains and produce more change.
Leadership teams have to recognize and celebrate the gains, while helping to keep people looking ahead to the long-term goal. Resistance is always waiting to reassert itself and complacency can return if people feel that the small wins are enough.

e i g h t
Leaders must anchor the new approaches in the culture.
It is easy to fall back on old ways of doing things, so Kotter says that the eighth component of successful organizational leadership is to make the changes really become embedded in the culture – they must become “how we do things around here.” Kotter says that this requires a lot of communication.

Kotter emphasizes that the guiding coalition must be comprised of powerful representatives of the major stakeholders so that they have credibility on all fronts.

Guiding Coalitions: I find in strategic planning efforts that key players from central office leadership must be active participants or there is a danger that many of the group’s recommendations will fall on deaf ears. Excluding teacher leaders might result in faculty mistrusting the findings of the group as being “top-down” and irrelevant to them.

John Kotter explains that people need “sufficient chance to think, feel, argue, and reflect” in order to air and deal with anxieties and conflicts. I agree – there is no substitute for putting in the face time with all stakeholders. People need to think things through and talk them out. Sometimes I refer to periods of thinking and mulling over as “ripening” – some ideas and projects need to sit on the shelf and ripen for a while.

In one of Kotter’s recurring themes throughout his change book, he explains that management tends to undercommunicate. He asserts that the message must be repeated often and by multiple sources. From my experience, this is very true.

He says that the message should be simple, that it should be repeated often in multiple forums, and that leaders should act in ways that are consistent with the vision and strategy. I try to heed this advice by including it as a strategy for solving problems. When every member of a guiding coalition becomes a spokesperson for a change effort they work with you to refer to the vision and strategy at every meeting and public forum. This helps to raise consciousness about the problem, helps to garner support, and keeps the message on the table. In my experience, quite often, even when there is a commitment to a project or idea, the focus tends to dissipate as people deal with their daily work load and ever-present responsibilities and job-tasks. Repeating the message of the change effort is a good way to bring people back to the importance of solving the problem.

Kotter says that short-term goals are necessary to demonstrate that the strategies are working and that the organization is one the right track. They help to build momentum toward the ultimate vision. Short-term goals, then, to be effective, have to be clearly defined, achievable, measurable, and clearly related to the change effort.

He often refers to the importance of the integrity of leaders and to the necessity of matching work to deed. That is, he says, that actions must be consistent with the vision that is promoted by the leaders of an organization.

Kotter says that organizations have to transform themselves in order to survive. Organizations need to learn and grow in order to keep pace with the changing culture, economics, and global competition. When he describes organizations in this book, his focus is on leadership, so it is an alternative leadership frame, perhaps.

About John Kotter:
This information is an excerpt from his web site, http://www.kotterinternational.com/AboutUs/Bios/JohnKotter.aspx

John P. Kotter is internationally known and widely regarded as the foremost speaker on the topics of Leadership and Change. His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually achieve successful transformations.

Kotter has authored 17 books, twelve of them bestsellers. His works have been printed in over 120 languages and total sales exceed two million copies. His latest book, A Sense of Urgency, focuses on what a true sense of urgency in an organization really is, why it is becoming an important asset and how it can be created and sustained. Just released in September of 2008, Urgency reached #7 on the New York Times bestseller list in early October.

What do effective leaders do? Is there some elusive quality that good leaders possess? Something they are born with, that others can’t learn? I read about leadership a lot. I have some favorite authors, many of whom deal with leading change. As an educational technology leader, I recognize that much of what I do is leading (coaxing, nudging, stimulating, catalyzing) change. I find much to agree with and be inspired by in the works of John Kotter, Ron Heifetz, Michael Fullan, Douglas Reeves, Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal.

Using Bolman and Deal’s different frames for examining issues has been useful to me, and John Kotter’s eight steps to leading change are brilliant. In the next several blog posts I intend to share some of my favorite excerpts from these authors and try to explain why I find their ideas relevant to my work.

As I meander through these works, I will be thinking about what difference I make. Kelly Christopherson, in a recent post on his blog, Educational Discourse, really made me think. Are we making the difference we hope to be making? Am I making a difference in my district?

If I were to leave my job tomorrow, what would change? I hope that asking these questions will help to reveal a little bit about what it is leaders do, and on a personal level, help me to look realistically at my school district and the impact technology is having on teaching and learning (versus the impact I think it should have).

For this post, rather than write about and analyze the words of the aforementioned authors, I will describe, in my own clumsy and personal way, a few of the ways I would characterize good leadership. An effective leader is ethical and moral; takes on even difficult issues and problems; knows when to let problems or solutions “ripen”; shows the people they work with that they care; has a vision for a better tomorrow and some ideas about how to get there; works damn hard. If I had to explain, in just a few words, what an effective leader does, I’d say this: we shine the light and clear the path. We shine the light on problems and solutions – we get people to pay attention, we explain why it is important. And we clear the path – when we find people who are willing to follow, we clear the path for them – we move obstacles and look for funding and cheer them on. If that’s all we did, that would already be a lot, to shine the light and clear the path.

In the next several posts I’ll write about how the actual experts answer this question -  What do effective leaders do?