Today is Leadership Day 2011 and there are so many topics within Ed Leadership that I would love to tackle. But I’m going to go with this one: “You don’t have time NOT to”
In ten years in education I have heard so many people say to me, “I don’t have time for that”. It has ranged from baking cookies for the faculty meeting to meeting with parents to lunch duty to learning new technologies. I respect this protection of time, truly I do. We must know ourselves as educators and humans to know our limits, particularly of time.
In the area of educational technology there are so many factors that cause fear and trepidation for implementation. Many of these are personal, rational thoughts of highly capable, intelligent education professionals. We often interpret this fear as a lack of time. Technology can be a scary river to wade. But we know that there are so many benefits to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and organization found through the integration of technology. By letting fear win over innovation, it is our kids who lose.
This leaves our school leaders with the uphill task of encouraging their faculty and/or peers to break through fear and the ever present struggle with time. If leadership approaches this predicament by encouraging their teachers to see beyond the initial onset of lost time and look to the long-term benefits, we can move a step towards positive integration. Likewise, if we work with our students from the framework malleable intelligence then we must promote that among our teachers as well. The “ROI” from time spent learning about technology integration and engaging students in collaborative, engaging, technologically-rich lessons may not be evident when we look at the factor of time. Nevertheless, we don’t have time NOT to move our classrooms and schools forward. The time is now.
Teach2Connect 