Tech Balance

Finding a balance in life is something almost everyone is striving for. Questions begin to be asked, such as "When will I be able to finish all of this work?", "When can I get a break and get away from the constant daily grind?", or "When will I be able to just think about everything that is going on around me?"

Technology adds to the challenge of finding that balance because it is so entrenched within our society, and no more than ever in the culture of our schools. As you arrive to school, email after email begins to fill up your inbox and your phone begins to buzz with reminders, texts and calls. Then it's time to prepare a presentation online, put grades or read up on the most recent news. The bell rings as you finish up your final preparation for the class you are about to teach. You set up your class as fast as you can in order to greet your students. Class begins...bell rings again. You are off your next meeting. After the meeting it's time to respond to all of the emails you have received.

The cycle continues as the week goes on and in order to get away from it all we begin to rely on our phones or computers, but that requires us to exert our mental energy even more. When do we find the time to recuperate our brains? That is what we need a focus on mindfulness in a time of constant information being thrown at us. A time to take in the information being given to us, and then a time to appreciate what is actually happening around us.

As school leaders, we need to be aware of this challenge for our teachers and students. Are we giving teachers enough time to think about what they are doing? Are we implementing technology into our classrooms without preparing teachers and students? These are questions that school leaders will need to answer, along with many others. We have to make sure our community members and our personal life is being given the opportunities to "sharpen the saw" (Stephen Covey).

Todd Samuelson, a Canadian school administrator, wrote a great blog, in which spurred my thoughts for this writing. Here is the link for it: Finding the Balance.

A Social Media Convo with the School Community

One of my colleagues recently wrote a blog discussing whether students or parents should be the focus of school led education of technology. I think this is a great question ask as we continue to integrate social media into our schools. Students are rapidly exposed to the newest social media outlets and seem to learn how to use them with ease, while parents, grandparents and guardians need more time to figure out these applications.

I am suggesting that school leaders should make sure to create a committee composed of students, teachers and parents that meet twice a semester to discuss the latest trends in social media involving education, safety/privacy issues for the school community member, and ways to make sure all community members can fully access the social media being used by the school. These meetings allow students to share their knowledge of the technology to teachers and students. This also gives parent a voice to see their concerns specifically. A committee, such as this, could be the key to creating a culture of innovation.

A Culture of Innovation

http://connectedprincipals.com/archives/12089

The link above leads to a blog titled "5 Ways to Lay the Foundation for Innovation #InnovatorsMindset". The last point that the author, George Couros, discusses schools embracing an open culture through different ways of communication, such as social media.

As school leaders, we need to continuously figure out the best way to communicate with our faculty members and how they can communicate with each other. One suggestion that Couros makes in order for faculty to communicate is for teachers to tweet with a specific # each day about something they did in their class. If teachers check this everyday and see what other teachers are doing a constant communication is being made and ideas are being shared. Collaboration is also easier, but we would need to figure out how to implement this kind of culture into the school.

As leaders, we need to continue to model what we expect of our community. If we want teachers to create a twitter and learn how to use it, then we have to do it ourselves.