IT Research Colloquium

Following Professor Dexter’s presentation, I am now more aware of the important role that principals play in the implementation of effective technology in a school district. I found her quote interesting about how effective technology leadership from a principal can be more influential than the actual acquisition of new technology itself. The more I think about the role of the principal, however, this quote makes sense. Principals essentially serve as the liaisons between the central administration (superintendent, school board, etc.) and the classroom elements (teachers and students). Technology-based decisions are driven by all of these stakeholders, and consequently, effective principals can find a balance between the issues that arise at both the administrative level and in the classroom. This task is much easier said than done, and I’m assuming that effective technology leadership is a very difficult skill to develop as a principal. With that said, I think it is important not to overwhelm principals with their role in the overall IT process. Because most principals deal with other administrators, parents, teachers, and students on a daily basis, their job can be extremely demanding and time consuming and placing the extra demand of technology leadership could be burdensome.

To start to resolve this issue, I think that more principals need to be informed about their technology roles. I honestly think if more principals were cognizant of the fact that their own voice matters in the technology process, then more districts would start to see improvement in the overall school organization. I’m assuming that principals who do not voice their opinions or assume leadership roles fail to do this because they feel that there is already someone else in the district responsible for that duty (ITRT, tech director, etc). While those positions are critical, it appears from Professor Dexter’s research that the principal’s voice could improve this process. Maybe a new acronym should be created, similar to the TPCK for teachers, in order to help principals think about their role in the overall technology implementation process in a district. Perhaps, PLOT? Policy, Leadership, Organization, and Technology.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Education’s “Enhancing Education through Technology” program is rated as “results not demonstrated.” Therefore, it seems logical that principals are unwilling to devote much of their energy to technology leadership. I think knowledge of this makes our jobs as future researchers in Instructional Technology more critical.

Later this week, I’ll be in Washington, DC for the National Technology Leadership Summit, a yearly retreat for journal editors and leaders of educational associations. One of the topics to be discussed this year is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) and how it can be used as a construct for effective research in our field. For educational insiders, this appears a promising approach. However, some discussion about how palatable TPCK is to those outside the field, namely policy-makers at the national and state levels, is also planned.

Although I don’t see technology being removed from schools anytime soon, I think engaging policy makers and those who control funding in conversations about promising approaches to research will help forward our cause. If we can begin to produce results that indicate technology plays an important role in teaching and learning, we will all be in high demand during the coming years. And, I feel this will result in an increased focus on leadership in this area.

Since “helping principals think about their role” (Pat), and “engaging policy makers and those who control funding” (Dennis) are inherently social endeavors requiring salesmanship and persuasive style, we need to make sure our ‘people skills’ are sharp. Since many of us have little or no experience with this kind of lobbying, a workshop of some sort might really be helpful.

I hold a similar interest on how to influence the principals and policy-makers, since it seems that technical issues are much easier to be addressed than issues of people–attitudes, decision-making, administration and so on.

I guess the best way we understand people’s thoughts is to stand on his/her role and try to figure out the pros and cons of a decision, and practical implementation. Suppose I was a principal, the first thing to consider would be how to make my school more competitive. Competitiveness is influenced by several factors, which we can easily find in any school ranking module. But the weights of the factors themselves are actually influenced and decided by the collective value system of the people involved: is test score more important, or other unmeasurable thing? (We could see current policy as an explicit representation of collective value system, although very often people tend to critizise the policy made by representative elected by themselves)

In a word, a principal is in reality NOT free to make decisions. His/her decisions are derived from the social background and trend, especially in case of high pressure, for example, principals of high school in China seldom promote IT application, they even prohibit students from using computer both at school and home, because they see computer of big potential on distracting students from drill and practice, which are needed for exams. Actually, principals in China are not so conservative as we thoughts, they do express strong interests towards IT application, but before take any step toward that direction, they have to struggle with their schools’ survival.

NEEDs go beyond WANTs.

Let’s come back to an environment that’s not so stressed. Then changing the attitude of the principals would be the first thing to do, because technology leadership is all about adopting new methods, importing new resources, reallocating old and new resources, staffing and training……things that cannot be done without a powerful leader. And for changing people’s attitude, scientific research outcomes and evidences will be very effective, and also the art of communication or “people skills” as Michael said.

Surely, Dexter’s presentation and following discussion brought me recognition of another dimension of IT, the leadership. If we broaden the scope of leadership, it can be extended to district, state, and nation wide education including policy makers, government and organization. However, I think school leadership will be more affordable and critical for successful settlement of IT in education.

In thinking of S-model of diffusion theory, IT adaptation at schools is still at the early stage, in which a few innovators or early adopters are participating in the experiment of “results not demonstrated (above Dennis).” We may wait emerging of opinion leaders in this array. Or, we can persuade the opinion leaders (here, I mean principles who have influence to other principles) to adopt the innovation. IT leadership program will take the role of spreading and advocating IT innovation and persuading the leaders.

However, does IT prove itself effective over traditional methods and performance to move those leaders? Do we, IT persons, provide with successful models of IT integration and tangible guide for its application? I think we are still struggling with some missing puzzles to envision of IT integrated education. It might be a matter of human learning psychology, TPKC, school leadership, or socio-political environment. If IT research presents concrete evidences of efficiency and “hands-on” guidelines, principles and teachers dare to apply IT in classrooms and are more likely to success.

So, IT research and application is not limited to specific technology but pursued in various approaches and correlated each other to promote synergy.

It seems that we acknowledge a critical role of the principals’ leadership for effective use IT in schools. There is an occupational hierarchy in public schools in Korea. A principal take the superior position. Vice principals stand in second, followed by head teachers and common teachers. The standard of classification is based on period of their teaching experience. Consequently, principals are the one with long teaching experience. Legally, over 20 years teaching experience is required for the position of principals. Principals as veteran have authority over teachers. The problem looked easily solved if principals took the initiative in fostering teachers intellectual stimulation as integrating IT in class. But it leads to another issue we need to consider. “How can we motivate principals to develop technology leadership(how can we change their attitude?)

Change in large, bureaucratic organizations tends to have to come from the top. As has been mentioned, this usually means coming from the principal, but may also have to come from the superintendent (or higher). In order for them to change, they have to want to change; and in order for them to want to change to a particular solution, they have to buy-into that solution. This gets back to what I was saying during the discussion portion of Dr. Dexter’s talk.

I recall a video I have that shows different ways that schools around the country are making improvements. In many cases, these were efforts that were led by the principal or superintendent. Although they had to get the support of their local school boards, teachers, and teachers union, they still managed to pull it off (with success). These cases were not about technology, but about school reforms. I don’t see why the same sort of thing couldn’t happen if we got these sort of people on board with the technology integration — granted these are individual cases and we are talking about widespread adoption. I see technology integration as another form of school reform, and a such, it will meet resistance just as any other reform movement does.

In case anyone would like to view the video, it is from PBS and is called “Making Schools Work with Hedrick Smith.” You can find out more about it from this link:

http://www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/

I can lend it to anyone who is interested.

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