Category Archives: Principal’s digital competence

Cutting Through the Technology Hype

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Minimising the waste and maximising the effectiveness

Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

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A growing and perpetual challenge schools will face in their digital evolution is that of successfully cutting through the immense and often very sophisticated hype associated with all emerging digital technologies, to acquire the technology needed and to avoid wasting scarce monies, social capital and teacher’s time with the unnecessary and the ineffectual.

This is where the principal’s digital acumen is tested.

While the technology companies have over the last century plus displayed considerable marketing expertise in winning over the school market globally (Lee and Winzenried. 2009) their efforts in recent years have become that much more sophisticated – and in some instances one might say insidious. Most of the companies are simply doing their utmost to sell their product, but recent studies on a development known as ‘edubusiness’ indicate a few could be using their involvement in educational testing to ‘validate’ the selling of their instructional technology.

The studies by the likes of Hogan (http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/11666, http://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?tag=anna-hogan) and Lingard (http://www.educationincrisis.net/blog/item/1243-complementarities-and-contradiction-in-the-pearson-agenda) provide an insight into the techniques some of the multinationals employ to secure and hold the school’s custom.

Those studies underscore why the head, as the school’s chief architect and final decision maker, has to be able to cut through the technology hype (Lee and Finger, 2017), and why it is vital the school has a ‘chief digital officer’ (Lee, 2016, 1) who can provide the principal the requisite expert advice.

While those of us studying the evolution of the digital technology in schooling have observed the finite hype cycles of all the major instructional technologies over the last fifty plus years, and the often still very considerable gap between the technology rhetoric and the reality, daily we continue to watch schools and governments spend vast monies on dated and dubious technological ‘solutions’.

Schools, education authorities and indeed governments globally have over the last forty plus years wasted millions of scarce dollars acquiring inappropriate and unnecessary digital technologies. They continue doing so today. Election after election globally one sees the ‘in technology’ offered up to the voters. The poor decision- making is not only costly but also wastes the teachers’ time and impairs the productive use of the apt technology.

Disturbingly this has been so with all manner of instructional technologies since the magic lantern (Lee and Winzenried, 2009) and is likely to continue until schools – and principals in particular – exercise the requisite acumen and leadership in shaping the desired totality.

How great that waste of money and time has been no one knows. Suffice it to say any who have been associated with digital technology in schools for any time will be aware of the monies that have been, and are currently being wasted, the staff’s frustration of being lumbered with inappropriate technology and the damage caused the digital evolutionary quest when ill conceived decisions are inflected on the school. For example in the recent elections in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) the subsequently successful Labour Party pledged to provide every student an iPad. This ‘one size fits all approach’, that would be controlled by the Government’s ICT experts, without regard to each school’s situation was offered to some of the most affluent electorates, in one of the world’s most affluent nations. No thought was seemingly given to the reality that virtually every child in that wealthy city state already had a suite of personally selected digital technologies, that the children from a very early age had already normalised the use of the digital 24/7/365 and that the government was both duplicating the home buys and imposing a ‘solution’ that would stymy the digital evolution of its schools.

Sadly the ACT scenario is being replicated worldwide, probably daily by other governments, education authorities and schools. All are still focussing on the parts, and not the creation of the desired tightly integrated digitally based ecosystem (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 17).

It takes astute decision makers, supported by apt processes to acquire and secure access to the digital technologies required, to see through the hype and spin, to reject the unwarranted, and to minimise the waste and maximise the effectiveness of the technology.

It requires of them very good crap detectors.

Fortuitously it would appear the first of the schools have attained a digital maturity and an understanding of the desired totality where they can markedly minimise the risk of acquiring the unnecessary technologies, while simultaneously ensuring their staff, students and parents have the digital tools and resources required.

That said we’d suggest it is impossible for schools not to make mistakes. Digital evolution and transformation is by its very nature risky, the way forward uncertain and while the digital technology has improved markedly there is still often a large gap between the promised and actual performance. Mistakes, some substantial were made by all the schools studied. All one can ever do is to minimise the risk.

That risk can be markedly reduced by:

  1. Giving schools the power and responsibility for ‘acquiring’ the digital instructional technologies they require, getting the central office ‘ICT experts’ out of the play with the personal technologies (Lee and Levins, 2016) and having the latter focus on providing the bandwidth and where apt the network infrastructure. Be willing to say no to undesired technological solutions offered by the ‘ICT experts’, be they in or out of house.
  2. Ensuring the Principal and ‘CDO’ oversee all key digital technology decisions. All buys should enhance the desired school digital ecosystem and as such one needs both a whole of school digital technology budget, and most assuredly not the traditional discrete faculty/unit budgets, and simple checklists and processes that lessen the chance of the school purchasing inappropriate technology solutions.
  1. Moving the school to an increasingly mature digital operational base, distributing the control, empowering the school’s community and having all better understand the role the balanced use of the digital and socially networking can play in creating the desired culture and digital ecosystem. Having all, rather than a few ‘experts’ understand the desired role of the technology is vital.
  1. Pooling the digital technologies of the student’s homes, the school and its community and distributing the risk, particularly with short life cycle technologies. Schools don’t have to own the desired personal technologies to ‘acquire’ them. Indeed it is far wiser not to buy them, except in special circumstances.
  1. Adopting a BYOT policy, and in turn normalising the whole of school use of the student’s own suit of evolving digital technologies. BYOT – and having each student select, acquire, support and upgrade each of his/her chosen suite of hardware and software places control in the hands of each user and largely removes all the risk for the school and government associated with most of the short life personal technologies. With BYOT the school basically removes from its remit the near impossible task of continually funding and selecting the desired personal technologies for each child, while at the same time empowering its clients. By all means offer advice but the school and vitally government has no longer to worry about all the hype and risk surrounding the plethora of short-term personal technologies.
  1. Appreciating that the richness of the educational resources on the Net and the multi-media digital creation facilities and apps in the student’s hands significantly reduces digitally based schools having to buy packaged teaching resources – digital or print.
  1. Networking or working collaboratively with other ‘educational’ services, distributing or totally removing the risk to the school.
  1. Renting apt Cloud or app services. Many schools have over time built very extensive and expensive hosting facilities, the services on which have to be continually updated with the associated risk and costs. The rental of continually upgraded apps and Cloud based services removes much of that hosting cost and the many associated risks.

It also helps if the leadership:

  1. Understands the Gartner Hype Cycle (Lee and Winzenried, 2009) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle,) and those technologies whose life cycle is shortening. Appreciate – as Lee and Winzenried identified in their 2009 study and description of the life cycle of instructional technologies – many of those technologies will never move beyond the ‘hype’ phase, dying before they are viable. This harsh reality tends to be overlooked in the more recent Gartner studies. Think of the literally thousands of education apps and software solutions – many created and promoted by governments – that never really moved beyond the hype phase and ‘sit’ unused. The other point to appreciate is that in general terms the life cycles of even the economically successful instructional technologies are getting shorter.
  2. Avoids the acquisition or leasing of short life cycle digital technologies. The prevailing perception of likely most schools and the auditors is that the technology will remain current for years. The fact that it won’t and will be soon superseded needs to be understood.
  3. Recognises the total cost of ownership of the technology, and the importance financially, operationally and user wise of very high reliability, low maintenance and the ease of being integrated in the school’s digital ecosystem.
  4. Is aware of the moves by the major technology companies globally to ‘own’ the school and its data, their desire to ‘hook’ schools financially into long term financial commitments and is very wary about entering into any long term financial agreements with those technology companies.
  5. Is continually alert to the likely unintended impact and benefits that will flow from the 24/7/365 use of the digital and the importance of optimising the desired (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 21).

Conclusion

The ability of the head – with the help of the ‘CDO’ – to cut through the digital technology hype, to ask the telling questions and identify if the technology can assist the school realise its shaping vision is a critical leadership skill increasingly required in all digital schools. The failure to do so can at the extreme, as too many schools and education authorities have found, bankrupt the organisation or at the very least deprive the school and authority for years of scarce resources.

That is an unwarranted risk that can be easily avoided if the school’s leadership continually asks if the suggested new technology is needed and ensures the due diligence is undertaken.

 

  • Gartner (2016) ‘Gartner’s 2016 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies’ Garner Newsroom, August 2016 – http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3412017
  • Lee, M and Winzenried, A (2009) The Use of Instructional Technology in Schools, Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Broadie, R (2016, 21) ‘Optimising the Intended and Unintended Benefits’, Digital Evolution of Schooling June 2016 – https://schoolevolutionarystages.net/?m=201606

 

 

Leading a Digital School 2.00

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The Attributes Desired of the Head

Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

( This is significant rework of our 2014 article of the same name that addressed the attributes of those principals leading successful digital schools.

Two years on and we have been able to examine the attributes in what are now mature digital organisations – with many of the traits being the same as the ‘CEOs’ of all successful digital organisations.

Tellingly what has become that much clearer is that many of the heads struggling – or not wanting – to lead a digital school lack many of the attributes to lead a good school – full stop.)

Not only is the role of principal critical to the digital evolution of schools but so too is having principals with the ability to successfully lead an ever evolving digitally based socially networked school.

Not just any head can play that role.

Rather it is requires principals with particular attributes.

In the same way the operations of a paper and digitally based school differ significantly so too do many of the attributes required of the principal.

The last decade plus has witnessed the emergence globally of a cadre of principals who have of their own volition been able to build upon their considerable leadership skills and grow the attributes required to successfully lead these very different organisations.

Equally it has also revealed that the vast majority of the existing heads have not as yet demonstrated the ability to do so.

In a digital and socially networked society clients can rightly expect every school to be digitally based, and well positioned to continually meet the rising digital expectations.

Australia has in the region of 10,000 schools. For each to become digital – to become a mature digital organisation (Kane, et.al, 2016) – it invariably requires a principal – indeed a succession of principals – willing and able to lead the digital evolution of the school.

The same equation holds in every nation.

The critical question every government, education employer, every school board and council must address is how does it find or grow those principals and thus ensure the continued viability of its school/s? How does it both ready that very sizeable proportion of existing heads that have thus far been unable or unwilling to lead a digital school, and grow the future generation of principals?

Part of the answer lies in better understanding the attributes desired of the heads of digital schools.

With a digital and socially networked school community one is very much looking at a new and distinct higher order environment, requiring of the leader a particular skill and mindset, that will blend the time honoured attributes with those particular to leading a digital school.

One should not assume – as do likely many employers and unions – that the heads of traditional paper based schools, with their current skill and mindset, can lead and grow a mature digitally based school ecosystem. The vast majority of those transferred will fail unless they appreciate they have to adopt a skill and in particular a mindset compatible with the new environment. Without that change they will likely destroy years of astute and concerted organisational growth and take the school developmentally backwards. Such an appointment would be unfair to both the individual heads and the school and its community, and professionally and economically irresponsible.

The distinct nature and challenge of leading a digital school needs to be recognised and every effort made to ready and select appropriate heads.

Central role

Ever evolving schools operating on a digital base, experiencing significant natural evolutionary growth that has to be constantly shaped to realise the desired benefits, requires the school principal be the conductor of an increasingly sophisticated, ever-larger quality ‘orchestra’. In addition to the professional players there will be a sizeable parent, student and community membership, with all the ‘players’ expected to continually lift their contribution to the workings, growth and evolution of the school’s desired ecosystem.

It requires the principal as the conductor to understand the total score, the finer nuances therein, to have a mindset where anything is possible, and the skills to continually challenge a highly capable group, to manage them, and assist them grow. It requires the principal, the head teacher, to have a macro understanding of the desired totality and all the school’s increasingly complex workings, a strong educational base, an intimate awareness of all the key school operations and its digital ecosystem and the people skills to manage an empowered school community. The critical word here is ’empowered’ for though the principal needs to understand the desired totality, they will not control and develop it but will trust others to do so.

The contrast with the traditional relatively simple silo like operation where the principal often has limited understanding of the work of the siloes is pronounced. The understanding of the totality is necessary because activities in different areas of the school interact in new ways.

In employing the metaphor of the chief conductor it most assuredly does not mean the principal needs to be the sole conductor or to have the ability to play every instrument. Like all good orchestras the school needs very capable deputies able to take the baton when required, but both the principal and deputies need understand the many variables impacting the success of the school’s desired ecosystem.

It requires the empowerment of the total ‘orchestra’ and the constant monitoring of the part that all members of the ensemble are playing.

Attributes of principal operating in digital and networked mode

Many, possibly most of the attributes required to undertake this kind of whole school conducting are those that have been enunciated in the school leadership and literature for decades and are evidenced daily in the performance of transformational principals. Attributes like a strong educational philosophy, the willingness to lead, the facility to articulate the desired vision, high level communication skills, an in-depth understanding of the instructional program, strong people and management skills, the setting of high expectations, political acumen, attention to detail and the capacity to manage the school’s finite resources are as important as ever.

That point bears underscoring. Indeed one could postulate that many of the heads struggling to lead digital schools are those lacking many of the aforementioned skills.

There is no need to reiterate them, but it is important to single out those that in a digital and networked operational mode assume greater importance, and those new to the set.

Many have already been addressed in separate articles but one needs to view them within the wider schema, understanding that all are closely connected and at times are near impossible to uncouple.

Tellingly many of the new attributes desired of the head of a mature digital organisation are antithetical to those exhibited by many principals in traditional insular highly hierarchical paper based schools.

Before moving to the analysis of the attributes special mention needs to be made of the principal’s ability to communicate, and the related capacity to ensure there is excellent on-going communication between all parts of the empowered socially networked school community Communication is as always critical. The point remains the principal has to constantly to communicate the expectations, to articulate the narrative and to create an environment where an empowered community can readily communicate. While not explicitly stated virtually all of the following attributes include a strong communication component.

  • Digital and networked mindset

What sets the digital leaders apart from the traditional – in the same way as it does with the digital and analogue leaders in business – is the leader’s shaping mindset.

The principal must adopt have a digital and networked mindset (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 28).

Bhaduri and Fischer (2015) in the Forbes business magazine asked, ‘Are You an Analogue or Digital Leader’? The succinct comparison of attributes they provided (http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfischer/2015/03/19/are-you-an-analog-or-digital-leader/) to help business leaders answer the question holds equally of school leaders.

The attributes bear close scrutiny.

While for convenience they provided a black and white comparison the reality is that the shift in thinking from the analogue to digital perspective occurs over time, with the digital evolution and transformation of the organisation. It is quite possible for the school leader to learn and develop the digital ecosystem skills as that ecosystem develops, provided they have the mindset to do so.

  • Visionary leader

The principal of a rapidly evolving digital school working increasingly in the new frontier must be both visionary and a leader, able to assist envision the desired totality, to articulate the shaping school and digital vision and to lead an empowered school community in its quest to provide apt schooling for each child in a rapidly evolving digital and socially networked society.

Without labouring the point, principals as the chief conductors have to take charge (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 12) of all facets of the school’s evolution and growth and ensure they are shaped as desired.

They have to lead – and not simply manage – the school’s digital evolutionary journey, neither waiting for the ‘system’ to give the green light or delegating the responsibility to other staff. This leadership it must be stressed is not leadership of technology developments but leadership of how human activities and interactions will become more effective for learning through the impacts that technology enables

They will at times, after all the listening and consultation have to make the hard final decision.

  • Instructional leader

The ‘CEO’ of the digital school needs to be an instructional leader, an educator with the deep educational understanding required to take ultimate responsibility for growing an increasingly effective and productive digitally based school ecosystem (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 18).

While that instructional leadership has long been important it becomes increasingly so when the school moves to a digital operational paradigm, socially networks, integrates its operations, dismantles the old siloes, lowers the school walls, empowers all the teachers of the young and adopts a 24/7/365 mode of schooling.

It is critical to have a principal who understands what is entailed in educating the young 24/7/365 in a socially networked society and who can play a lead role in providing an apt education for each child. The focus has to be on enabling and stimulating learning to happen beyond class time and the school walls, with class teaching increasingly designed to complement this as the pupils’ independent learning develops

The rapidly evolving uncertain nature of the schooling makes it very difficult to envision a school administrator with little or no educational training or experience leading the digital evolution and transformation of the school.

  • Focus on the totality: not the parts

Allied is the importance of having a head focussed first and foremost on shaping the desired totality (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 17), on creating a tightly integrated ecosystem, that increasingly merges the in and out of school learning, teaching and resourcing and which ideally enhances the learning of each child.

The corollary is that the digital school does not want a head whose focus is on tinkering with the existing parts, believing by so doing she/he is improving the totality.

  • Strong shaping educational and digital vision

More than ever it is imperative to have a head who fully comprehends what is entailed with the school’s shaping educational and digital visions, who can see the big picture, who has a strong understanding of the macro workings of schools and is able to both articulate and assist the school’s community realise the vision (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 5).

While the shaping vision has always been important when schools go digital, socially network, become increasingly ‘virtual organisations’ and lessen their dependence on the physical school site it becomes central to every school operation.

Schools require heads able to ‘ensure’ all the operations within the ecosystem are focused on realising that vision.

  • Organisational integrator

It obliges the principal to be the one who ultimately ensures that all the elements in the evolving ecosystem are integrated and vitally are directed at realising the desired education.

Principals do have to know the total orchestral score; the finer nuances therein and constantly address the desired totality. It is a huge and growing expectation. Mention has been made in this collection of articles of some sixty plus key variables to be addressed, largely simultaneously in successfully shaping the desired ecosystem. As the ecosystem evolves, matures and moves to a higher plane so that number will grow.

Digital congruence is the crux (Kane, et.al, 2016, p3).

The principal needs moreover to quickly decide – often on the fly – if a proposed addition to the school’s operations is consonant with the school’s shaping vision and can be readily integrated into its ecosystem.

Yes all the empowered school community need to support that work but ultimately it has to be the head, the principal who ultimately ensures the desired integration occurs.

  • Digital acumen

The principal of a digital school – as Lee and Gaffney articulated in 2008 (Lee and Gaffney, 2008) – must have a high level of digital acumen.

As the chief architect of a digitally based organization, where every facet of the operation, in and outside the school will be increasingly reliant upon and impacted by the many digital technologies it is imperative the lead designer understands the technologies with regard to how they might best be applied educationally and administratively.

They have to be able to play a lead role in shaping an apt digital ecosystem for the school.

But they don’t have to be digital experts. They should have normalised the balanced use of the digital in their daily work, be able to interrogate the data and have a macro understanding of the technology and its application – to the level where they can assist shape the school’s digital vision and not be ‘conned’ by the latest iteration of digital sales people, external or internal.

On first glance all this might seem blindingly obvious but in Australia at least that is still not evident in the literature or national standards for school principals. Digital acumen of any type is not mentioned in those standards.

Principals who delegate the technology to a middle manager are in reality abrogating their role as the school’s chief conductor and any hope the school has of going digital.

Tellingly every one of the successful pathfinder schools studied over the last decade plus was lead by a principal with that digital acumen (Lee and Boyle, 2003), (Lee and Gaffney, 2008), (Lee and Winzenried, 2009), (Lee and Finger, 2010), (Lee and Levins, 2012), (Lee and Ward, 2013), (Lee and Broadie, 2013) (Lee and Levins, 2016) (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 12).

  • Ability to understand and ride the megatrends

Linked with the digital acumen is the importance of the head being able to read the swelling societal and technological megatrends, to know when to catch those waves, how to ride them and get the most from them and vitally when to get off and catch the next.

Interestingly while it is undoubtedly a talent many a school principal has had for some time it is an attribute until recent times that was rarely mentioned in the educational leadership literature, shaped as it has so often been by the sense of constancy and school insularity.

The societal and technological megatrends allied with the wider continued evolution of society have had a profound impact on the transformation of schools and are on track to have an ever-greater influence.

  • Culture of change

Principals need not only to have the personal wherewithal to thrive in a world of constant change and natural evolution but also to assist create throughout the school and its community a culture of change, where the staff can thrive on the seeming chaos and rapid organisational evolution and transformation (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 10).

Tom Peters identified this necessity for business back in 1987 in his Thriving on Chaos. Thirty years on and the message is finally understood by the principals of the pathfinder schools.

All have evolved a ‘start up’ like organisational culture, where anything is possible, where risk taking is encouraged and the professionals are supported in their quest to take advantage of the teaching and learning opportunities opened by increasingly sophisticated digital ecosystems.

The contrast with those traditional schools where the principal is so often risk adverse and focussed on micro managing the status quo is pronounced.

  • Client focus and school viability

Digital schools – like their counterparts in business – wanting to remain viable very much require principals focussed on continually meeting, if not exceeding their clients needs and rising expectations (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 29). One is looking at heads who are willing to network, to listen, to refine, to mine the data, to research the trends in the quest to provide the best possible education for their clients in a digital and socially networked society.

Once again the contrast with the mindset of traditional head is pronounced, with few having anytime for the concept of clients. Many firmly believe society through its schools is providing a public service, where only the educational experts know what is required and that the parents and students – the clients – should simply accept their expertise.

In a market driven digital economy schools led by that mindset have a limited life span, with the clients very likely taking their custom elsewhere.

  • Learner focus

In a rapidly evolving complex adaptive system where the scene and the processes used are changing at pace it is vital to have a head focussed on the children’s learning, rather than as now on the teaching.

By placing the learners at the centre, and giving each greater agency for their own learning the school positions itself to readily adjust its teaching strategy to best meet the changing circumstances.

  • Distributed control

One is looking at principals comfortable to distribute the control of the learning, teaching and resourcing amongst an empowered school community and actively collaborate with all within that community to improve their contribution.

One is seeking heads with moderate needs who recognise and respect the contribution of all the teachers of the young, often from birth onwards and who are willing to trust, empower and genuinely collaborate with those teachers in the 24/7/365 schooling of the young.

The leadership comes primarily from the principal’s expertise and leadership, and not as now far too often from the principal’s position,

The last person a digital and socially networked school community needs to lead its digital evolution is an autocratic head who insists on the school – and in particular the head – retain unilateral control of all school operations.

  • Managing the empowered

Increasingly the school will require principals with the people skills to continually get the best from the many hundreds of people in an empowered school community.

In moving from a strongly hierarchical mode of schooling unilaterally controlled by the head to an empowered school community where leaders at all levels are encouraged to contribute to the school’s workings and growth the leader has to astutely manage those human resources.

It is a potentially huge but vital new task the principal needs oversee.

Part of that management entails controlling the school’s pace of the evolution, carefully monitoring the load on each staff member, allowing the natural growth to run its course and if needs be to slow the tempo of evolution for a time.

The contrast with many of the traditional paper schools where inertia is often the norm and teachers have to be energised is dramatic.

The pathfinders comment on the very real issue of slowing down highly committed teachers and parents anxious to grasp every opportunity for their students, of ensuring senior staff constantly monitor for signs of stress, applying due stress relief measures and when apposite applying the brakes.

  • Networker

While principals have always needed to be good networkers within a digital and socially networked school community, where the school’s work transcends the classroom the ability to network, to understand the workings the social networking and to work its unbridled power astutely in growing the school ecosystem is evermore important.

  • Political acumen

The organisational change literature (Kanter, et.al, 1992) suggests up to 20% of a leader’s time can be spent directly or indirectly in politicking the desired change.

It could well be appreciably more.

Principals have to posses the art of politicking the digital evolution of the school.

It is a critical attribute that along with the social networking probably will likely never appear in the selection criteria or a duty statement but which is needed if the school is to overcome the myriad of impediments that have to be politicked if the school is to develop in the desired manner.

  • Commitment to enhanced educational attainment

The principal needs the drive; some might say the passion, to continually enhance the learning of every student.

It is the belief that anything possible.

It is appreciated this has been to the fore in all good schools for aeons but it appears to be that much more up front in the pathfinder schools, with all openly expressing the desire to continually provide the best possible schooling for each child, and to match that schooling with the best internationally.

One of the many benefits of mature digital organisations is the body of performance data generated in their everyday workings. The head requires the demonstrated wherewithal to use that data astutely in enhancing the attainment.

Conclusion

Collectively these attributes when coupled with the apt generic leadership skills go to create a distinct kind of principalship.

As yet they are relatively few in number.

That said, the attributes desired are not dissimilar to those of the CEOs of all mature digital organisations globally.

With a little thought and professionalism they can – as the pathfinder schools have demonstrated – be readily grown in those with strong leadership skills.

Moreover they can be largely readied on the job.

The key is for society – for the clients – to want this kind of principal leading all its schools, and to ensure the schools select the right principals.

Bibliography

  • Kane, G.C, Palmer, D, Phillips, A.N, Kiron, D, Buckley, N (2016) Aligning the Organisation for its Digital Future. MIT Sloan Management Review, July 2016, Massachusetts MIT SMR/Deloitte University Press – http://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/aligning-for-digital-future/
  • Kanter, R.M., Stein, B.A. and Jick, T.D (1992) The Challenge of Organisational Change NY Free Press
  • Lee, M and Gaffney, M eds, (2008) Leading a Digital School Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Winzenried, A (2009) The Use of Instructional Technology in Schools, Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Finger, G (eds) (2010) Developing a Networked School Community, Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Levins, M (2012) Bring Your Own Technology Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Ward, L (2013) Collaboration in learning: transcending the classroom walls, Melbourne ACER Press

 

 

Selecting the right principal

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

In general terms the choice of principal will make or break your school’s immediate digital evolution and possibly its long-term viability.

An astute principal, with the appropriate skill and mindset (Lee and Broadie, 2016   ) who is willing to lead a digitally evolved school can move the school at relative pace along the evolutionary continuum and markedly enhance its performance and attractiveness.

A principal, lacking the vision, drive and acumen unwilling or unable to lead the digital evolution will at best place the school in a holding pattern and might well take the school backwards – all the while diminishing its client attraction.

Some make the fatuous suggestion that when a culture of change is embedded the school can withstand the appointment of an ineffectual head. While that culture might well help, globally the authors have witnessed the deleterious impact of principals unwilling or unable to evolve the school digitally and to create the desired change. Decades of astute effort by a school and its community can be soon dismantled by the poor choice of head.

Improved learning in a digitally evolved school stems from all enhancing how they interact to help other learners learn and teachers teach. If the principal does not understand the importance of this and continuously promote it pupils and teachers can quite quickly start putting their own needs ahead of the needs of the team. A principal who does not understand a socially networked way of working can easily destroy the culture.

It is thus critical that every effort be made to select the right leader.

While it is appreciated that no selection process is infallible and that many ‘state’ schools use processes where the school and its community have little say, do all you can – formally and informally – to get the right person.

Don’t leave the appointment to chance.

Put in place the thoughtfully crafted selection criteria and questions that will bring the desired leaders to the fore. Look at the skill set fleshed out in ‘Leading a Digital School’ (Lee and Broadie, 2016 ….). Specify if you can, demonstrated performance.

Ensure the actual selection processes identify those able and willing to lead, and if needs be weight certain criteria.

If the opportunity exists opt for a fixed term renewable contract, and the capacity to terminate the contract even earlier if the person selected fails to demonstrate the desired leadership. That said also be realistic about your situation, the challenges to be addressed and the time it will take the new principal to shape the desired school ecosystem.

If you have the facility be prepared to pay above the norm.

Use your personal networks to ensure the right kind of people apply, and if needs be assist folk with their applications.   Do your homework.

From the publication of the initial advertisement stress the applicants will be expected to indicate how they will lead the school’s continued digital evolution, shape the desired culture and strengthen its ecosystem. Set the bar high, and expect the applicants to have done their homework on the school’s current situation.

Ensure the panel selection processes do address the demonstrated capability of the applicants to lead a digital school and are not preoccupied with the lower level mechanics that can beset public sector interview processes.

Do your utmost throughout to ensure you look only for those who have demonstrated they can perform at the higher level and genuinely lead. All too often ineffectual people are ‘refereed’ up and out of a school to clear another school of its problem.

If the opportunity exists and the concerns remain be willing to interview non- specified referees. It is the right principal that is the key. View the processes simply as a means to selecting an apt principal.

If the field of applicants is found wanting be prepared to re advertise. Better to wait than to be sorry.

The ramifications of a poor choice are too great.

Conscious of the likely shortage of quality applicants, particularly those able to take over the reins of a rapidly evolving school be willing to grow a person, even in a temporary role before re-advertising the position.

In your planning for the appointment identify the support processes the school will use to assist the new principal get up to speed as soon as feasible. Even the best of principals find new appointments challenging and lonely. All too often good people fail from the want of support.

Understand the critical importance of the principal’s position in a digitally evolving school and do everything to choose and to appropriately support the right person.

Earlier we made mention of the vital role of the principal in fostering a culture where all the ‘teachers’ within the school’s community collaborate and support each other, challenging all to reach greater heights and grow the thirst for learning and teaching across the whole school. The importance of that capability cannot be over emphasised. Though we are in some ways still short of the vocabulary for this conversation, it can be incorporated into the central mission of the school. For example in the way Showk Badat, Principal of Essa Academy (UK) describes his school’s mission as “All children will succeed”, adding “And that’s ALL not most and WILL not might.” Or in the motto of Trondheim School (Norway), that is drilled into the children from the day they arrive, that “Nobody is perfect but a team can be”, reinforced by the way the teachers found ways to ‘reach’ all children and give them success as the basis on which to build challenge (their key way of ‘reaching’ the children being music – 98% played a musical instrument). Note that these ways of talking about the impact of digital evolution focus not on the digital but on the human reasons why digitally evolved schools achieve more.

 

 

 

The Critical Role of the Principal

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

The more we examine the digital evolution of schooling the more we are convinced the principal is critical to the successful digital evolution of the school.

An apt school principal is as important as the CEO of a digital master in business.

Westerman and his colleagues observed of the digital masters

Our research shows that successful digital transformation starts at the top of the company (Westerman, et.al, 2014, p100).

The same holds of schools. The principal has to lead.

Indeed we’d go out on a limb and contend that without a principal willing and able to lead a digital school the school has little chance of significant digital evolution. No other staff, no deputy head, e-learning coordinator nor a committee can cover for a principal unable or unwilling to lead a digital school. They might be able to keep the school from regressing but experience after experience demonstrates even the best of deputies or leadership teams can’t advance the school’s evolution while ever the head is lacking. Digital evolution requires everyone to be empowered to creatively improve how all can work and interact. Only the Principal can fully empower everyone in the school.

While the research has long affirmed the vital lead role of the school principal the paper based school compared to its digital counterpart is a relatively simple organisation. The further the school evolves digitally, integrates its operations, socially networks, empowers its community, marries the in and out of school teaching and learning and moves to higher order teaching the greater will be the demands on the role of principal.

Pleasingly – and in marked contrast to the traditional highly hierarchically structured school – the principal is now afforded very considerable support by the empowered staff and school community. The change is very similar to what happens to teachers in digitally evolved schools. For them the pupils take more of the load of progressing the learning activity, enabling the teacher to focus more on helping pupils raise the level of their outcomes. Similarly, the principal in a digitally evolved school can rely appreciably more on the support and independent decision making of the professionals and a school community that better understands the workings of the school.

While as indicated there are a plethora of variables schools have successfully to address in their digital evolution all are dependent on the school having in the principal able daily to shape and grow the desired, increasingly complex, digitally based school ecosystem.

Ideally every school requires at least one, but preferably several assistant principals can undertake the lead role when the head is out of the school.

Few today will question the critical importance of the CEOs of the digital masters in industry or indeed the monies paid to secure the services of the best.

However as yet few seemingly appreciate

  • how important the ‘right’ principal is to the successful digital evolution of the school
  • the shortage of those leaders
  • the dearth of apt training for potential school leaders
  • why schools might have pay to secure those principals who can continually deliver the desired evolution.

Every – and we stress every – school wanting to evolve digitally ideally requires such a principal.

Most will likely need to be grown locally – hopefully with external support – although increasingly there will likely be younger staff who possess both the drive and digital acumen needed.

The ten-week leadership programs run by the authors are designed to assist both grow the digital leadership insights and skills (www.digitalevolutionofschooling.net).

Tellingly all the principals leading the pathfinder schools grew their skill and mindset on the job. Indeed in rapidly evolving schools moving into unchartered waters, on the job, just in time professional development is essential. Gone are the programs of the world of constancy, continuity and the luxury of learning by looking through the rear vision mirror. That said, much can now be learned not only from the pathfinder principals but also the digital leadership of business.

The difficult question that many a school and school community will have to ask – is our current principal willing and able to lead a digital school? Can she/he be assisted to grow in the job? Are they of a mind to empower the staff and the wider school community or are they basically an autocrat unwilling to distribute control?

Related is – what does one do with a principal unwilling or unable to lead such a school? Can they be convinced to grow or do they need to be replaced?

The key is to appreciate the critical importance of the principal in the digital evolution of the school and to address the challenge in context.

  • Westerman, G, Bonnett, D and McAfee, A (2014) Leading Digital. Turning Technology into Business Transformation, Boston, Harvard Business Review Press

 

 

 

Take Charge of Your School’s Growth

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Schools, more than ever have to take charge of their own growth and evolution (Lee 2015) – Taking Charge of Your School’s Evolution – http://teacher.acer.edu.au/article/taking-charge-of-your-schools-evolution

).

Only those within each unique school setting can hope to understand the intimate workings of that school and the myriad variables – human and technological – to be addressed in growing the school.

That said the research on the digital evolution of schooling, and on the digital transformation of organisations reveals the very considerable common traits of evolving digitally based operations, and that schools globally will move through the same evolutionary stages and display at each stage a suite of common attributes.

The imperative is that each school takes operational responsibility for its growth and evolution, learns from the digital transformation research and the pathfinder school and adopts a development strategy appropriate and suit of performance indicators for it’s unique setting, mix of staff, community, shaping vision and state of digital evolution.

It is folly in 2016 for schools to wait for the educational bureaucracy to grow the school.

Sadly too many schools are still doing just that, following the management dictates of their education authority, seemingly unwilling to vary the status quo, placing the continued relevance and viability of the school at risk

Bureaucracies as an organisational form are designed to manage operations (Lipnack and Stamps, 1994). They are incapable of handling the speed and uncertainty of organisational change occasioned by the digital revolution or understanding the myriad of interconnected variables needing to be addressed as each school shapes its increasingly mature and powerful ecosystem (Helbing, 2014).

For schools to thrive and grow in a digital and networked world they have to be highly agile, responsive largely self governing organisations with a culture that embraces on-going, often uncertain change and evolution.

Governments globally have recognised that need and given most schools and principals the degree of autonomy needed to take charge of the school’s future. Yes sometimes the rhetoric is not always matched by the reality but notwithstanding it is critical each school principal works to create a culture where the school and its community – and most assuredly not the central office – shapes the way forward.

The onus is on the principal. He/she must lead.

The question you need ask has your school taken charge of its growth and is shaping its desired future? If not why not?

  • Lipnack, J & Stamps, J 1994, The age of the network: Organizing principles for the 21st century, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.

 

 

Schools Have to Go Digital to Remain Viable

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Mal Lee

The cover article in this month’s Educational Technology Solutions is one by me that contends all schools have to go digital to remain viable.

A copy of that article is attached or can be got from the Educational Technology Solutions website.

Interestingly in presenting to three groups of school leaders in the past two weeks no one has questioned the suggestion.

Rather the immediate focus has been what does our school have to do.

Why Schools Have to Go Digital

Strategy not Technology Drives Digital Transformation

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The MIT Sloan Management Review in – its 2015 research report – on ‘Strategy not Technology Drives Digital Transformation’ is well worth downloading and analysing.

Go to – http://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/

While drawing on the developments within industry it is highly applicable to the digital evolution and transformation of schools.

Are you an analogue or digital leader?

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Mal Lee

Bhaduri and Fischer have had published in the Forbes business magazine of February 19 a very revealing comparison between the thinking of what they term ‘analog’ and ‘digital’ leaders.

It can be read at – http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfischer/2015/03/19/are-you-an-analog-or-digital-leader/

While written with business leaders in mind you’ll soon see the parallel with the school leaders working within the pathfinder schools globally.

I’ve used the terms ‘paper based’ and ‘networked’ mindset to describe that difference.

However matters is not so much the labels one uses but rather the highlighting of the profoundly different mindsets and the imperative of school leaders thinking in the ;digital’ mode if they are to create ever evolving, digitally based school ecosystems.

 

Chaos and order – the new working paradox

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Schools increasingly will need to work, nay thrive with the seeming paradox of accommodating seeming operational chaos at the same time as the on-going quest for order.

Tom Peter’s famously wrote Thriving on Chaos for the business world in 1987.

25 plus years on much of that advice is now apt for schools operating on a digital base and evolving at pace.

Couple that advice with the understanding provided by complexity science on the nature of organisational evolution and you’ll appreciate why in time all schools and their staff will work in what seems at first glance a paradoxical situation.

The pathfinder schools are unwittingly learning the art of thriving on chaos where daily they are contending with what to do with inadequate old practises, the promise of the new, the messiness, uncertainty and at times the seeming chaos associated with the substituting the old for the new and the order that comes with astute adoption and normalised use of more apposite approaches. What we found in all the pathfinder schools, in all four nations was a palpable excitement, student pleasure, and the very noticeable professional satisfaction of the staff.

On-going change and evolution that was orchestrated from within the school was increasingly accepted as the norm. Staff, the students and the parents appeared remarkably accepting of the on-going evolution. It was quite remarkable how quickly time honoured practises disappeared and new practises became normalised and accepted.

The new, but very pleasant challenge for the school leaders in the pathfinders was the need at times to apply the brakes on the rate of the school’s evolutionary transformation and to ensure highly committed and excited teachers didn’t over extend themselves and ‘burn out’. As indicated in the evolutionary stage attributes school leaders needed increasingly to monitor the work of highly committed staff, to identify how each expressed stress and to employ appropriate ‘welfare’ measures.

The contrast with the constancy and order in many of the paper based schools where change, internal and external, is frowned upon, many teachers have ‘switched off’ and where a sizeable proportion of the students find the teaching irrelevant and boring is pronounced.

Tellingly while as indicated in the earlier post on complexity science the digital schools constantly seek order in most of what they do they are simultaneously excited about taking advantage of the educational opportunities being opened. They appear to be very willing to move into unchartered territory if they believe it will assist enhance the student learning, knowing full well mistakes might be made and alternatives might have to be pursued. Moreover they seemingly better understand the macro scene, the increasingly interrelatedness of all school operations and the importance of ensuring the ever evolving school ecology provided the desired education.

The key in all the pathfinders was the existence of a culture, a school ecology that supported change and on-going evolution, which valued leadership at multiple levels and teachers taking risks and trying the new, with the concomitant implications.

While highly unlikely to be versed in the workings of complexity science the schools and their staff appear to be very comfortable working with the seeming paradox of chaos and order.

 

Peters, T (1987) Thriving on Chaos NY Alfred A Knopf

Digital Teaching: Is it Time in 2014 to Take a Stand?

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Mal Lee

Is it time in 2014 to put a line in the sand and give the schools that desire the right to refuse to accept on any teacher, teacher librarian or school counsellor unable to use the apposite digital technology?

Is there any reason why compulsorily transferred principals or staff in executive positions should not be treated the same?

Earlier articles referred to the higher order attributes evident in the principals and teachers in those schools that have normalised the whole school use of the digital technology.

The sad reality in Australia today is that schools operating at this level can have staff appointed literally unable or unwilling to the use the basic technology.

It may well be school teaching is the only knowledge industry today in the developed world where supposed professionals unable or unwilling to use the digital technology are employed. It is hard to think of any other profession willing to carry such supposed professionals.

Indeed as many of you know there are still teachers who openly proclaim that they don’t know how to use the technology and don’t intend finding out.

Imagine you are teaching in a school where all the staff, teaching and professional support, the children and the parent community have after many years of concerted collaborative effort, endless hours of staff development and considerable expense succeeded in normalising the use of the digital in all the school’s operations, educational and administrative.

The school has reached the Digital Normalisation evolutionary stage and all the teachers have developed the suite of attributes discussed in ‘Teaching in a Digital School’. Moreover the school is very much operating on a digital base, is collaborating closely with its parents and community to provide a holistic 24/7/365 education, and had created an ever evolving ever higher order and evermore tightly integrated school ecology.

The local education authority in its wisdom decides to compulsorily transfer to the school a teacher or principal who has only the most rudimentary computing skills, barely able to start one up and none of the mindset that comes from working in a networked world.

In its normal staff selection the school would never countenance appointing that person. Indeed as indicated in my post of November 20 2013 (http://www.schoolevolutionarystages.net) it is becoming increasingly apparent that as schools move along the evolutionary continuum they expect that much more of their staff and look to new staff being able to get up to speed from virtually day one.

In brief the pressure is considerable on even newly appointed teachers highly versed in the use of all manner of digital technology.

The pressure on a teacher or principal without those skills will be immense and unfair to that person, his/her colleagues, the students, the parents and the school as an entity.

It is appreciated there is also pressure on staffing officers to place permanent staff but education authorities and governments have to understand the new reality and that to throw ill-equipped staff into alien cultures will not work and that there is the very real likelihood the transferee will soon be placed on stress leave, costing the system very considerable monies.

Think of how the ill-equipped teacher will feel. Teachers transferred into any school where the use of the digital is the norm in all classes are likely to feel from day one out of their depth, isolated, to panic and to feel alienated from their colleagues. They will be aware they will have no standing with their colleagues or with the students. The children will expect to be taught in a teaching environment where they are trusted, respected, their out of school attainment is recognised, where their personal needs are understood, where they will naturally and predominantly use their own suite of digital technologies as the main tools both in the creation of their work and for assessment purposes.

Their life will be difficult.

Should the transferee manage to last a couple of weeks inevitably the parents of the children affected will be rightly complaining.

Teachers who have toiled for years to enhance their own skill and mindset, and have enhanced their own professionalism to the point where they can contribute to the on-going evolution of the school are not likely to go out of their way to help a transferee who has not made that effort. All will rightly say of the transferee that as a salaried teacher he/she had responsibility for acquiring the apposite digital competencies.

An initial scan of the scene in England, the US, NZ and Australia strongly suggests most governments and education authorities therein have yet to recognise let alone address the situation. There are in all four nations moves in some jurisdictions to stop teachers being employed without the requisite digital competencies but it is very difficult to identify any moves with permanent staff. They may well exist but they are hard to find.

In writing the Australian states and territories with teaching institutes of those that responded while the national teacher standards do include a note about ICT proficiency tellingly in any teachers reaccreditation it is but one of suite of variables to be considered.

Tellingly the national standards for Australian principals don’t even include that requirement. In theory a digitally illiterate principal could be transferred into to lead a school operating at the Networked or Digital Normalisation evolutionary stage.

Pleasingly while ever more teacher training institutions have taken on Mishra and Koehler’s TPACK thinking and the critical importance of the technology in teaching in reality the education authorities don’t appear to have recognised the imperative of having educators able to operate on a digital base.

While governments and educational bureaucrats like the rhetoric of the digital and networked world and 21st century and espouse digital revolutions the reality is that virtually all have seemingly yet to grasp that enhancement will only happen when all the teachers in each school are making apt use of that technology in their everyday teaching.

One might have hoped the teacher unions would have been concerned for the welfare of this kind of member and would counsel them on the path ahead. Perhaps not surprisingly colleagues consulted in the UK, US, NZ and Australia were all of the belief that the unions would instead defend the value of the teacher’s paper based skills.

One hopes that would not be so.

At the outset the suggestion was that the line in the sand in 2014 be set preventing digitally illiterate transferees being placed in schools operating on a digital base where the situation will be very much ‘loose – loose’ for all parties. There are still traditional paper based schools where the use of the digital in teaching is minimal and where the transferees could be placed with the warning to become digitally competent by a set time.

Fortuitously with the move nationally to afford each Australian government school greater say in its staffing it is timely to suggest that the schools that desire set that mark.

Note thus far I’ve not included in this discussion digitally competent teachers who don’t use the technology in their teaching.

The research colleagues and the author have undertaken (Lee and Winzenried, 2009), (Lee and Finger, 2010), (Lee and Ward, 2013) indicates that that shortcoming is primarily the responsibility of the school and in particular the school principal and not the teachers as such. It is the leadership that has to set and support those expectations.

That said there appears to be little likelihood that the authorities will take any action until the profession, the impacted schools with the support of ever more highly digitally empowered parents and parents voice the concern.

Conclusion

On reflection it is little the wonder that so few of the world’s schools in 2014 have normalised the use of the digital in all their operations and while most schools lag so far behind the kind of digital normalisation found with the children, their parents and society in general.

Until schooling’s key resource, its educators are expected by their employers to have and to demonstrate the requisite digital competencies the chances of closing that gap is constrained.

Bibliography

  • Lee, M and Finger, G (eds) (2010) Developing a Networked School Community, Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Ward, L (2013) Collaboration in learning: transcending the classroom walls, Melbourne ACER Press
  • Lee, M and Ward, L (2013) Collaboration in learning: transcending the classroom walls, Melbourne ACER Press