Category Archives: Teacher empowerment

13. The Digital Competencies of Teachers. Their Growth

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Mal Lee

The COVID experience not only accelerated the natural growth of the teachers’ digital mindset, and its application in teaching but it also sped the in-school use of the digital competencies the teachers were using every day in their personal lives.

Both are developments that have profound implications for principals, school communities, education systems, teacher educators – and treasuries.

They point to an aged formal system of readying teachers for a networked mode of schooling that has failed to deliver and it being superseded by the naturally occurring development that grows the digital competencies of all the world’s digitally connected.

A number of us argued in the 80s that the latter should be the approach adopted in schools.

Rather schools and systems opted to employ ineffectually, for 40 plus years a traditional, ‘expert’ designed, structured linear approach that had its origins in the Industrial Age.  

Schooling worldwide since the introduction of personal computers into the classroom has seen the technology mainly as a tool, to assist improve academic performance. For most it has never been about change or evolution. Rather it has been and continues to be for most educators a ‘passive’ but increasingly sophisticated technology that can enhance traditional academic teaching and student performance. 

Some of us, considering the implications of Moore’s Law (1965) contended the digital would never be a passive technology, and that as the exponential power of computing impacted it would naturally bring marked societal and organisational transformation, and the necessity of the world’s peoples to continually adapt their ways, thinking and skillset. Seymour Papert succinctly observed:

…What we are interested in is not what will happen if you bring in the technology and change nothing else, what we are interested in is how that technology helps us to rethink everything else…’ (Papert 1990, p. 9)

Our belief was that in using the evolving digital technologies in context teachers would naturally grow their competencies as the technologies became evermore powerful, sophisticated, user friendly and ubiquitous. We recognised good use could be made of in-house workshops and mentors but even in the 80’s contended the most effective growth would always come from natural, just-in-time, in context usage, where the teachers had agency of their growth. 

Suffice it to say the establishment and its wish to control dismissed the natural evolutionary assumption.

Rather it contended that all teachers, K-12 must be formally taught how to use the ‘educationally appropriate’ tools, with all needing to be taught a largely constant, common set of competencies. 

That stance was actively supported by generations of technology companies, all arguing all teachers must be able to use – and buy – their kit.

It is as if there was, and is, something laudatory about promoting global sameness and constancy – and hierarchical control.

Some might remember that at the height of the Microsoft hegemony the desired key computer competencies for all teachers from kindergarten upwards were those required to use Windows on PCs.

For many education technology ‘experts’ the perceived nirvana has been, and continues to be, the identification of a set of key digital competencies, their codification in a set of mandated standards, and obligatory formal teacher training and accreditation. The quest is exemplified in the 2017 European Digital Competence of Educators (2017).

In that quest there has been an almost universal disregard for wider society’s adaptation to the digital and the propensity therein of digital users to teach themselves how to use the technologies they desired. It was as if schools weren’t part of a networked society.

Perelman astutely observed in School’s Out in 1992 that near all the world’s users of personal computers were self-taught.

Thirty years on, and 50 years since Gordon Moore alerted the world to the natural exponential growth in the power of computing five billion plus (ITU, 2021) digitally connected people, over 60% of the world’s peoples have taught themselves to use some 5.5 billion plus highly sophisticated smartphones and all manner of other digital devices (Ericcson, 2021).

Among that five billion plus are most of the world’s teachers, all using in their personal lives their desired digital devices, and naturally growing the desired digital capabilities.

Significantly teachers K-12 worldwide immediately drew upon those devices and capabilities when the COVID pandemic forced the school doors to close and the remote teaching to be done from the teacher’s homes.

They instinctively used the competencies acquired in being digital, with near all having the confidence, understanding, competencies, connectivity, and digital devices and infrastructure required to undertake most of their teaching competently online, invariably without any help from government.

Reflect on the competencies you used, and how you developed them.

Likely the most important was the confidence not only to use those competencies in your teaching but to build on those capabilities when needed. Relatively few teachers had been schooled in the use of Zoom, or Teams, or the use of smartphones to conduct remote tutorials, but within weeks they were naturally using all manner of new online facilities.

Allied was likely the shaping of your application of the technology with a digital mindset. You knew the scene would continually evolve, the technology would become ever more sophisticated, that you could teach yourself the desired new competencies desired and how to draw upon the resources of a networked world.

The speed with which teachers K-12 worldwide were able to teach remotely would suggest many of the competencies you employed were the same as your colleagues, and like them your interests and area of teaching would have seen you also employ a suite of distinct capabilities. While all teachers could search, check their sources, record, create multi-media presentations, video conference, socially network, prepare PDFs, archive, and use all of digital communication the same teachers all rightly made use of their particular, often idiosyncratic competencies. Early childhood teachers, teachers of the autistic, senior physics, digital music, and modern history rightly have used the digital competencies and resources pertinent to their work.

The suspicion is that you, like your colleagues, naturally grew your digital competencies by using all manner of digital technologies 24/7/365. You never stop to think how many competencies you have, what they are or how yours differ from your partner’s or children, simply appreciating that in a connected world one has constantly to adapt, be it with the smartphone, streaming services, or smart speakers. 

Every teacher, every citizen in living in a world of accelerating digital transformation has continually to learn how to use the new services and devices, and to put in the cupboard the dated technology, your beloved iPod, digital camera, games console, standard definition TV, CDs, and DVD player.  

Teachers, as individuals have always had particular skill sets that they have brought to the teaching. There has always been the pianist, social organiser, wordsmith, photographer, and the numbers person to whom staff could turn for support.

The digital and the networks have not only provided teachers the freedom and opportunity to develop their interests and passions to a very high level, but also to share that specialist capability within the networked school community. Think of the specialist digital capabilities of your colleagues. On staff there could well be the spreadsheet, blogging, VR, digital lighting, video conferencing, audio recording, copyright, and podcast gurus.

Staff room experience affirms teachers rightly laud and appreciate that individuality and those specialist competencies, no matter how way out some might appear.

Significantly, like all digitally connected, you decided which digital competencies you wanted, how strong you wanted each to be, which were of limited importance, understanding what to do to enhance those competencies or to acquire new capabilities.

While at first glance seemingly obvious it bears underscoring the ‘core’ digital competencies of the digitally connected will always be rubbery, impacted by context and ever evolving; evolving at an accelerating rate. Key technological developments will continually change the core.  

Globally schools and governments have long held a strongly hierarchical, insular view that they as the employer in charge of the ‘factory’ will decide on the digital competencies required of its employees.

Scant thought has invariably been given to the wider societal context, the digital transformation underway or the effectiveness of the socially networked world in identifying and growing those competencies.

In dismissing the notion of natural digital evolution and transformation schools and systems have since the early 80s employed in general terms a controlled, structured approach that has had as its the focus

  • common mass use
  • the mechanical skills required to use the ‘educationally appropriate’ tools devices
  • the competencies the ‘experts’ believed would enhance academic performance, not those of everyday life
  • teachers, K-12 – often across the education authority – mastering common computer/ICT/digital competencies
  • getting teachers to teach and test the identified competencies
  • the use of formal, linear instructional programs and, regular testing to develop the specified competencies. Control is paramount. Over the years all manner of ‘licenses’ have been awarded teachers on completion of those programs
  • out of school staff training, undertaken when it fitted with the instructor’s schedule.

Teacher adoption of the prescribed competencies has been very slow.

In the 80s, 90s and even the 2000s many, possibly most schools and systems, still believed schools needed only a few expert teachers with the digital competencies, and that it was better the computer/ICT experts taught all students.

Around 2015 it was not uncommon even in the developed world, particularly in secondary schools, to have 75%-80% of teachers not using the digital every day in their teaching.

And yet early in 2020 when COVID closed the school doors and obliged them to teach remotely most every teacher could do so.

As could the students from kindergarten upwards.

Both the teachers and students drew on the competencies that came with being digital in a networked society.

And virtually overnight embedded the expectation that every teacher K-12 would normalise the use of the digital in their teaching, would increasingly shape that use with a digital mindset and use the digital competencies they used 24/7/365 in every facet of their lives.

Unseen to most the COVID shutdowns affirmed the observation made 40 plus years ago, that the growth of teachers digital competencies is best done naturally in the everyday use of the technology in a supportive environment, where the teachers control their own growth.

Teachers have that agency in their personal lives.

COVID, and the networked environment gave many teachers that agency in their teaching, at least for a time.

The expectations of the ‘new normals’ will work over time to extend that agency permanently in the classrooms.

That said most education decision makers won’t have seen, or indeed accept the success of the natural evolutionary growth of teacher’s digital competencies. 

There are few signs that they will relinquish their perceived control.

I may be wrong.

What is the situation in your school? Is there any hint the school, or the system is rethinking its approach and giving staff greater agency and support to grow their own competencies?

The suspicion is that the issue of digital competencies will be another of the suite of traditional approaches being challenged, that will in time see the demise of the prescribed competencies.

  • Ericsson (2021) Ericsson Mobility Report November 2021. Ericsson 2021 – https://www.ericsson.com/4ad7e9/assets/local/reports-papers/mobility-report/documents/2021/ericsson-mobility-report-november-2021.pdf
  • ITU (2021) Measuring digital development. Facts and Figures 2021. Geneva International Telecommunications Union – https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/facts/default.aspx
  • Papert, S 1990, The Perestroika of Epistemological Politics. Keynote delivered at the World Conference of Computers in Education, Sydney, 1990.

10. Teachers as Reflective Practitioners in Networked Schools

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Mal Lee

All teachers should be reflective practitioners.

The need is that much greater when teaching within the more networked mode. 

Natural digital evolution, the pace and magnitude of the organisational transformation, the expectation that schools will continually accommodate the new normal, and the increased dependence on dynamic social networks should oblige all teachers to be reflective practitioners, able to apply the skill in their teaching and in enhancing the wider school community.

Teachers globally, particularly in the last couple of decades, have been readied in many schools and systems to make extensive use reflection in adjudging and enhancing their own teaching.

Extending the rationale underpinning the earlier post on teachers as specialists and generalists (Lee, 2022) all teachers should also be able to apply that skill to school’s working as a networked organisation.

It is no longer enough to restrict this vital professional skill to just their teaching.

It should increasingly be applied to better understanding the school’s ecosystem and networking.

In 1987 Schon astutely observed

In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solution through the application of research-based theory and technique. In the swampy lowland, messy, confusing problems defy technical solution. The irony of this situation is that the problems on the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at, however great their interest may be, while in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern. The practitioner must choose. Shall he remain on the high ground where he can solve relatively unimportant problems according to prevailing standards of rigour, or shall he descend to the swamp of important problems and non-rigorous inquiry (Schon, 1987, p3)?

Significantly he made these observations before the digital and networking technology transformed the organisational landscape.

The imperative of adjudging the total topography, and not simply the ‘high ground’ is that much greater within more networked organisations, where near all operations are interconnected, the divisions are blurred and the organisation is naturally evolving, at an accelerating pace.

Tellingly the division between what is the ‘high’ and what the ‘swampy’ ground is even blurred.

Compounding the need is the increasing use being made of social networks, formal and informal, all of which are dynamic, some with a long life, others that exist only for a specific purpose. Few of the networks ever appear on an organisational chart, and few, if any have their contribution to the organisation quantified and included in a data analysis. 

That said any who networked to advantage or have observed their impact, positive and negative will appreciate the importance of both the teachers and heads being able to reflect upon, shape, grow and when apt abandon the networks. We are in a world where one ill-considered post in the school’s e-newsletter can within minutes go viral and impact the school’s marketing for several years.

The COVID experience affirmed the importance of not only understanding the workings of schools as networked organisations but all professionals being able to reflect on the totality of the school’s workings, to compliment the positive, and to flag the ineffectual procedures.

The pandemic hit most every school underprepared. Schools instantly put in place what were thought to be appropriate arrangements. The informal networks quickly provided their feedback and many schools within weeks had to markedly change their approach. There was not the time to go through the ‘desired’ data collection and analysis. Rather professional reflective practitioners, working in the ‘swamp’ listened, observed and with their educational expertise and years of experience immediately made the requisite changes.

At this point in time there is little, or nothing published on the application of reflective practice across total school ecosystems, and in particular those strongly networked. Indeed Schon’s 1987 work on Educating the Reflective Practitioner that devoted many pages to schoolteachers concentrated on the classrooms and post graduate practicums. 

That shortcoming needs to be rectified.  It is appreciated that will take time, and some astute thinking as folk seek to get a better handle on already highly complex, integrated, rapidly evolving, unique, synergistic ecosystems.

But that need shouldn’t stop schools immediately growing the ability of all teachers to better reflect on the practises of the total school.  As COVID underscored they are already working in networked schools that need to be better understood immediately.

Critical is the willingness of the head to genuinely respect, trust and empower all teachers, and to give them the requisite agency and support.

In brief the teachers have to be treated as education professionals.

Schon makes the oft neglected critical observation that all professionals in learning their profession grow their memory muscle, knowing instinctively what to do at any given moment. That holds equally in teaching. It is a vital quality that comes from years of experience, reflection and is a professional capability that should be respected and valued.  

Without respect for that professionalism by the head it is pointless a school or system contemplating the growth of reflective practitioners.

In growing the teacher’s capability to reflect upon, and adjudge the total ecosystem, particularly the ‘swampy’ elements it is important, as flagged in earlier posts, to grow their macro understanding of the school’s workings within the networked mode.

Much of that understanding can be naturally developed as teachers go about their daily work, but with a major caveat. The head must orchestrate the creation and evolution of a digital and networked learning environment and culture, that daily involves teachers in all manner of across school community projects, teaching teams, working groups, committees and critically networks, an involvement that naturally grows the understanding.

That involvement will, from experience also naturally grow the use of a stronger digital and networked mindset in every facet of their work.

While growing the macro understanding schools, as all the good ones do let their teachers also pursie their interests and apply their particular talents where best suited. 

Globally most every networked organisation is readying it’s professionals to better understand and shape the workings of increasingly interconnected, naturally synergistic, and complex networked organisations.

Some highly sophisticated research is being undertaken and quality tools are being developed.

In a networked society the art is to take advantage of those developments and to apply them to your own setting.

  • Schön, D (1987) Educating the reflective practitioner, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. 

7. Teachers as Specialists and Generalists

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Mal Lee

Teachers within the more networked mode of schooling should ideally play the dual role of teaching specialist and education generalist.

They need to be very good at teaching their speciality/ies and to also have a macro understanding of the school’s increasingly integrated, socially networked operations to assist grow the student and staff learning within an evolving ecosystem.

This not the view of most currently in authority.

To them the teacher’s place is in the classroom, focusing simply on their teaching.

That thinking is expressed, and in many respects is embedded in, in most

  • teaching standards
  • teacher accreditation procedures
  • initial teacher education (ITE)
  • teacher advertisements and selection criteria
  • teacher remuneration

The stance taken by most education authorities, or indeed teacher accreditation bodies, teacher education faculties, and likely most heads and governments, stand in marked contrast to the stance taken by most of today’s private sector organisations.

As soon as businesses began operating as networked organisations, they recognised enhanced productivity would come from all professionals having a macro understanding of the organisation’s workings and customer expectations.  As the operations converged, became increasingly integrated, interrelated, the boundaries between divisions blurred, and were directed towards creating the desired digital ecosystem so all staff had to be readied to work within the new interconnected environment.

The COVID experience should have brought home to all, teachers, and parents, that schools in moving to a more networked mode and meeting society’s expectations should not only be aware be aware of each child’s learning in and outside the school walls but should be encouraged and supported to take advantage of the socially networked environment to markedly enhance each child’s learning.

Lipnack and Stamps, writing in their presciently titled The Age of the Network (1994) foresaw the importance.

The network is emerging as the signature form of organisation in the Information age, just as the bureaucracy stamped the Industrial Age, hierarchy the Agricultural Era, and the small group roamed in the Nomadic Era (Lipnack and Stamps, p3, 1994).

…Boundaries are conceptual, not physical, in virtual workplaces and need to be completely reconceived so that ‘physical site’ thinking is no longer a limitation.

(Lipnack and Stamps, p15, 1994)

In the years thereafter that call has become ever louder in the business management literature and has been validated by research undertaken by most all of the major business consultancies, the likes of Deloitte, Capgemini, and McKinsey.

The late Peter Drucker, one the gurus of business management, made two telling observations about networked organisations.

People have to know and have to understand the organisational structures they are supposed to work within (Drucker, p13, 2001).

…….The scarcest resources in any organisation are performing people (Drucker, p121, 2001).

Inherent in those observations is the importance in a networked organisation of maximising the contribution of all the professionals, of respecting, trusting, supporting, and empowering them, and giving them the agency and understanding to assist grow the business. 

Central to that trust and empowerment is giving the professionals the data critical to their specialist and generalist roles. 

Ideally teachers should have the same kind of access.  

Many, likely most, schools, often at the bidding of their bureaucracy, still use the traditional pyramid like, strongly hierarchical organisational model, with its strict division of labour, retaining it even after having transitioned to a more networked mode.

Few would likely trust classroom teachers to access the pertinent student data let alone data they could use to grow the school as a networked learning community wanting to enhance its productivity.

The teachers invariably remain ‘production line’ workers, micro-focussed, micro-managed, distrusted, disempowered, ill-prepared to perform at their best within the networked mode.

While ever the strict division of labour is retained, and teachers remain disempowered the school’s most expensive and valuable resource, its teachers will remain underutilised, and the ability of the school to provide a quality networked education will be constrained.

That said it is appreciated there are schools, primary and secondary, state, and independent worldwide that have long moved away from the traditional structures and adopted a flatter model befitting the networked mode, who have empowered their teachers thrive within connected world. 

They however remain the exception.

The concept of teachers as specialists needs no elaboration.

It is a role they have played for centuries, and must, even in an ever more networked mode, continue to play.

But within the more networked mode that is not enough.

All teachers, from day one of teaching, must also to be education generalists.

While the concept of the professional as generalist is increasingly rare within academia, it is the norm within industry where near all are expected to make a significant contribution to the on-going productivity and viability of the organisation. To that end they must have a working understanding of the organisation’s digital ecosystem, its shaping vision, be able to play their part in multi-disciplinary, often virtual teams, to innovate and take calculated risks, know where their work fits within the integrated totality, the external forces at play in the networked environment and have the flexibility to play their part in the relevant teams and project groups.

The same should hold with all teachers, albeit in the individual or networked school settings. They should be able to play a lead role in project based teaching, in multi-disciplinary programs, to identify mental health, domestic violence and learning concerns, and ensure those with special talents, be they musicians, athletes or entrepreneurs are moved on to those able to grow those talents. 

Teachers in the networked mode should for example be expected to 

  • be able to get into the helicopter and view the school’s integrated workings from ahigh
  • think holistically, and with a digital mindset
  • network astutely
  • take advantage of the apt networked resources and expertise
  • move readily in and out of across school, across network, across nation teams, and project groups
  • appreciate the dynamic nature of networking, and networked organisations and working with continual change and transformation
  • recognise the megatrends at play, and to shape them to advantage
  • collaborate with all the ‘teachers’ involved in the student’s learning and growth – those in and outside the school walls
  • adjudge daily the effectiveness of the school’s ecosystem and be able and willing to share those thoughts
  • have, and make astute use of the data on all their students and the performance and growth of the school

Few teachers have been formally readied to play the role of the professional educational generalist.

That said many likely will have, largely unwittingly begun growing that understanding. 

Teachers fortunate to be working within schools that have normalised the use of the digital and/or networked school communities will in going about their daily work sit on cross school project teams, committees and participate in school and network wide staff development exercise that naturally further their understanding.

That macro understanding needs however to be more consciously grown from the undergraduate years onwards.

Critical is the assumption, evident in every profession, that all teachers will be expected to have a macro understanding of the workings of the school as an organisation and be able to contribute to the development of a teaching environment that naturally fosters the student’s and teacher’s growth.

Also vital is ensuring staff play their part in significant whole of school community project teams, working parties and planning groups that take the teachers out of their comfort zone and oblige them to better understand unknown territory.

In some respects that is easier to do within primary schools, with their strong holistic focus but the secondary school, by virtue of their size, complexity and the possibilities opened by the networked mode also offers innumerable opportunities.

The key is not to allow teachers to operate solely at the one spot on the teaching production line for years on end, never to set foot in another part of the school.

As Schon noted in his seminal work on the education of professionals (Schon, 1983), it takes time to grow the memory muscle that enables all professionals to perform instinctively.

Serendipitously the COVID experience, coupled with the transition to a more networked mode provided the imperative to markedly grow their ability to teach remotely and better understand the networked mode.

  • Drucker, P (2001) Management Challenges for the 21st Century, NY Harper Business 
  • Lipnack, J & Stamps, J 1994, The age of the network: Organizing principles for the 21st century, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York
  • Schon, D.A, (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. NY. Basic Books

Trust and Being Digital

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Trust is critical to the young growing ‘being digital’ (Lee and Broadie, 2018a).

Without trust the young will never normalise the use of the digital, and naturally enhance their use of and learning with the continually evolving digital technologies.

It is a new reality that most schools and governments don’t appear to have grasped. Rather globally we see them continuing to distrust and disempower the students, somehow imagining their unilateral control of the students every use of the technology will enable its normalisation, and enhance the nation’s young being digital.

Little is the wonder that near on two billion young (ITU, 2017) (UNICEF, 2017) have normalised the 24/7/365 use of the digital outside the school walls, but relatively few schools globally have been able to achieve that normalisation and have the digital underpin all learning.

We know now that five interconnected conditions are critical to the young’s sustained, natural learning with the digital (Lee, Broadie and Twining, 2018).

  1. Ready access to the personal, preferably mobile technology
  2. Digital connectivity
  3. Support, empowerment and trust
  4. Largely unfettered use
  5. Self-directed learning, able to collaborate when desired.

In providing the children their ‘own’ suite of digital technologies, free to configure them as they wish the digitally connected families are communicating very strongly to the kids the family’s trust in them.

In schools insisting the students use the prescribed digital device and software, in monitoring its every use and in failing to recognise and value the student’s out of school learning with the digital schools are saying very strongly – intended or not – we not only distrust you, but we don’t trust anything you do out of our eyesight.

In enabling the children to connect to the digital technology and the networked world the moment desired, and to do so largely unfettered the family is affirming both its trust in the kids as well trust in the upbringing and education the family has provided.

One will struggle to find a school anywhere that allows, let alone encourages students to digitally connect the moment they believe it will assist their learning, free to access the desired sites and facilities. Rather access is tightly controlled, with the students invariably needing to get teacher permission, to operate within a mandated acceptable use policy, to do at specified times and to work through a tightly controlled, filtered and indeed censored network.

In addition to trusting their children to use the technology and connectivity largely unfettered the family trusts their young to take charge of their learning with the digital technology, they decide what they want to learn, when, how and with the help of whom. Moreover, they are trusted to do so from as young as three, and supported from that age onwards to become autonomous learners, charting their individual path.

Importantly the families – likely unwittingly – trust their children to adjudge their own capabilities and to decide when, and how they best enhance their learning.

In contrast governments and their schools allow the same empowered young no voice in the in-school learning with the digital, with the experts and teachers deciding what needs to be learned, controlling every aspect of the teaching and assessment, with most schools neither valuing or recognising the student’s individualised learning with the digital.  Tellingly not only are the children distrusted, so too are their parents.

Most schools remain strongly hierarchical organisations, tightly controlled by both government and the school executive, with not only the children and the parents distrusted but so too most teachers. Teachers globally are disempowered and micro-managed to the nth degree. Teachers, almost as much as the students are invariably obliged to use the school specified hardware and software, to use a tightly controlled network, and to follow the prescribed syllabus and assessment regime.

There are, as indicated, exceptional schools that have trusted and empowered their teachers, students and families, which have successfully built upon that trust in a BYOT program, normalised the whole school use of the digital, and vitally collaborated with the families in enhancing the children being digital (Lee and Levins, 2016).

But they remain the exception – their continued success strongly dependent on visionary often maverick heads, able to politic their way through the myriad of bureaucratic and government constraints.

Until governments and their senior education decision maker – be it a minister or superintendent – understand the centrality of trust, and openly promote school cultures that build on trust and empowerment schools will likely continue to have limited impact on the nation’s young being digital. Yes, there will always be exceptional heads, schools and classroom teachers that do make a difference. But there will continue to be, as there has been for near on forty years, great teachers burnt out by dated, stultifying organisational structures, and decision makers who refuse to let go of their control, and genuinely trust and empower the professionals, parents and students.

In advocating working from a position of trust the authors are not naively saying there is no need for astute control, for agreed operational parameters, for hierarchical structures and final decision makers.  We are also conscious of the profound impact of the digital in the last twenty plus years and that public policy makers invariably lag 10-15 years behind the technological developments (Deloitte, 2017).

We are simply commenting on the global reality that in the last twenty plus years outside the school walls when the young are trusted and supported to use and learn with the evolving digital technology they naturally grow and evolve their being digital. Moreover, they are on trend to do so lifelong.

When distrusted and disempowered they don’t.

In 2016, the authors wrote on ‘Trust and Digital Schooling’ (Lee and Broadie, 2016), noting then the inability to successfully create digital schools without trust. We observed:

Without trust schools can’t thrive in a socially networked society and sharing economy (Lee and Broadie, 2016).

Two years later, and having scrutinised the evolution and success of the digitally connected families and researched the digital education offered by schools worldwide between 1993 – 2016 (Lee and Broadie, 2018b) we more than ever stand by that observation, and add that without trust schools cannot grow the nation’s young being digital.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technology Agnostic

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Recognise that in the school’s evolutionary journey and the quest to normalise the use of the digital you’ll be working towards a situation where the school is technology agnostic: where it doesn’t matter what personal technologies or operating systems those within the school community choose to use.

So long as the chosen technologies can readily access the Net as far as the school is concerned it doesn’t matter which folk choose.  While it is likely wise for schools to provide continually updated advice, part of the trusting and empowering of the school community is letting each member make the choice of the desired personal technologies.

Let the user, the learner, the client decide.

We appreciate for many raised and trained during the Microsoft hegemony, who experienced the Apple – Windows ‘conflict’ and who believed that all in the school had not only to use the one operating system but also the same model of computer this will call might sound sacrilegious.

The technical imperative for the school to use the one operating system disappeared at least 5-6 years ago with the emergence of digital ecosystems able to readily accommodate the many different mobile operating systems.  One has only to note the ease of providing all manner of smartphones, phablets and tablets instant access to the Net to appreciate why all schools to be technology agnostic as soon as feasible.

The assumption that all students and teachers must use the same hardware and software in the teaching and learning more to do with the

  • desire by the school – and its ‘ICT experts’ – to retain unilateral control of all aspects of the teaching, learning and technology resourcing
  • focus on the technology and its maintenance rather than on the desired learning
  • belief the young learn best how to use the technology when taught in a highly linear lock step manner, with the teacher in control, with all using the same technology, often with the school being able to monitor every key stroke
  • school’s distrust of and lack of respect for its students, parents and indeed most of its teachers
  • school’s insular mindset that focuses on that happening within the school walls, to the virtual exclusion of any student usage of the digital in the real world.

As schools mature digitally, genuinely collaborate with their homes, socially network, come increasingly to respect, trust and empower all within the school’s community and create a culture and adopt a mindset where the use of the digital is normalised the control over thinking disappears.

All come to appreciate that what matters is the facility of the technology – or more likely the student’s suite of digital technologies – to perform the desired functions.  In authoring an e-book it matters not whether the student uses an Apple, Android, Windows, Tizen or Firefox based system, or a mix thereof to create the final product.  While the ‘ICT experts’ will have their preference so too will each client.

That said, one can mount a case for a graduated shift and schools with limited technology staff opting to stay for a time with a common operating system.  However even those that have started this way soon open the doors for the students to use the kit they desire.

In embarking on your digital journey your school evolve at pace but so too will the technology and the practises one employs to derive the most from the current technology.

Work as fast as is feasible to shift from the traditional prescribed personal technology model to one that is technology agnostic.

Staff Development in the Mature Digital School

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

In venturing into staff development in the digital school the authors do so with some trepidation in that we have not experienced in our research as clear a global picture as was found in the other areas of school evolution.

It might well be that the order has yet to appear out of the chaos but not withstanding there a number of developments and trends that have transpired globally that bear noting.

With staff development we are particularly mindful that the practices of astutely led digital schools could in some regards be different in the later adopter schools. It is an issue to bear in mind in shaping your school’s digital evolution and staff development.

That said there are a number of significant developments that we can comment upon with certainty.

  • Focus on the ecosystem, not the parts

The first and foremost with the mature digital schools is that staff development is addressed in the main as an integral part of the everyday workings and growth of the school’s ecosystem.

As with the other facets of digital evolution it is critical with the staff development to see it as one of the many vital parts needed to create the desired totality, not as done traditionally to address it by providing a suite of disparate, often seemingly ‘bolt on’ programs.

Traditionally much school staff development was coordinated by a member of the executive encouraging interested staff to undertake training programs, externally or in house and/or pursue post graduate study, hoping those loosely connected programs would improve the teaching and the effectiveness of the school.

The contrast of the traditional with the digitally mature schools is pronounced.

The focus in those schools is on seamlessly integrating most of the staff development into the everyday workings of the school, in a culture of change where all staff are daily striving to strengthen the totality and to better realise the school’s shaping vision. The staff development – the personal growth, the enhancement of the particular expertise and the heightened understanding of the school’s macro workings – all are addressed in the daily operations, in the teaching, discussions, everyday interactions, collaboration and reflection. Be it lesson design with colleagues, conversations with the principal, student’s suggesting new apps, the technology coach demonstrating a new approach or simply working within a transformative culture the staff learning is naturally integrated into everyday operations. The approach not only saves time but also is also significantly more targeted, effective and efficient, with the staff learning when pertinent.

It is often near impossible to decouple the staff development from the daily efforts to grow the organisation’s ecosystem.

  • Creation of transformative culture

Allied has been the conscious creation by the leadership of a culture of change, of shaping a start up like culture where anything is possible, that encourages and supports on-going staff growth, risk taking and the continued quest by all staff to take full advantage of the opportunities opened by the digital.

In many respects much of the staff development happens naturally and unwittingly. Key attributes like confidence, a digital mindset, the belief that anything is possible educationally, the willingness to embrace on going change, to collaborate, to distribute the control of the teaching and learning and to respect, trust and empower all the teachers of the young are all naturally – and best – developed naturally in context, in a supportive culture.

An important part of the quest has been the principal’s setting of high expectations for the school and its professionals, daily encouraging the staff to take the schooling to a higher plane.

Of note is that in creating the culture of change while some staff have found the going too challenging to stay the same culture has attracted other highly committed professionals to the school, unwittingly assisting further grow the other staff, the school’s culture and its ecosystem.

In many respects it is the transformative culture of the school that assists grow the students, the school’s community and the staff.

  • Think Digital

This is particularly apparent in the development of the vital digital mindset (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 28), and the willingness to socially network.

The digital mindset grows gradually, largely naturally and unwittingly and in context, with it becoming ever stronger as the school evolves digitally.

Indeed at this point in time the authors find it, as indicated, difficult to envision growing the digital mindset other than in context, in a culture that daily strengthens that way of thinking.

In seeking to professionally develop the staff it is now clear it is important to ‘think digitally’ and to employ strategies appropriate for a socially networked school community.

  • Macro understanding

Unquestionably one of the greater challenges in schools going digital is to get all staff to better understand the macro workings of the school and for them in turn to provide leadership at all levels.

That evolution in the digital schools has come in large from empowering the professional staff, the setting of high expectations, developing the staff’s macro understanding of the workings of the school, having them play a lead role and by daily involving the professionals in the decision making and providing them when apt the opportunity to reflect and discuss the continued growth and evolution of the school. Of note is that the MIT Sloan (2016) study of mature digital organisations found a similar concern to grow the macro understanding, with the leaders when asked about the most important skills for leaders in a digital environment

only 18% of respondents listed technological skills as most important. Instead, they highlighted managerial attributes such as having a transformative vision (22%), being a forward thinker (20%), having a change- oriented mindset (18%), or other leadership and collaborative skills (22%) (Kane, et.al, 2016, p2).

  • Readying for the unknown

The schools that have normalised the use of the digital have entered the evolutionary position where everyday they will be entering unexplored territory, requiring of the leadership and staff a mindset, a suite of skills and an organisational structure and culture that that allows them to continually thrive and deliver as they work with the many unknowns.

The pathfinders in schooling, like those in industry will forever on work without charts in determining the best way to continually realise the shaping vision. There is no best practise research or experience to call upon.

In ‘Teaching in the Digital School’ we identified the kind of attributes the staff will need in that kind of environment. In all likelihood other attributes will emerge the further the school travels into the unknown and transforms it’s operations.

Each of those key attributes will need to be nurtured, and vitally developed in context as the school ecosystem continues to evolve.

To what extent the later adopter schools will learn from the efforts of the pathfinders has yet to be evidenced.

  • Critical importance of staff development

What we do know is that every school studied regarded ongoing staff development as central to the school’s continued growth. All were very conscious the staff was the school’s greatest resource and that it had to continually have the desired wherewithal, individually and collectively, if the school was to evolve in the desired manner.

Tellingly the 2016 MIT Sloan Review noted:

Digitally maturing organizations invest in their own talent: More than 75% of digitally maturing organizations surveyed provide their employees with resources and opportunities to develop their digital acumen, compared to only 14% of early-stage companies. Success appears to breed success — 71% of digitally maturing companies say they are able to attract new talent based on their use of digital, while only 10% of their early-stage peers can do so (Kane, et.al, 2016).

Significantly all the schools studied similarly provide all their staff – and not just the teachers – the digital tools and resources required.

Do you?

  • All staff

A notable development, that is applicable to the digital evolution of all schools, has been the move to involve all the staff – teaching and professional support – in the staff development and view all of them as professionals.

It has been recognised that in evermore tightly integrated school ecosystems where all need have a macro understanding of the school’s operations it is vital the total group is continually grown, both collectively and individually, in context and through specific programs.

This is a key development.

Do you still view the academic only as ‘the staff’ or are you addressing the apt growth of all the professional staff, and naturally involving every one in ‘staff’ meetings?

  • Primarily in-house

In light of the moves to grow the staff in context it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of the staff development has been done in house.

Indeed one notes that in their digital evolutionary journey (Lee and Broadie, 2016) the mature digital schools have opted to increasingly rely on the in-house development and to complement that work with the occasional specific program.

Ironically that shift to the in house away from the traditional central offerings could well have been assisted by the moves by governments, particularly since the GFC, to cut the funding of authority run professional development programs and post graduate study.

The other reality is that the schools have been in their rapid evolution and movement into unchartered terrain found few from outside the school that understand their situation and which can assist the school.

Later adopter schools should be able to benefit from the work of the pathfinders, both in schooling and industry.

  • Limited funding

Allied has been the reality that few of the early adopter schools, particularly over the last decade have had the funds to purchase external expertise, even if it existed. As indicated in BYOT and The Digital Evolution of Schooling (Lee and Levins, 2016) staff development monies have normally to come from the highly competed for 10%-15% of recurrent funding not spent on staff salaries.

As a generalisation the vast majority of schools, particularly state schools, don’t have sufficient monies to purchase all the desired staff development.

While governments have acknowledged the critical importance of staff development politically none have appeared willing to wear the flack of allowing schools to take those funds from the staffing allocation.

Moreover many governments have also taken the view that they know what was best for ‘their’ schools and have dictated how what little monies were available for staff development should be spent.

The early adopters like most other schools have thus had to contend with those constraints and seek where they can alternative sources of staff development funding, as likely will you.

That said in opting to use the in-house integrated staff development the schools have not only saved monies but also provided a markedly more effective integrated model of staff development that is closely aligned to the continued enhancement of the school’s ecosystem and the school’s shaping vision.

  • Complementary programs

In addition to the integrated staff development most of the pathfinders have used a variety of complementary, purpose specific programs. Many were whole of staff or team specific exercises linked to the introduction of new or revised teaching program or policy while others were mini conferences convened to assist both the local schools and the school fund further staff development.

The value of mini-conferences as whole of staff, whole of school development exercises can be considerable.

  • Technology coaches

Tellingly all the schools studied had some type of staff technology coach or unit. While the title of the person or unit varied from school to school all had teaching staff whose task it was to assist other staff with the evolving digital technologies. The position/s were created by the astute allocation of the staffing budget. Most of the support was individualised and curriculum related but every so often, particularly with the release of breakthrough technologies like Google Applications For Education (GAFE) or a school app, whole of staff orientation sessions were conducted.

It is vital support we’d suggest you seriously consider.

  • Bureaucratic obligations

Of note the pathfinders – like all other schools – have had to undertake – often with little or no funds – staff development programs mandated by government, on issues the government of the day or its bureaucrats deem to be politically desirable. You know the kind.

It is a burden that most schools, state or independent, globally have to bear.

It is appreciated some of the programs are critical but others are mandated for political reasons or the whim of bureaucrats.

What we could well be seeing globally is the remnants of the traditional central course approach and the hand over of all staff development to the schools as self-regulating units.

  • Personal development

In addition to the school’s staff development of note were the various forms of professional development undertaken by the individual staff, using all manner of learning opportunities, both online and face-to-face.

It is as if the palpable excitement of working in highly energised school cultures is prompting the staff to further their personal growth. While still early days the impact of the school culture on the personal development of the staff bears further scrutiny.

  • Post graduate education study

It would appear, at least in Australia and the UK that teachers in the more mature digital schools are not pursuing post graduate study in education to anywhere near the extent of previous generations. While the increased cost of such programs could well be a factor so could the failure of many universities to offer programs relevant to those in rapidly evolving digitally based school ecosystems.

The authors have for example been unable to find any post-graduate programs in the UK or Australia specifically designed for leaders of digital schools.

Conclusion

What we are seeing – albeit at an early stage – with the staff development in digital schools is the same kind of paradigm shift we have witnessed in all other facets of digital evolution. There is the movement from a highly insular and segmented operation where the separate parts of the school operated largely autonomously to an increasingly integrated, socially networked approach focussed on ensuring all school operations are directed to the growth of the school ecosystem and the continued realisation of the shaping educational vision.

There is the growing recognition that each school is unique and is best placed to shape a staff development model that most effectively and efficiently enhances the school’s productivity and continued evolution, while at the same time growing the professionalism of all the staff.

It is important in tackling staff development in the evolving school to feel at ease in adopting a significantly different approach – in keeping with the above – and not feel obligated to retain that of the traditional paper based school.

You are readying your staff for a very different operational paradigm.

  • 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/
  • Lee, M and Broadie, R (2016) A Taxonomy of School Evolutionary Stages. 2nd Edition Armidale Douglas and Brown – http://douglasandbrown.com/publications/
  • Lee, M and Levins, M (2016) BYOT and the Digital Evolution of Schooling Armidale Douglas and Brown – http://douglasandbrown.com/publications/

 

Getting Your Staff to Fly

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

In empowering your professionals the ultimate desire should be to have those staff fly, and for them to use their professionalism and the trust and autonomy accorded to continually search for the best possible education in a continually evolving world.

Lipnack and Stamps (1994, p18) in identifying the underlying principles of a networked organisation twenty plus years ago wrote of the importance in rapidly evolving, socially networked, increasingly integrated organisations of

  • Unifying purpose
  • Independent members
  • Voluntary links
  • Multiple leaders
  • Integrated levels

In elaborating on the concept of ‘independent members’ Lipnack and Stamps presciently observed

Independence is a prerequisite for interdependence. Each member of the network, whether a person, company or country can stand on its own while benefitting from being parts of the whole (Lipnack and Stamps, 1994, p18).

That is vital, but oft forgotten.

Digitally based, socially networked and ever evolving organisations need professionals with the mindset, confidence, wherewithal, independence and support to take risks, to grasp the emerging opportunities, to try things out, to work alone, with others or in teams and who can astutely adjudge when to push forward or to take another course of action. They need team players who can think independently and question the organisation’s practises and long held assumptions as the organisation evolves and transforms its operations.

Schools need staff – teaching and professional support – at all levels, and within all areas of the school willing and able to take the lead in enhancing the school’s operations, who understand the school’s shaping vision – its unifying purpose – and who can do so astutely at pace.

They are professionals who can fly, who can continually explore new paths, question current practises and continually energise and grow the school. They, as mentioned earlier, go to make the pathfinder schools the exciting places of learning they are, assisting create schools with cultures more akin to the ‘start ups’ than that those found in most traditional schools. Critically those ‘flying’ and taking advantage of the opportunities being opened are invariably the everyday staff of old who the school has empowered and assisted to grow. They are most assuredly no some specially trained change agent.

They are also staff that in many instances will opt to fly into leadership roles, often in other schools, helping in time grow the staff in the new settings.

While the focus will naturally be on the teachers it is equally important the professional support staff have the independence to assist grow the school. Indeed within increasingly integrated school ecosystems it will be important not only to have ‘multiple leaders’ within all areas but also the ready facility for voluntary links with leaders from different operational areas.

It is appreciated the concept staff independence, the letting of all to fly and taking risks will be an anathema to most schools and the ‘teaching standards’ bodies but if schooling is to evolve at a pace that meets the rising digital expectations of society – and not lag as it now does – it needs embrace the change. Bureaucracies micro managing schools every move will see the schools lag ever further behind societal expectations, move into a state of equilibrium and the place the viability of many schools in question (Lee, 2015, 5).

In staff flying and the schools moving at pace into the unknown schooling will experience the same kind of evolutionary journey as all other digitally based and socially networked organisations, business or public sector. Mistakes will be made, and valuable lessons will be learned as these highly dynamic organisations pursue their shaping vision.

Peter Drucker at the end of his illustrious career astutely observed:

‘To try and make the future is highly risky. It is less risky, however, than not to try make it (Drucker, 2001, p93).

Schools need very much to get their staff to fly, and fly at pace if they are to shape that desired future.

  • Drucker, P (2001) Management Challenges for the 21st Century, NY Harper Business
  • Lee, M (2015, 5) ‘Schools have to go digital to remain viable’. Educational Technology Solutions August 2015
  • Lipnack, J & Stamps, J 1994, The age of the network: Organizing principles for the 21st century, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York

Empowering the School Community

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Tellingly all the schools studied have gradually but very surely empowered their total school community – giving their teachers, professional support staff, students, families and the school’s wider community- a greater voice in the school’s teaching, learning, resourcing and direction setting – markedly expanding the school’s capability and improving its productivity.

Significantly the schools have

  • fully empowered their professional staff
  • accorded all in their community greater respect
  • recognised the part all can play in enhancing the 24/7/365 education provided by the school
  • collaborated with all in lifting their understanding of the macro workings of the school and the school’s shaping vision
  • in the process distributed the control of the teaching, learning and school resourcing.

Yes – in all the distribution of control, the collaboration and the empowerment has added to the load on the school leadership, but paradoxically it has simultaneously provided the school principal considerable untapped support and additional resources. All the principals commented on the time needed to genuinely collaborate and listen, the many frustrations and the seemingly inevitable rectification of well intentioned mistakes, but on the upside the empowerment has added appreciably to the teaching and learning capability of the school, its resourcing, and the support and social capital the principal can call upon in growing the school and its attractiveness.

Schools in the developed world historically are working with their nation’s most educated cohort of parents and grandparents who since their child’s/children’s birth have recognised the importance of a quality education for ‘their’ children and who in their home and hands have a suit of digital resources that markedly exceeds that in most classrooms. All moreover have in their community a sizeable and growing body of retirees with considerable expertise, time on their hand and a desire to be valued.

The above alone is a vast source of expertise and additional resourcing the pathfinder schools in their social networking and empowerment are only beginning to tap.

Within a matter of years the now digitally mature schools in their digital journey have moved culturally from the stage where most within the school’s community were disempowered and had little or no voice in the workings and growth of the school to the point where the total school community is naturally contributing to the daily operations of the school.

It is a historic shift that has been led by the principals – a move that has to be led by the principal.

The move has been graduated, often seeing two steps forward and one back, but inexorably reaching the stage where the empowered expect to be involved in the decision making, if only to be informed of a development that clearly improves the school’s quest to realise its shaping vision. In empowering the school’s community, and vitally by bringing the parents into the 24/7/365 teaching of their children, schooling as we have known it – where the professionals unilaterally controlled the teaching and learning – has likely irrevocably changed.

The digital interface with the school’s community that allows ‘time poor’ members to be consulted and informed about key developments has been – and likely will always be – critical.

That said the empowerment will not be without its moments, particularly as a previously disempowered staff and school community attune their antenna to the extent to which they will be able to express their thoughts and use their new found power. That situation will – as mentioned – be compounded by the ever changing student cohorts and the school leadership having to contend with those new to the school’s culture and ways.

Here again the astute leadership of the principal is critical as she/he works to harness the potential of the empowered while simultaneously maintaining the focus on realising the school’s shaping vision and providing each child an apt education.

It calls for some very skilful balancing but also remembering that in undertaking the digital journey all the adults – teachers and parents – will be experiencing a mode of schooling significantly different to that they knew in their youth.

 

Empowering the Professionals

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

empowering

While the empowerment of the total school community is very important what is critical is the empowering of all one’s paid staff – the teachers and the professional support – and having them use their full professional capability to continually grow the school.

For too long schooling has failed to get the most from its professionals.

It is not the fault of the staff but rather poor and dated organisational practises, and in many situations the authorities lack of trust in the professionals and belief they have to be micro-managed.

Rapidly evolving tightly interconnected, increasingly complex higher order school ecosystems cannot afford that waste, inefficiency and distrust.

It is easy to forget in all the talk about the digital and the social networking that the school’s greatest resource is its professional staff. 85% plus of the school’s recurrent funding is spent on staff salaries and on costs. 3%- 4% of the funding if lucky is spent on the digital technology.

The scarcest resources in any organization are performing people (Drucker, 2000, p121).

Within the traditional strongly hierarchical silo like school the vast majority of the teachers and the professional support staff have for generations been disempowered and their professional capability markedly underused.

Within that ‘factory’ model only a few atop the apex – the management – have a macro appreciation of the workings of the school, with the teachers – the production line workers – expected to follow orders and focus on the micro applying their expertise to their part of the production line. We have thus maths, chemistry, history and English teachers whose very title communicates their limited role, micro focus and contribution.

Examine the likes of the national standards for Australia’s teachers (http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list) and you’ll see classroom teachers are still expected to focus on their area of expertise and not have any significant understanding of the macro workings of the school until they reach what is termed the ‘Lead’ level and even then the involvement is limited.

The same micro focus is true of the professional support staff with most expected to look after a narrow area of operation, often being explicitly denied any wider involvement. How many schools today actively involve the professional support staff in their ‘staff’ meetings? It is likely most traditional schools wouldn’t contemplate involving the professional support, believing such meetings should be restricted to those who know, the ‘academic’ staff.

The dated – factory derived – assumption is that a strong division of labour, controlled by a small management team will provide the most efficient holistic education for each child in an increasingly inclusive digital and socially networked society.

That is somewhat questionable.

Little is the wonder that few of the teachers or the support staff in the traditional settings have come close to realising their full professional capability, and acquiring and being able apply the kind understanding and expertise needed to assist operate and grow a tightly integrated school ecosystem. There is no expectation they should do so, most accepting their lower order standing until they retire.

For too long schools have made limited use of highly educated, well-paid staff, providing neither the expectations, support or in many respects the rewards deserved of professionals. The treatment of the professional support staff, many of who have degrees, has been particularly wasteful, with their talents invariably underused.

Of note is that all the pathfinders began their evolutionary journey with this staffing scenario, with the normal mix of staff, the good and indifferent.

The creation and growth of a tightly integrated digitally based school ecosystem where every facet of the school’s operations is directed towards continually realising the shaping vision in an ever evolving complex adaptive system requires all paid staff – teaching and support – contribute to the macro workings of the school as well as their area of expertise. Every professional should rightly be expected to assist grow the school and their own expertise, and to do so as the school moves to an ever higher plane (Lee, 2015).

Within a tightly interconnected, naturally evolving ecosystem any initiative is likely to have as indicated both its intended and significant unintended benefits that could be manifested any part of the of the school’s operations, its teaching, administration, communication, resourcing or marketing. Any of the staff, teaching or support, could be impacted and thus all need to play their part in optimising the unintended. The introduction a new school app, a seemingly simple initiative, will for example likely impact many parts of the school, educational and administrative, yielding both the planned and very likely unintended benefits..

In going digital and increasingly integrated, with the operations transcending the school walls, the old divisions of labour – the old internal and external walls – soon disappear and the school needs professionals able to flourish in that interconnected environment, understand the links, thrive on the seeming chaos and uncertainty and to go the extra mile when needed.

Tellingly newly appointed staff within the mature digital organisations are expected to make that professional contribution from day one – contrary to the view expressed in the teaching standards. While it is recognised it takes time for even the most capable of professionals new to the organisation to get up to speed there is nonetheless the expectation that as a professional they lead within their speciality and organisationally.

The case studies have revealed that likely the only way to create this type of higher order staff is to empower all and assist each person grow his/her professionalism and understanding of the macro workings of the school in situ, and by ensuring all are provided the apt digital kit and support.

It will take time and be closely aligned to the evolution of the school, the change in its culture and mindset and the movement to a higher order mode of schooling.

The authors have considered ways of accelerating the staff empowerment and cultivating the higher order skill and mind set out of context but we strongly suspect – at this stage at least – the professional enhancement is best done primarily in house, in context, with the aid of mentors and apt professional learning networks.

  • Drucker, P (2001) Management Challenges for the 21st Century, NY Harper Business