6.02 musings from ISTE Leadership Forum

Happy Mole Day to everyone! If you do not remember from your high school or college chemistry class, the mole is a quantity in chemistry used to get matter that is atomically small (or smaller) into a group large enough to measure. The quantity is Avogadro's number (6.02*10^23). If you want to learn about the celebration, go to http://www.moleday.org.

Today was the last day of the ISTE inaugural leadership forum. I would like to refer back to my post from 2 days ago and repeat how intelligent people correctly call the first occurrence of  an event that will happen annually is inaugural, as there is no such thing as the "1st annual". This is particularly peculiar because I am now in Springfield, IL for the 1st Annual Race to the Top Conference, hosted by the Illinois State Board of Education.

As I digress back to the title of this post, here are 6.02 (in honor of Mole Day) musings about today's events at the Leadership Forum.

1. The NMC Horizon Report for 2012 (K-12) identifies six technologies to watch in the present to the next 5 years. They include mobile computing and apps, tablet computers, game based learning, personalized learning environments, augmented realities, and natural user interfaces. Some very exciting things on the horizon when we bring these into education.
2. The importance of coaches is becoming more evident in this era of high stakes testing and evaluation of teachers. Admin need to support the role of coaches in the classroom. A good coach instructional modeling idea I got from the conference was the first class, the coach models the lesson. The second class, the coach co-teaches the lesson. The third class the coach supports the instruction of the primary teacher. Finally, the fourth lesson, the coach observes.
3. An easy way encourage a collaborative process in your classroom is to change the physical space of the room. It is a feature that we easily overlook that can be an obstacle to encouraging conversation.
4. Great teaching is great teaching. Technology will enhance great teaching. Technology is not assist poor teaching practices.
5. Change takes relationships, relationships take conversations, conversations take time.
6. When trying to create and implement a vision for technology, your first impulse is to grab the early adopters, but it is important to flip your thinking. Bring those who would be reluctant into the fold first to reduce their anxiety.

    .02 Five steps to create change: Model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart.

Big lesson from Fullan and Quinn from the closing -- Premature excitement is fragile. Lone innovators are not contagious, but rather annoying. Inspire others to be exited!