Week 9: Case Study Presentations

All of the case studies that were presented in class this week were fantastic. The one that really stood out for me though was the case study regarding the integration of blended learning in a college. I am teaching grade 12 college chemistry next semester, and this case study has made me critically look at how I plan to teach this course. If my students need to be prepared for a blended learning model, then I want to ensure that I'm preparing them as much as possible while they are still in high school. I know that most colleges use an LMS (Learning Management System) so I'm wondering if I should use an LMS (Brightspace by D2L is used by most Ontario school boards) instead of Google classroom?

The Bigger Picture

I have noticed that all of the case studies so far are focused around one major topic: change and resistance to that change. Leadership is really all about relationships and cultivating those relationships to break down the barriers and fears around change. In my current leadership role, I've also noticed that building and maintaining relationships with your team members MUST be a priority in order to build an environment where people are willing to take risks and try something new. I think this really speaks to how profound the Diffusion of Innovations theory by Rogers is to leadership. It is also intertwined with communities of practice, and Bransford's "How People Learn". I suspect that these themes will continue in the case studies that will be presented in class next week; I'll be interested to see if this hypothesis is correct.

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Week 2: The Innovation-Policy Gap

This week's readings were focused on digital privacy. It is clear from from both Davis (2014) and Leatham & Robertson (2017 ) that there exists some major discrepancies between innovation, the use of technology in education, and policy. In particular, as I was reading the Leatham & Robertson (2017) article, I began to question my own practices and choices of digital tools in the classroom... do they protect student digital privacy or am I unknowingly putting my students at risk here? I will certainly be examining the digital tools that I choose much more closely to ensure that this is not the case. I found the following quote from Leatham & Robertson (2017) particularly interesting: "Teachers, and in particular, early adopters appear to be caught in the cross-currents of multiple and contradictory technology imperatives" (p. 3). This quote really caught my eye because it is linked to the leadership theory that I am working on with my group for Assi...

Week 12: Blue Sky Thinking

I have seen a general theme running through both this course and my practice in my leadership role. Technology leadership, or really any leadership, always comes back to RELATIONSHIPS. Fostering good relationships with staff and students creates a positive environment which is key to gaining trust and buy-in. This, in turn, allows for risk-taking and innovation. As I look back on the course, relationships were seen interwoven throughout the course content. For example, relationships were central to many of the leadership theories that I examined early on in the course. As a leader, using and modelling the use of technology can influence attitudes, as seen in social learning behaviour, which can then influence behaviours. This is linked to the theory of reasoned action, which describes how attitudes as well as norms can influence behaviour. Both attitudes and beliefs about the usefulness of introducing and adopting a new technology will influence the adoption. Communities o...

Week 11: Looking Back

This week in class, we took a look back at the learning goals that was provided at the beginning of the course. I think that I have met most, if not all, of these goals but I think that it is an important exercise for me to critically analyze and measure how I am doing for each one individually: Goal 1: Theory to practice. Apply new understandings of tech leadership theory to practice and in the course. This is perhaps one of the goals that I dedicated the most time and effort towards. The course was really designed around not only learning about tech leadership theories, but also applying these theories in practice. In the course, this was evident during the theory presentation assignment, the case study assignment, and the blue sky metaphor assignment (at least that's the plan since it's not until next week!). It's pretty interesting how much the theory from this course has also crossed over to my professional practice as well. I find that I'm even q...

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