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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 of practice, as defined by Wenger (2015), are "groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn to do it better as they interact regularly". A strong community of practice can influence how quickly an innovation is adopted, given that the diffusion of innovations theory depends on relationships and word of mouth to influence the acceptance of the innovation.

As I progressed through the course, various types of relationships were examined, included those relationships between staff members, as well as the relationships between teachers and students. For example, I learned about how to focus the choice of technology around what student needs were and how to create more student-centred learning environments. I also spent some time looking at the relationships between students and the technology itself, examining key issues around ensuring personal privacy for students. This course really helped me to understand that I need to protect the relationships of students with the outside world by carefully considering and evaluated each digital tool that I choose to use in my classroom.

For my blue sky thinking presentation, I choose the following image as a metaphor for all that I learned about relationships and technology leadership in this course:


In this image, I see the two heads as representing the leaders and teachers coming and working together as they are facing each other and interacting. The birds might represent all of the members of the community of practice, both staff and students, who are working together as a collective unit. Or it might even represent the thought exchange happening between them. As the heads are trees, I see this representing the fact that leaders need to foster relationships to both staff and students; to provide safety, trust, and buy-in in order to allow all members to flourish and "grow" by taking risks and being innovative.

My Vision:

Technology leadership should involve both staff and students. Furthermore, it should be focused on relationships to facilitate innovation and risk-taking, keeping this question central: “What are the needs of students as technology is changing?” I have taken away a great deal from this course and I'm really excited about putting what I've learned into practice as a technology leader in my school.

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