Tech Resources

January/February 2012 Leadership has some great web resources for administrators. Some of which I use and recommend:

• Facebook: I post work related items on a group page.
• Twitter: to update myself and others on relevant educational info
• Hightail (was Yousendit): You will always need way to send a large file.
• Slideshare: One way to share a presentation you worked hard on that others might appreciate after your done with it.
• Livebinders: My newest find. A little clunky but is working well.
• Dropbox: Been using it for years. A great way to keep files and to share with others.
• Evernote: Not as handy as it would seem but I do use it occasionally. Mostly, it seems when I’m out in the field and need to take a quick picture with a note attached.
• RSS: Use this in hootsuite as an easy way to stay up to date with webpages with an RSS feed.
• Tripit (I’m not sure how “administrator” specific it is but I use it when I travel.)

Some resources I haven’t tried but looking forward to trying them based on the article:

• Tungle.me
• fcmat.org

What do you use?

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Leadership matters in school improvement

The November/December 2011 Leadership magazine article “Focus on Success” emphasizes many of the finding from my own research upon high performing schools. For example, a collaborative culture (distributed leadership) is important for schools. Working together in a collaborative manner keeps groups from believing that school improvement is the work of “someone else” . School improvement is everyone’s work. The ability to work together for a common goal is vital to increasing student achievement.

Trust, Data, & Leadership

The November/December 2011 Leadership offers some important insight for administrators that begin a new assignment.  Terry Welhelm points out that the development of trust is critical from the very outset. It is important for leaders, new or experienced to focus and communicate intent, integrity, capabilities and results. In most cases a school will have an established culture and creating change can often hinge on being mindful of existing school culture. Accordingly, new leaders should focus upon gathering data early on in their tenure.