For the past three days I’ve been attending the Lausanne Laptop Institute in Memphis.  Now that the conference has ended, I finally have time to process all that I’ve seen, heard and learned. Looking back on the sessions I attended, several themes emerged regarding leadership that I think are applicable to all of us.

Strong Vertical Axis

In their session An Educational Vision Worth Sustaining, Bruce Dixon and Charlie Clark discussed how “a strong vertical axis” of leadership is essential for the success of any 1:1 computing program.   Although we typically think of “leadership” at an administrative level (i.e. administrators “lead” and the rest of us follow), Bruce and Charlie rightfully pointed out that everyone from the Board of Trustees to the classroom teachers must be truly knowledgeable about and vested in instructional technology.   In short, we all have the obligation and capacity to lead because we are all part of that vertical axis of support.

Image Courtesy of Kankie: Flickr Creative Commons

Support a Climate and Culture for Change

Paul Fochtman, Andrew Hoover, and Shabbi Luthra from the American School of Bombay presented a Tech Integration Landscape session that included their “essential conditions” for sustaining a laptop program.  Among their points on leadership was the call to support a climate and culture for change.  As I’ve said before, the world is rapidly changing, and teachers (in general) are averse to risk and change.  With a strong axis, however, we can foster an environment that embraces changes that enhance student learning.

Be Visionary

Blair Peterson, from the Mont’Kiara International School, directly addressed leadership in his session, Leadership for the 21st Century: Awakening to School 2.0.  Blair’s wiki, Principals of the Future, details his five main themes, the first of which is a call to be visionary.  As he states, leaders “must have a picture of what teaching, learning and administrating schools will look like in the future which requires knowledge of information trends, emerging technologies and the impact that information technology has on our global society.”

Leadership Matters

There is certainly more to effective leadership than the points I’ve highlighted here, but I think it’s imperative that schools consider the effectiveness and composition of their vertical axes, their culture and climate for change, and the depth of their vision.  A successful laptop program is not built on the strength of the technology but rather on the strength of the people, at every level, who understand its role in teaching and learning.

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Posted: 07|15|08 at 10:12 pm. Filed under: Conferences.
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