It’s not all about the technology

An ICT Leadership Model

 

The following table provided by Webber compares conservative and educative ICT Leadership models. [i]

 

Conservative ICT Leadership	Educative ICT Leadership
·                   Technology	·       Possibilities
·                   Role rigidity	·       Layer participation
·                   Resource acquisition and management	·       Vision building
·                   Policy implementation	·       Problem solving
·                   ICT Manager	·       ICT User
·                   Safety	·       Innovation
·                   Hoarding	·       Open Access
·                   Compliance	·       Engagement
·                   Isolation	·       Seamless integration
·                   Reactive	·       Agile
·                   Fair play	·       Social justice
·                   Demanding equity	·       Positioning for equity
·                   Individual	·       Network
·                   Professional deskilling	·       Enabling
·                   Isolated in-service	·       Ongoing professional development
·                   Recipient	·       Entrepreneur
·                   Exclusionary	·       Boundary Breaking
·                   Power broker	·       Power Builder
·                   Privacy	·       Public demonstration of learning
·                   Standard, predicable, change resistant	·       Flexible, fragile, high reward

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Webber compares educative Information and Communications Technology leadership with a conservative Information and Communications Technology leadership style, which has been a stable model for many years. Most of the words that describe a conservative Information and Communications Technology Leadership role have come from a time when computers were new in both schools and in the workforce. Despite advances in Information and Communications Technology the question remains, of course, as to who is best placed to provide that leadership in the school setting.

Despite the ever present nature of this kind of technology in recent years, we still find it difficult to fully understand how to make the best use of Information and Communications Technology in schools. What is suggested is that the new phase of Information and Communications Technologies leadership will be democratic, forward looking, open ended and be based firmly in a participatory base. This conception of Information and Communications Technology leadership presents several challenges.

An over-riding factor inhibiting the development of ICT has been the problem of leadership. Leaders in schools – whether the Principal or others – have, been ill-prepared for the changed world which Information and Communications Technology has created. Through the research I have conducted in ICT Leadership, I have created a model which looks something like this:

 

 Equity & Resources================>

 

Pedagogical Issues=================>

 

                                      Informed ICT Leadership

 

Professional Development============>

 

External Factors===================> 

 

 

 

 

Equity and Resources for Informed Leadership

 

Leadership for Information and Communications Technology needs to take into account equity and resources. Equity and resources as a dimension of leadership for Information and Communications Technology requires consideration of the provision of computers and related resources. This includes: Internets, intranets, networks, infrastructure, hardware and software, peripheral devices and technical expertise. When computers were first introduced into schools, the notion of equity and provision of resources dominated leadership in Information and Communication Technology.

Access, equity and social justice are also important considerations when schools attempt to respond to the challenges of Information and Communications Technologies. School leaders in Information and Communications Technologies should be able to control how they integrate Information and Communications Technologies into a classroom without significant Government intervention, while still keeping abreast with the latest trends. These trends not only include the provision of computers; but the way classrooms are reconfigured, the nature of the distribution of computers and the provision of the electronic environment which can include email, Blogs, wikis, intranets and other forms of virtual communication.

The Information and Communications Technology leader needs to be able to make a significant and strategic contribution to the debate about Information and Communication Technology provision at the local school level. In part this is because there is often significant disagreement about how best to deploy computers: whether they should be in labs, classrooms, how they might be deployed with Interactive whiteboards (IWB) and other questions at the local level. [ii]

 

Pedagogical Issues for Informed Leadership

 

It has become apparent that for Information and Communications Technologies to benefit teaching and learning, computers need to be used in appropriate ways. This becomes a matter of pedagogy.

Others have emphasised the necessity for teachers to develop new approaches when using computers. These approaches need to be constructivist in nature, and to concentrate on engaging the learner.

Compounding the problem of appropriate pedagogy in secondary schools is the resistance of a significant number of teachers to embrace the use of computers in their subject areas. In one study, it was identified that  “teachers perceived computer use to be too time consuming and they were also reluctant to hand over control of the learning environment to their students.”[iii]

Whether the issue is the acquisition of new skills or the move away from the comfort zone of the instructivist approach, the problem remains that students are not being taught using modern teaching strategies. Given the large amount of educational research available in learning theories, one would anticipate that teachers would use the findings of the research to their advantage and modernise their teaching strategies to incorporate new, innovative and exciting methods of inspiring students to learn. The real issue, however, is the extent to which teachers are willing to let go of being the central authority in the classroom and take on a different role where they are not the focus of the classroom. The link between Information and Communications Technology and pedagogy continues to be an emphasis in Government reports and curriculum documents.

Given the continued importance of pedagogy in the use of Information and Communication Technology in the curriculum, there is a clear leadership role for those who are responsible for Information and Communication Technology. They need to focus on the importance of good pedagogy as a vital part of the successful integration of Information and Communication Technology into the curriculum.

 

Professional Development for Informed Leadership

This aspect of leadership needs to take into account how Information and Communication Technology can be used in a variety of classroom contexts. For this dimension of leadership in Information and Communication Technology, it is necessary to provide sustained, individualized, ongoing, long term professional development. Any professional development model needs to be linked to the pedagogical dimension. This is critical because  “there is an acknowledged need for ongoing support and development to help teachers acquire and develop the technical skills and pedagogical understanding required so they can extend and enhance teaching and learning through the creative use of Information and Communication Technology.”[iv]

From the first attempts to introduce computers across the curriculum, the issue of professional development has been an important one. The emerging challenge for Information and Communication Technology leaders is to manage widespread professional development in a localised school context. The question is: “Who is to provide training, and how is it to be done?” Over the years, it has become apparent that Principals and Information Technology Managers are not necessarily best placed to provide strategic leadership in professional development. Simply having a person such as an Information and Communications Technology coordinator or a Professional Development coordinator working without a context or a support structure is unlikely to be an effective solution.

External Factors for Informed Leadership

External factors involve an element of prediction and crystal ball gazing. They include factors as dynamic as future employment, further developments in connectivity and the extension of virtual environments. Twenty years ago, no one could have foreseen the impact that the Internet would have on human knowledge.

Nowadays, external factors can be systematic; that is; bodies governing education such as Governments can also influence the decision-making process. For example, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs [v] produced a framework for transformative leadership that integrates information and communication technologies to improve teaching and learning.

In the 2007 Australian Federal election campaign, one of the election promises included the provision of Information and Communications Technology hardware to students and increased bandwidth to schools.

A Rudd Labor Government will revolutionise classroom education by putting a computer on the desk of every upper secondary student and by providing Australian schools with fibre to the premises connections, which will deliver broadband speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. [vi]

It is expected that the Information and Communications Technology leader will be able to take external factors, such as election promises, in their stride and work with the direction that is provided.

This model obviously has much in common with established models of leadership in schools, especially transformational and instructional leadership. We are still very much in the early days of Information and Communication Technology leadership in schools, but it seems fair to assert that Information and Communication Technology is likely to remain important into the future and that decisions about the provision of infrastructure, professional development of teachers and curriculum design are likely to continue to have a major impact.