Leading A Learning Revolution

Mark Twain’s statement of “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. “is very indicative of someone who looks at change in a haphazard way. A typical response from an educational leader when asked why they must make changes is, “It is out of our control” or “This is what the new law requires of us.” A second type of response to the question of why we have to change is to use new mandates as an excuse for developing policies that fit self-initiated ideas on school reform. In each case, an educational leader may be caring a cat by their tail. Change is a process. Change has roadblocks and each of these two factors will be a part of the challenges faced by those who lead. How do you avoid carrying a cat by its tail when initiating change? 

This traditional approach to carrying a cat by its tail limits the ability of others to participate and sets up boundaries that restrict the development of a connected school. The restrictive leadership approach leaves the stakeholders with the feeling that they should stay away from making decisions on their own, and it probably also inhibits them from acting on their own. Using the traditional approach, assessing a position would be that the leaders decide what needs to be done to improve the school and expect the stakeholders to be loyal to their requests. Unfortunately, the results of this position are low trust, negative feelings and comments about school reform, and lack of commitment to school improvement.

Throughout the history of American education, classrooms have been self contained entities.  They are places where content has been mechanized and delivered on conveyor belts of textbook driven, frontal deliverance systems. As we recognize that the world is a rapidly changing place, we must also recognize that today's education system is on the verge of desirable change.  One point, that Tony Wagner makes about the need for educational change is brought out in his book, The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner states, "The world is changing at a faster rate than ever before, even the great expansion of the Roman Empire will not compare to the evolution of technologies now being experienced in our generation."  With the innovative changes in technology also gives rise to powerful new models of collaborative learning. In these new models of learning are the provisions for social networking tools. These are the networking tools that provide education with avenues to connect our ideas through a different media, a digital media.  This is the same digital media that supports a need for the development of 2.0 literacy skills.

The extension of learning beyond the classroom is a long awaited concept that may have desired but have been unable to capture.  This desire to extend learning through the post-holing of knowledge to deeper understandings has been traditionally practiced by non-intrinsic means of giving students homework. These homework assignments were usually an extension of the daily assignment that the student was given the challenge to complete.  In connected learning, schools’ opportunities to extend knowledge beyond the classroom become realistic when applying participatory Web 2.0 Literacy.  These are the classrooms where intrinsic motivation becomes the melting pots of social networking tools that prompt the sharing of knowledge obtainment. Connected learning schools are founded on a different set of standards than those schools founded on traditional practices.  These are "The Classrooms without Walls," places professional educators, students, parents, and the community are engaged in active learning based upon Literacy 2.0 co-collaborative goals. 

Leading A Learning Revolution "The Clock is Changing"

In the connected school, the role of the educator is to discover expanded technology based learning opportunities. These are opportunities that benefit not only student learning, but also, the school as a whole. If schools are about the improvement of the learning process then schools will need to become connected. There are many contributing factors that need to be considered in becoming a connected learning school. The nucleus of a connected learning is the development of a successful curriculum integration plan. A plan that adopts Literacy 2.0 tools into the Common Core. Thus, the focus of the plan is to maintain the integrity of shared ideas and to provide structure in the continual adaptive expansion of technology resources. 

This plan should be designed in a way that inspires people to share their knowledge, collaborate on their knowledge, and finally develop their knowledge into a technology paradigm shift for the future. The connected school is different in its architecture for it offers new applications where learners can share, create, and contribute to new knowledge by direct participation rather than receiving passive information.  Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology states, "We are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media, toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced."

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