M5, Reading Response

5 Considerations For Digital Age Leaders, by Lotta Larson et all.

How can educational leaders keep up with the daily onslaught of information when new literacies rapidly outpace traditional literacies, and access to technology and information expands exponentially?

This article described how Principals and Teacher Leaders have to take personal responsibilities for understanding changes in tech implementation and integration in their buildings and classrooms versus relying on technology support staff. It is up to the building-level staff, district personnel, and educational leaders to move schools into the digital age.

They suggest five considerations:

ü  Visionary leadership

ü  Digital age learning cultural

ü  Systemic Improvement

ü  Excellence in Professional Practice

ü  Digital Citizenship

To further support a digital learning culture, educational leaders must critically assess how much technology students have access to and how often they access it.

To continue improving the organization through the effective and creative use of technology resources, leaders must provide digital age leadership.

Ongoing, consistent, leveled professional development opportunities can users gain the technology skills and confidence needed to teach the new literacies. Lastly, have a open communication board to discuss polices, changes, and legal issues.

Now is the time for educational leaders to focus the conversation on how technology fits within their classrooms to best meet their students’ needs. The author states, “If we want our children to be competitive on a global level in the 21st century, we need to be visibly using and talking about these tools for learning and teaching”.