Technology in the Classroom – The Role of the Principal

In our continued quest to bring our readers information about the use of technology in the classroom, today we talk with David Sherman, the principal of South Park Elementary School in Deerfield, Illinois, about the role the school leader can play in classroom technology use. Sherman began his career 21 years ago teaching fifth grade and for the past 14 years he has been in administration, the last three years as principal at South Park.

Sherman maintains two blogs, the “Principal and Interest“and “The Principal’s Page.” On his blogs one will find a wealth of information, from posts about “Teaching and Modeling Responsibility (“Do as I do, and as I say” should be our motto!) to the age old question we all face when raising children, “Protect or Prepare: Which is better for children?” In addition, Sherman is a regular contributor to the educational leadership blog Leader Talk.

The South Park Principal is a strong proponent of the use of Web 2.0 technologies in his school and community. With research pointing to the important role of leadership on school climate and instructional practice, we thought it would be interesting to talk with an administrator regarding the use of Web 2.0 tools and fostering teacher use of technology with students.

Today we present our interview with Principal Sherman. Towards the end readers will find a number of links to web pages being produced by teachers at South Park Elementary.

Can you give us a brief overview of your school, grade configuration, enrollment, staff size, etc? Can you also give us a sense of what technologies you have available in the school and in each classroom?

South Park Elementary School (no South Park jokes, please, we have heard them all!!!) is located in Deerfield, Illinois which is a northern suburb of Chicago. Deerfield District 109 consists of four elementary schools and two middle schools that feed into Deerfield High School. South Park is an elementary school with students in grade K – 5. We have an enrollment of 485 students with four sections in each grade level. Besides our classroom teachers, we also are fully staffed with an assistant principal, a technology coordinator, social worker, psychologist, resource teachers, and teaching assistants.

We have a computer lab equipped with 30 machines, LCD projector, digital cameras, and a digital video cameras. The lab is connected to the library which also has 12 computers and an LCD projector mounted to the ceiling. Each classroom is equipped with two computers, a document camera, and an LCD projector mounted to the ceiling. Our fourth and fifth grade classrooms also have mini-computer labs with four computers in each mini-lab.

We are very fortunate to work in a school district which places a high value on the use of educational technologies, so many valuable sites are not blocked including YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, del.icio.us, and other social networking sites. Of course, we have strong filters protecting students from inappropriate material, but generally speaking, we believe that our responsibility as educators in the 21st Century is to teach students how to use the Internet responsibility as opposed to automatically shutting them out of everything which is done in too many schools through the world and across our country.

One rather unusual sentence in your Mission Statement really caught our attention. It states, “That learning is important and that education should be fun, interesting and challenging.” Can you talk a little bit about how you as an administrator can foster a climate where “education is fun, interesting and challenging?”

Learning should be fun and engaging, but that does not mean school is all “fun and games.” School should be a place where children want to come every day because we, the educators, make learning interesting and engaging. “Fun” would be the by-product of that. At South Park, we are taking a long hard look at the concept of authentic learning where we teach the prescribed district curriculum and we embed authentic problems and activities that connect to real-world situations. We believe that our instruction should be rigorous, yet at the same time it needs to be relevant to our students’ lives, the community, and the world. Rigor and Relevance are two words I often use when I talk with teachers about teaching.

Additionally, I believe that the current Web 2.0 tools can be very engaging for students and teachers, and these tools can increase the level of authentic learning in the classrooms. I started this a few years ago when I shared the story of One Red Paper Clip (see attached PDF) and how Kyle MacDonald traded a red paper clip for a house via his blog. The power of the Internet! I also have used YouTube and TeacherTube videos in faculty meetings to introduce a topic or reinforce a point, and I try to incorporate an activity that engages teachers with technology such as a digital camera scavenger hunt in the building for our staff. The point of all of this is to model the power of technology for use with children and adults, with the goal of making learning fun, interesting and challenging.

Can you share with us how you got started with Web 2.0 tools and where your school is at in terms of implementing those tools?

We were fortunate to be able to bring in Alan November in 2005 – 2006 to work with our school district for the next year and a half. Alan was the person who turned me on to the Web 2.0 tools. He introduced all of us (teachers and administrators) to blogs, wikis, Wikipedia, podcasting, and the power of the Internet for instruction and learning. Alan taught us about the inherent dangers and risks of using the Internet for research including how to identify bogus sites, how to use secondary and tertiary sites, and how to use search engines like Google, Alta Vista, Ask.com, and others appropriately and effectively. Alan also taught us that the Read/Write Web is much more than “cool new tools,” and that ultimately it is about teaching and learning, not about technology. Through these workshops and meetings with Alan November, the focus in our district changed from technology to “21st Century Skills.” The guiding questions became: 1. “How can we incorporate more critical thinking and problem solving into our instruction?” 2. “How can we help our students become more self-directed in their learning?” and 3. “How can we prepare our students to compete in a global economy?”

For me, working with Alan November was a watershed moment. A spark was lit in me, and I realized how powerful the Read/Write Web could be in schools. However, I had no idea how to begin learning about these tools and how to use them as a principal and with students. I had started a blog, but I did not know what to do with it. Fortunately, I was able to attend Alan November’s Building Learning Communities conference in July, 2006. That is where I first met Will Richardson. Will taught a full-day workshop on Web 2.0 tools. He taught about RSS feeds, he got the participants started with Bloglines (an RSS aggregator), and he shared ways to use blogging, podcasting, and digital storytelling both professionally and with students. I left that four day conference totally energized, and my goal was to bring that energy to the South Park staff.

Currently, we have teachers in each of our grade levels using blogs and other tools to varying degrees. I will share some examples later. Basically, many teachers have started using blogs. Some use them as an interactive tool with students and parents, and others use blogs as a means of communicating with parents (homework, class news, etc.). Some teachers have begun to use wikis in their instruction, one teacher does a lot with podcasting, and another teacher has used Skype extensively with her students. One of the most popular tools is Photo Story (digital storytelling), and our technology coordinator uses this a lot with students in the computer lab.

I see where you have two blogs of your own, “The Principal’s Page” and “The Principal and Interest.” Can you give us a brief overview of each blog and why you have two different ones? Are maintaining these blogs part of your push towards the use of technology in the classroom?

This September, I realized that I wanted to reduce the amount of writing I did for the monthly school newsletter because the newsletter often consisted of old news, and it was not very timely. It occurred to me that a blog would be a much better vehicle for reporting to parents than a newsletter. The blog could be updated at any time, I could incorporate different media, and it can be interactive. That was when I launched a new blog called “The Principal’s Page.” I use this blog strictly for school news, pictures, videos, podcasts, upcoming events, and other school-specific items.

I am constantly looking for new ideas for my blogs, and I am modeling the use of blogging for teachers. I would like to see all of the teachers using blogs as a communication tool. It is a great way to share homework, ideas, dialogue, and student work, and it is a motivating tool for students. I have been saying for a couple of years that the way to get involved in the Web 2.0 is to start with a blog. Once a teacher, or anyone for that matter, gets hooked, she will naturally want to do more with technology, and that is where wikis, podcasting, etc. work their way in.

What steps are you taking to encourage teachers to use these tools? How do you/did you handle bringing everyone up to speed on the tools and how did you handle those who were reluctant to try these new tools? also, once underway, how do you help staff stay current on the latest developments?

I may become repetitive with this answer, but I believe that I must model the use of Web 2.0 tools for the staff and parents. I feel that it is my responsibility to keep learning about these tools, which I do mostly through RSS feeds. I am confident that the teachers now know enough about Web 2.0 tools to start using them, so I am starting to “push” a little harder at the individual teacher level whenever the time is right. I spend a lot of time talking with teachers about ways to incorporate these tools into their teaching. Often, these discussion come from my classroom visits and teacher observations.

Can you share with us a couple of exemplars that your teaching staff created with these new tools?

Here are some projects (blogs, Wikis, etc.) that you may be interested in:

Our technology coordinator was part of the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund’s trip to Japan. He used his blog and Skype to communicate with and teach our students from Japan. Blog link: Minorsensei.

He has another blog where he does a lot with digital storytelling and other cool stuff: The South Park Lab’s Blog.

Here is the work a fifth grade teacher is doing with blogs and other tools. She is a podcasting pro. Check out her South Park News Network podcasts: Blog link: Faust Facts 5.0.

Same teacher, but this is from her fourth grade class last year: Faust Facts.

This teacher is a wiki expert. Check out her blog and her archipelagos wiki (it’s student created): Barwick’s Travelers.

This teacher’s husband spent over a year in Afghanistan. She used Skype to communicate with him and her students participated! Snell-Anderson’s Third Grade Class blog.

Here is a kindergarten teacher’s blog: If You Take Some Kids to Kindergarten…

Here is another fifth grade teacher’s blog. He has been requiring his students to write blog comments for homework: Medow News Network Blog.

On my Principal’s Page blog, I have been experimenting with video. I have been posting short snippets of student performances so grandparents and others who are unable to attend can see the children perform. (See the Music Concerts category on this blog) My next goal is to broadcast entire performances from school live via Ustream. How cool is that?!! Imagine the looks on the out-of-town relatives faces as they watch their grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. performing on the Internet.

These are just some examples. For all of the South Park blog sites click here: South Park Blogs. This is where you will see the range of blogs and how they are being used. Some teachers are really getting into this, and others are still in the beginning stages of using these tools.

Today we hear more and more about creativity in the classroom, especially working to develop the creative process in children. Many experts feel that these new technologies render this aspect of education extremely critical? Do you agree with that viewpoint and if so, how are you working to ensure that creativity is a focus of teachers at South Park?

I completely agree. Once you get past the “Wow, this is really cool” phase, the technology use will slow down if the creativity is not there. As I stated before, this really is not about technology. It’s about creative thinking, problem solving, and handing over the responsibility for learning to the students. The teacher needs to relinquish the role of “Expert who imparts all of the knowledge to his students.” Instead, he needs to help the students become more self-directed in their learning. These Web 2.0 tools are a great way to do this. If the work is authentic, rigorous, and relevant, then the student and teacher focus will remain high.

Have you had any glaring missteps and/or are there any areas that you would provide cautions for? Or would you be one that insists that the journey is part of the entire process?

This has been a learning process for me. Through workshops I have attended and through my RSS feeds, I have created a personal learning network that I would never have created without tools like blogs, del.icio.us, Twitter, and Technorati. I have learned so much from others, most of whom I have never met, yet I communicate with frequently. The journey is definitely part of the process.

Glaring missteps? No. However, I wish I had more time to delve into the blogosphere and learn. Cautions? Teach students how to behave appropriately online. Teach them to respect the medium so you do not have to block them from too many sites. Involve parents as much as possible, so they can see the benefits of publishing on the web. Finally, do not use students’ full names or other identifying information. Pseudonyms are great for kids to use.