• Highly materialistic and self-absorbed
• Caring and tolerant
• Change-oriented
• OK with high educational debt
• The most cosmopolitan age group in America
• More likely to live abroad for an extended period of time
• Does not expect job security

How is today’s educational system tapping into the rich culture and valuable assets of this generation? If our schools, curriculum, pedagogies, and structure are built on a social system, social values, and student attributes that look nothing like they do today, they are not really meeting the needs of this new generation of students. As noted in this blog “No matter how hard we try to cover up 19th century institutions, they will still be 19th century institutions.”

• Technology is taught as an add-on and is not infused throughout
  programs.
• Educational leadership courses are not measuring or ensuring that
  leaders who get the university’s rubber stamp of approval are technology savvy.
• Outside of maybe a dozen folks (that we know of), the issue of
  technology leadership is not getting a lot of attention. Scott McLeod and I
  recently completed a study attesting to this fact. It should be published in
  a special edition of the Journal of School Leadership soon.
• As noted over on Dangerously Irrelevant, service in higher education is usually seen as the lesser of our obligations as faculty members. How can we get our technology interested faculty members on board to directly work with more schools, leaders, and teachers on topics related to technology when the institutions that promotes them do not value this type of work (that is to say our service if judged less than our research and teaching)?

Most higher education institutions see value in technology and do want technology to be infused in their educational leadership programs. Bryan Setser of North Carolina Virtual Public Schools spoke to my class of EdD students recently. He said “if you are thinking that technology is only a tool, you are already behind. Technology is a process, it is not a tool.” Why then are school leadership programs not teaching our school leaders to change how they do the business of education versus teaching them how to use tools to make their job easier?

I find the Education 3.0 framework as proposed by John Moravec aptly applies to school leaders too. As John said: 

This will all require new forms of educational professionalism, tapping well beyond traditional teachers [and school leaders], and blending together with the communities that schools serve. The future that kids and adults co-create can provide the emerging knowledge/innovation economy a boost, greatly enhancing human capital and potentials.

• Challenges the individual. No one in this program would say “But I thought getting an education degree was easy!”
• Is rigorous enough to attract intellectual, innovative, thought-leaders
• Robustly develops a student’s ability to solve problem, become a critical thinker, and work collaboratively.
• Is packed with upper level courses in history, ethics, mathematics, law, economics, policy, research, engineering, biology, anatomy, chemistry, and computer sciences (just to name a few).
• Is academically challenging so that becoming a educator is professionalized at the level of doctors, lawyers, MBAs, etc.
• Stresses global, national, and local issues. Students would not only understand where Cambodia is, but have some understanding of its politics, culture, history, and relationship to the rest of the world.
• Mandates each student study abroad.
• Mandates the individual gain proficiency in a foreign language.
• Forces the pre-teacher to act on the tenants of social justice and peace education. This individual would be a skilled conflict mediator.
• Produces teachers who are intercultural leaders.

The main draw back would be that this individual may be too marketable for the teacher education profession. With skills like these, what Fortune 500 or innovate start-up company would not be banging on this person’s door? This individual would be a cosmopolitan and in high demand. Thus, if such a teacher education program were created, how could we retain such individuals. Isn’t this the person you want to teach your children? Why are we not doing more to create cosmopolitan educators? What is your vision? Are there revolutionary programs out there? I would love to hear about innovative approaches currently underway.

(Jayson Richardson is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, University of North Carolina-Wilmington.)

As an assistant professor of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the Watson School of Education, I am actively seeking to answer this question. We mandate that all students in our doctoral program participate in three internships: one domestic, one business, and one international. We currently send budding school leaders to Japan, Belize, and South Africa. We are always looking at the ‘So what?’ question. That is, once folks do this sort of internship, what happens next? Is this enough? Is it a first step? What more should educational leadership programs do to meet the needs of school leaders in the 21st century? How can we build programs that focus on building level issues, global issues, AND technological innovation? Does anyone have any sample school leadership programs to share that are doing a spectacular job of meeting these three vital skills? I would love to hear from the international community too.

Check out these sample MEAs:

• Tiny Toys
• Soccer Balls
• Big Foot

In short, we are building simulations to support MEAs. Currently we are building a simulation using Croquet. This is an open source technology that allows the user to create interactive 3D worlds. The current simulation is based on a paper airplane MEA. In this MEA students need to create a judging model for what makes a paper airplane a best floater, the fastest plane, most loops, the most accurate, etc, With this MEA it is impossible for teachers to replicate a data set in class. But in a simulated environment, teachers can replicate a throw over and over! Below is a screenshot of our current project:

In this environment students will be able to:

• Launch and relaunch flights
• Chat with other students
• Compare and contrast flight paths
• Change angle from judges table to top view, to sideline view.
• Interact with the flight data using a measurement tool.

Teachers will:

• Be able to monitor all students in the environment
• Give feedback and probe using the chat function

We are working on the laboratory now. In that environment, students will be more interactive and will be able to play with the angle, the force, height, and plane choice to determine its impact on the flight.

If you had any experiences using / building simulations to support mathematical problem solving skills, please comment! If you know of anyone else doing this kind of work, we would love to hear about it!

1. Tabbed browsing is old news…but pullng out tabs as an independent browser is cool. It works much like a real file cabinet. Old skool meets new skool.
2. Since tabs are independent, if one site crashes, you do not loose the other tabs.
3. Who needs a search bar AND and address bar? With Chrome, they are one in the same.
4. Going to a site where you don’t really want to leave tracks…go incognito.
5. Your most visited sites are saved in a new tab and displayed a mini-pages.

We all started out on Netscape, fell for the wow of Internet Explorer, and really dug Mozilla’s Firefox. Maybe Chrome will finally squash the way we think a web browser should be. It is changing my mind!

So, why is the introduction of Chrome a big deal and what is its implication on education? This tool is a sign that tech tool developers are breaking away from the way we ‘think’ things work and are listening to the experiences of the users. If teachers and school leaders shift their thoughts away from ‘business as usual’, maybe they will listen to the users (i.e, students) and radically change the way the schooling experience works. What if we break down these preconceived walls and build a new type of educational system? Perhaps a user-driven, user-friendly system?

• International Journal of Education and Development using Communication Technology. An e-journal focusing on both research and practice in ICT, education, and technology.
• Information Technologies and International Development. An e-journal focusing on the intersection of ICT and international development.
• ICT for Development Platform. Brings together ICT4D specialists, best practices, innovations, and experiences. Check out the Connecting People for a Better World book!
• UNDP ICT4D. The United Nations website for ICT4D resources.
• ICTlogy. A blog dedicated to ICT4D issues.