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If you are an administrator looking for an overview of read-write web tools that are useful in the classroom, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Web Tools for Classrooms Second Edition is an excellent starting point. Richardson starts the book explaining the nature of the read-write web and discussing in a general way its promise as an educational tool. The he proceeds to describe seven read-write tools in each of the following chapters. The strength in Richardson’s book lies in his straight-forward description of these tools, suggestions of possible classroom uses, and the examples of those uses. I would consider myself somewhere close to be a poweruser of the web, but this book added some additional ideas for classroom use to my sharing repertoire. I now feel even more confident discussing with teachers their use of these tools in the classroom. For example, chapter 4 in the book focuses on wikis. I was familiar with wikis. I have even set up wiki pages myself for various kinds of uses as an administrator, but Richardson’s explanation of the nature of wikis combined with suggestions and examples of classroom uses set my own mental wheels to turning. I even have some plans to establish a wiki for an administrative project I have been thinking about for my school. Chapter 5 on RSS feeds is even more thorough as Richardson talks about the mechanics of RSS without getting too bogged down in details. In addition to the mechanics of RSS, he also gives some very interesting classroom application ideas too. The seven Read-Write Web Tools described in this book are:

1. Weblogs
2. Wikis
3. Real Simple Syndication (RSS)
4. Aggregators
5. Social Bookmarking
6. Online Photo Galleries
7. Audio/Video Casting

Will Richardson’s book is an excellent addition to the 21st Century Principal’s library.

Recently, I was asked by our central administration the question, “What is your school doing to prepare students for the 21st Century?” Honestly, I had a difficult time answering that question. First of all, there’s the issue of “What does 21st Century Learning Look Like?’ The answer to that question depends in one sense on who you ask. The individuals at The Partnership 21st Century Skills have their list of skills. The 21st Century Workforce Commission National Alliance of Business has a list of skills. and if you search for a 21st Century skills list on our state web site, you get a dead link message. Apparently, their skill list has not made it into the 21st Century yet. Seriously, before someone asks me how my school is preparing students for the 21st Century, perhaps there needs to be a consensus on what these skills are. But let’s set that problem aside and acknowledge that no matter what list you look at, there is some congruencies regarding the skills on these lists. For example, most of these lists have things like problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity/innovation, among others. So coming to some level of agreement of just what these 21st Century skills are should be easy. This leads us to the second issue regarding the 21st Century Skill question.

Let’s just be direct here. As long as states and policy makers are hung up on multiple choice assessments that test core skills, school are going to focus on test preparation. Sometimes, what it takes to do well on those tests is in direct opposition to those skills described by 21st Century rhetoric. Naturally, this means less time spent on teaching things like problem solving and collaboration. What this means is that our schools are sometimes torn between “getting ready for the test” and “preparing students for the 21st Century.” Some would disagree with this, but the bottom line is we are still assessing twentieth century style and until we develop 21st Century Assessments, teaching and the content of teaching is going to change very little. Given the sanctions environment created by No Child Left Behind, we all know that schools are going to choose teaching to the test over the problem solving and collaboration skills of the 21st Century.

So how do I answer the central office question? I could answer it by looking at what we are doing instructionally at our school and make that fit the 21st Century Skills framework. The problem is, I honestly feel guilty answering in that manner. In my heart, I know 21st Century learning is not the focus; getting students ready for “the test” is the focus. So I cannot in good conscience answer in that manner. It all comes down to this: I am not able to answer that question like I want to answer it. As a 21st Century Principal, I am ashamed to answer that question, because I know we are not doing enough to prepare our students for the future. Now I also refuse to play the blame game because that is done enough. Instead, I want focus on what I can do.  I can work to create the kind of school environment that makes 21st Century skills important. I can fight for technology resources in tight budget times. I also can be more discerning in what resources to fight for. I can work provide teachers the tools, skills, and time to make 21st Century learning happen. Finally I can continue to advocate with all who will listen, for assessments that mirror what our students face in the 21st Century. Bottom line, I want to be able to answer that 21st Century question from the central office next time with a whole list of what we are doing to prepare our students for the 21st century.

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In a couple of weeks I will be moving on to a new principal’s job at a new school. In preparation for leaving, I have been trying organize everything for the incoming principal. In the old days I suppose a principal, who was leaving, would just need to make sure everything is filed and accessible in the old file cabinet. My problem is, as a 21st Century Principal, I did not use the file cabinet in the year and a half in this position except maybe to stuff objects like Christmas cards, business cards, and all those planner samples from all those companies vying for our business. Instead, I did everything electronically and saved only electronic copies of all the documents of the trade on my hard drive. Of course I have a back up copy of everything on my portable hard drive. My organizational problem is, “How do I make all these files accessible, so that even someone who is not particularly considered a heavy computer-user, can find whatever they need easily and as quickly as possible?”

About a year ago, I purchased and read a book called Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better. In that book there is a section that talks about how to make your “My Documents” folder more accessible, and I really have to thank the author, Gina Trapani, for the solution to my current dilemma. In order to make my electronic files more accessible, I could have used a solution I tried four of five years ago while trying to organize all my teaching files. In those days, I just created a series of folders and organized all the files into the folders. For example, if I had teaching materials related to poetry, I created a poetry folder and placed all related files into that folder. The first time I had to find something, I discovered the problem with organizing computer files in this manner. It literally takes forever to sort through folders, especially when you are not exactly sure which folder you placed the file in. It really did not save time. Trapani suggested doing away with folders entirely, and she suggested taking advantage of a computer filing system’s strength: it is completely searchable. So here’s how I am making my electronic files accessible.

1. I started by making sure all of the electronic files were located in a single folder entitled “archive” or something similar. (As the folks at Lifehacker suggest, I got rid of all the subfolders.)
2. After all the electronic files were placed in one folder, I made sure each file was tagged with one of several key words. For example, teacher evaluations were tagged with the word “evaluation,” “personnel,” or one of ten to twelve keywords I used. If I needed to, I might even add a person’s name as a tag.
3. Now, to access the files, all a user needs to do is type in one of those keywords into a desktop search tool, such as Google Desktop, to pull up all files tagged with that keyword. It is then just a matter of sorting through those files rather than a file folder or multiple folders with 25 or 30 files.

My test run this afternoon worked beautifully. It did take a little time investment to ensure that all the files in storage had appropriate key words, but I have, in effect, created a way for my successor to access my electronic file cabinet. In the future, I plan to take an extra few seconds to make sure each file as it is created has appropriate tag words before I save them, especially for those files I know will have historical importance for my job.

By the way, check out Gina Trapani’s book Upgrade Your Life. It is chock full of ways to make our lives easier through simplification.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Upgrade-Your-Life/Gina-Trapani/e/9780470238363/?itm=1&USRI=lifehacker

Also, check out the Lifehacker web site for lots of other great tips. It is one of my personal favorite sites.

http://lifehacker.com/

The other night I downloaded a trial version of Inspiration 9. I have used the software all the way back to version 6, and I even had a copy of version 8 on my laptop. Inspiration’s ability to allow me to take web formatted notes while reading during my masters program and then my EdS program was invaluable. These webs could then be easily converted to outlines and printed for my notebooks. I even shared these outline notes with my EdS classmates on several occasions.

Truth is, Inspiration has also been useful to me in other ways as well. I have used it for scripting notes during teacher observations as well. The main advantage of using a web format was that it helped me organize my thoughts as I scripted during a teacher observation. I also used Inspiration as a presentation software in those instances where I wanted to be able to navigate my presentation in a visual way, utilizing the software as a kind of map between main points. I continue to use Inspiration in these ways, and I always look for ways to take advantage of its capabilities.

This actually brings me to a new added feature of Inspiration 9 which I think I will like. You can now convert those web notes into a presentation complete with backgrounds and effects. I have not entirely explored this feature yet, but it looks promising, especially for those of us who like to start out with a visual map of the information we want to present.

Be sure to download a trial version of Inspiration 9 below. Also, if you have found other ways to use the software in the course of carrying out your administrative duties, let me know.

http://www.inspiration.com/Freetrial

Yesterday, I completed reading Adam Penenberg’s new book entitled Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves. This was one of the most fascinating books I have read in recent times. Penenberg provides an interesting look at how entrepreneurs are capitalizing on a characteristic of the Internet to create successful online businesses. Not really a “how-to-do-it” format, Viral Loop provides example after example of both successful and non-successful businesses who have taken advantage or tried to take advantage of something called “a viral expansion loop” to create successful businesses. In common language, they created businesses that take advantage of the fact that Internet users tend to share links and information about sites and Internet services they like. This sharing in turn, creates more and more users of the site over time. (I think that accurately captures Penenberg’s terminology.) If you have ever wondered why sites such as Ning, Facebook, MySpace, or Hot or Not have experienced success, this book provides some insight into that success. The creators of such sites were able to tap into the viral nature of the Internet and make their number of site users grow phenomenally. I suppose the next question someone may ask is, “Why would a school administrator and educator even care about the use of viral loops and the creation of online businesses?” Personally, I think there are some interesting things from this book that help educators further their own understanding of the Internet in general that also might enlighten educational policy. First of all, understanding viral loops as described in this book helped me, as an administrator, understand even more fully why educational leaders’ efforts to fight to keep sites like MySpace and Facebook out of schools is largely a futile act. The number of users of these sites continues to grow exponentially. These sites now play a central role in our culture, and to ignore them as if they do no exist is just plain ridiculous. This means that schools not only are fighting against a cultural force akin to rock music in the fifties and sixties, they are also ignoring an enormous part of the current youth culture. The “viral nature” of these sites is much too strong, and at some point schools are going to look ridiculous as they continue the fight to keep access to these out of schools. Secondly, what about the educational establishment using the “viral nature” of the Internet to meet its own goals and aspirations? I am not sure what this means at this point, but just maybe, educators need to be looking at how entrepreneurs are doing it, and then use viral loops to promote learning and maybe even teaching. I am not sure where to go with this yet, but I do know educators can also take advantage of the nature of the Internet to make learning happen too. At this point, I am still digesting some of Penenberg’s thoughts, but there has to be some kind of implications for us as educators and school administrators.

In the day-to-day business of running a school, it is often easy to get caught up in the concerns of what resources we lack in trying to educate our students. In tight budget years like the ones we are experience now, it is much too easy to become a pessimist and look at the proverbial glass as being half empty. Yet, after reading Greg Mortenson’s latest tome Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the resource shortfalls I face in my school are so minor to seem insignificant. All of the complaints regarding limits on the number of copies, the inability to purchase those workbooks, and the lack of funding for the science project, just don’t seem as important any more. Mortenson’s second book, like his first Three Cups of Tea, is a not so subtle reminder that many times the magic of making education happen is not with the things money can buy, but with what happens between those teachers and students and the communities that support them. I was again moved by the author’s tale of trying to bring education to girls in a part of the world where some deliberately fight against those efforts, like the Taliban who literally threw battery acid in the faces of girls and their teacher in an effort to frighten them from getting an education. With that kind of resistance, how could I possibly complain about not having enough money to provide my teachers with interactive boards and laptop computer labs? Yet, Mortenson’s book touched me on a level beyond its focus on resources. It reminded me forcefully of why I became an educator and persist as one to this day. It is the promise of education that gives all of us hope and future. There are places in Afghanistan and Pakistan where young girls  have hope and a future due to what Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute have done. However, I do not have to journey to the other side of the earth to give that same kind of hope to young girls, and young boys. I have the ability to do that everyday in my role as principal, as I carry out the vision of making sure all of the students in our school get the best education possible. Thank you Greg Mortenson for reminding of my own calling.

When I made the move from classroom teacher to school administration, I really was not prepared in some ways for all of the phone calls, voice mails, and emails that suddenly started coming across my desk. When I became principal of a middle school, the volume of that communication increased even more, especially the email load. One of my earliest struggles was how to manage the email overload, and maintain my sanity. It seemed that everyone wanted a response and they wanted it now.

Today, I finished reading John Freeman’s new book The Tyranny of E-mail. In this book, Freeman takes his readers back to look at how communication has evolved generally, and how email has evolved specifically to become the communication device of choice for many people. All of the disadvantages of email he describes I have come to know as an administrator. First of all, sometimes educators forget the asynchronous nature of email. For example, a teacher will send me an email in the morning, and if I have not responded by lunch time, they will send another one thinking that I did not receive the first one. The truth is, this teacher is mistaken in his/her belief about the fundamental nature of email. It is not for conversation, and it was not designed for that. People who expect synchronous responses to email should use the phone instead. A second problem regarding email I have encountered as an administrator is another problem Freeman describes is called “flaming.” For example, on several occasions I have received a volatile email from a parent or teacher that says things that few would rarely say in person, much less in writing. My own personal tendency in these instances is to pound out a response to this email and send. The problem is, most of the time it is best if I wait before sending a response. I need to think more carefully about what needs to be said. It is impossible to recall an email once the “send” button has been pushed. A third problem with email described by Freeman is that email does not allow for face-to-face interaction. This is true. When meeting with someone physically, we can read facial expressions, we can see hand gestures, and we can hear vocal inflections. All of these add meaning to what is being said. Email messages do not allow for this kind of communication. In the end, a recipient of an email can only rely on the words, which often can be unclear by themselves.

Thinking about Freeman’s book, my own experiences, and some other things I have read, I have developed some of my own “Email Rules.” The goal for these rules is to simply manage the email without the email managing me.

1. Check email at predetermined times of the day. It is important to schedule daily email sessions each day. Freeman says that two of these are enough. Personally, I use three to four sessions each day. During these sessions, I read emails and respond to those that only require a quick response.
2. Use the subject line to indicate the nature of each email. For example, an informational email will have “FYI” or FYR (For Your Review) in the subject line. This immediately tells the recipient that the message does not require action on his or her part. If the message requires a response,. I place “REQ” (Request) in the subject line. The point here is to come up with a common symbol system that clearly points to the purpose of email. This makes email management on both ends easier.
3. Another idea Freeman describes I implemented over a year ago. When I receive an email that asks me to do something, if I can respond quickly, I do so. Most often these emails that make a request involve completing it at a later time. In these instances, I put the email in a To Do List folder, and I add the item to my Task List. By doing this, I tie my email to my to do list.
4. Finally, I have decided that sometimes responding by email just isn’t the right thing to do. For example, when a teacher sends me an email requesting some instructional materials, and there just is not any budget for them, I will either call the teacher on the phone, or I will speak to them in person. Just sending an email response is often cold and impersonal, and to be honest, even when I have to say no to teachers, I still want to be supporting, and the best way to do that is often face-to-face.

While my list above is certainly not complete, I think I have to agree with the whole point of Freeman’s book The Tyranny of E-mail. As we move into the 21st Century, we must continually be on guard so that the technologies and tools we use do not take away our humanity and rule our lives.