W here do you look for leadership? There are many
places to turn to, such as
your PLN, the Twitter-sphere, and even this magazine. But with so many tools
and resources available
online to help you develop
your leadership skills, it’s
easy to get overwhelmed.
I’ve come across some good
reminders lately about looking a little closer to home.
In a recent SmartBlog
on Education post, titled
“Common Core Leadership
Principles,” David Penberg
shared his top 10 leadership
tips ( bit.ly/16uQQf7). I love
all of them, but I’m paraphrasing a couple of them
here because they are tips
that every educator, regardless of any official leadership
role or level of tech savvy,
can do immediately with no
costs to incur or implementation plans to write:
Stay ambulatory and accessible. … The beauty in
schools is the serendipity. To
experience it—like browsing
in a bookstore—you have to
wander about, observe, and
interact to reap these elusive
things called learning and
teaching.
Schools are part of communities. Learn the geography of
yours—the bodegas, community centers, and coffee shops.
Leaders have to become
ecologists to understand the
biosphere of community
life. … It is the shift from
administrator to anthropologist. Leadership is the art of
establishing connections and
condemning walls.
Though technology has
certainly helped bring down
walls and expand our com-
munity globally, connect-
ing with the one you have
direct access to is also ben-
eficial. I had the privilege
of wandering around in my
“local community” at ISTE
2013 this past June. There’s
just something extra special
about making connections
face to face.
Adam Bellow, in his
ISTE 2013 closing keynote
address, said, “Innovation
happens when you intersect
fear and bravery” (blog.
iste.org/closing-keynote).
So while you are wandering about, observing, and
interacting in your local
community, head over to
the intersection of fear and
bravery to meet up with
innovation and see how
together you can expand
your leadership skills.
—Kate Conley is ISTE’s periodicals
director and the editor of L&L. She
holds a master’s degree in journalism and a bachelor’s in English.
Conley has worked at ISTE for
more than 14 years.
Looking for Leadership
connect
www.facebook.com/pages/
ISTE/8828374188
Look for links to L&L articles
and the latest Point/Counterpoint
questions.
Follow L&L’s editors
Senior Editor Diana Fingal
@dianafingal
Managing Editor
Paul Wurster @Paul_Wurster
Associate Editor
Andra Brichacek @andramere
letters@iste.org
Send letters to the editor
and we may publish them.
iste.org/LL
Find L&L online and other
great ISTE resources online.
tech we like
Check out the useful sites the L&L team
discovered while producing this issue.
Grant Lichtman’s TEDx Talk:
bit.ly/15LGQ0K
Tamara Kidd enjoys Lichtman’s talk about
putting students in charge of their learning
(page 12).
Mark Dunkel’s TechNet blog:
bit.ly/13XcOJT
Andra Brichacek likes Dunkel's ideas for
using the SharePoint in schools (page 20).
Skype an Author Network:
skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com
Diana Fingal loves this site that helps teachers
find authors to Skype with (page 26).
Popcorn Maker: webmaker.org
Paul Wurster likes the presentations teachers
can make with this mashup tool (page 42).
E-Rate:
blog.iste.org/author/hgoldmann
Kate Conley is excited about the new
direction for E-Rate (page 47).
❝
❞
Leadership is the single most important key to successful innovation.
See page 15
