21st Century Skills for Administrators

Presented by Sally House, Broward County

Description: "How do administrators become technology leaders? Attendees in this session will learn about tools, resources, and professional development that can empower administrators to support 21st century teaching and learning".

My Notes:

• Technology is included in Florida's Accomplished Practice #12.
• To have successful technology integration at your school, you need 2 key elements: student skill outcomes and a support system. Administrators need to understand the support systems for student skills. Sally House stressed balanced assessments, model classroms, and project-based learning. In Broward, they also model inquiry based learning all professional development.
• Information technology skills are very important to today's students - most of the jobs they will have as adults haven't even been invented yet. Broward County changed their pupil progression plan to include information literacy skills. This is for middle and high schools only.


• Use National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for IC T Literacy. Click this link for more information on NETS. NETS*A, for administrators, are brand new and will be unveiled at the National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in June 2009.
  
• Use the Partnership for 21st Century Skills - this is a great website and resource. Use their definition of "21st Century Skills". It's important when talking to your faculty to develop a common language. Click here to go to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website. (FYI - Florida has NOT partnered as a state with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills).


• Do you know what a "Word Cloud" is? You type (or paste) in a "bunch" of text, and then Wordle will make a word cloud for you. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. The picture on this post is a "word cloud" that relates to Project STRIVE. Click here to visit Wordle to make your own word cloud.
• Broward County also has a project called "Project GLIDES". It's a technology initiative where their IT department changed the standard, pulled back the desktop computers, leased laptops and put them on mobile carts in the schools, at a 1:6 ratio. Teachers participated in professional development activities centered around project-based learning. Each GLIDES classroom is a digital classroom containing a SmartBoard, LCD projector, sound system, DVD tuner and document camera (no TV). Click here for more information about GLIDES.
• GREAT IDEA: The principal carries around a digital camera all day long. He takes pictures of kids at work around the school, then uses Comic Life to put together a graphic novel styled "newsletter", which he emails out every Monday morning. Students, parents and teachers love it!
• Another GREAT IDEA: Principal interns are using a blog to communicate about AYP and a wiki to share information about 21st Century Skills.