Chapter+13

Cindy-It was interesting to see the author take a stand in this chapter on the concept of balancing the curriculum in the area of leadership. If I am not mistaken this is the only time where I believe the author promotes having the students also meeting us half way by turning off their devices. One important idea which I agee with is the need to shift instruction that is required and yet continue to have students engaged. This could be created by teachers meeting with curriculum directors, classroom teachers, and technology support teachers or directors. It would be great to see the districts providing time to have all these folks meshing and intergrating their ideas together to make a coherent, integrately balanced program to their students. It would be reassuring to teachers to know this is not another thing to add to their already overflowing plates; but instead, this could become the dressing on their plates to enhance,assimilate and correlate with great discernment for future goals of the needs for the students in the 21st century. [|Leadership Balance]In this article, it is recommended that administration should encourage experimentation to try these new ideas. It a shares the effects on elementary students, opens new worlds of information to their students and helps them to celebrate their achievements.

I like that the author added this chapter at the end because I feel this is a critical point in trying to shift to a 21st century mindset of teachin and assessing oue students. As we all know without the support of the school leadership nothing is going to change. We can try and try to teach in a 21st century model and assess our students' skills in a 21st century model but if school leadership is not backing us up then problems are going to arise and the result is going to be stagnation in our students' development. We do not want his to happen. We need to keep this in mind as we progress toward becoming future school leaders ourselves and never ever forget where we came from and support teachers in trying to move into the 21st century. This article discusses what school leaders of the 21st century need to be and the importance of effective school leaders in the 21st century. [|21st century school leaders]
 * Nick**


 * Doug**

I agree with Nick 100%. The fact that the authors put this chapter right at the very end did two things for me. 1: It sticks in my head that teachers can not do it alone. We need that extra support and guidance from our teacher leaders and/or administration. 2: Since it was the last chapter, and a rather short one, it left me wanting more information on the topic. As much as I disliked reading this book at times, there were a lot of instances were I was very engaged in the reading. I would be very interested to read some articles or another book by these authors on the topic of leadership and what needs to be done by the "higher-ups" in our educational society in order to allow our students to reach their fullest potential. I enjoyed Nick's article, here is another one on leadership in the 21st century.

I completely agree with the above posts. Leadership is an important part of change. In order to shift instruction in the schools, strong leadership is needed. There needs to be training and consultation among administrators and teachers to work with the technology tools available. This means there is a need for strong leadership to lead educators into using these technology tools to educate/prepare students for the future. I found an interesting article, Schools Look to Teacher-Training Institutions for Tech Leadership, where she says something a lot of us can agree with, “It feels risky, I know. But it's time for us as educators to simply jump in and give things a go to see what these tools can do. If we hang back out of fear, we -- and the teachers we prepare for the classroom -- will be distant figures in this century's rearview mirror.”
 * Felicia**

So, jumping on the bandwagon, I agree with all of the posts of my classmates. I feel it was necessary for Ted to remind us to make the kids turn off their devices occasionally and focus on other important learning strategies and processes that need to be learned without the aid of technology. We do need the support of our school's leadership in order to help validate what we are attempting to teach the students. Without such support, the students will not be willing to take the plunge with us. Like Doug said, I really did want more information during this chapter. Some sort of real life experience or learning process would have been a great addition. And as Felicia said, we all need to step up and become the leaders that push to have these technological devices available and ready to use in our classes because the students are going to be using them, regardless of whether or not we incorporate them into the classroom.
 * Adam

Through a previous class at Moravian, I learned about a new 21st century learning course that is being integrated at in a Lehigh Valley school district. Check out the curriculum: DESIGN 21. They have it set for 4th-6th grades currently, but I think that many of the key points we've read about are noted in the curriculum plan. **

Jen
It seems as if we are all on the same page with this chapter! It was very nice to read that the authors know and understand that we are not the only people who need to be fully committed and involved in this change. However, I thought it was interesting that this is the only chapter, like Cindy mentioned, where the authors talked about finding a balance between technology and "traditional" learning. It seems like all along they have been telling us to get tuned in to everything digital, that everything needs to change in order to prepare our students for their future, but in this chapter, and in chapter 12, is when they finally admitted that there needs to be a compromise with the old ways and the new ways, that one single way isn't the answer. I feel like this should've been their stance all along. But, at least they did realize it and made mention that it isn't just those "in the trenches" that need to make a change, the change needs to essentially come from those in charge if anything is to fully change. Here is an article from ASCD that supports the idea that education needs to move forward.

“It is easier to follow the leader than to lead the follower”—Anonymous This quote adequately portrays the message our authors are trying to convey in the chapter titled “A Need for Leadership.” The world is different now than from when we grew up, and a new leader is needed. As adults, the term leader is not unfamiliar; we’ve had leaders at many stages throughout our lives. In fact, we are even leaders, or are we? Do our students see us as leaders, or followers? Who will be our new leader? Who will be your new leader?
 * Diane**