Digital Leaders Lead the Way

The importance of educating leaders on impactful tech integration

Introduction

Educational leaders have always worn a wardrobe of many hats. They are the gatekeeper of an institution that controls and handles discipline, students, parents, faculty, curriculum, laws, budget, and at the very end of that list, technology. As necessary as the role is, many school districts do not have administrators specific to technology and its integration into teaching and learning. The role of motivating teachers to use technology, and then following up is often one of the smallest hats the principal wears. Not approaching technology with an urgency is a devastating mishap taking place in many classrooms today and in a post pandemic world, it’s a mishap we cannot afford.

The idea that there has been an injustice served to professional development opportunities for technology to teachers originated from the top. Because there are so many other critical issues surrounding education, training administrators in best practices for technology integration has been vastly overlooked. It is because of these demands that oftentimes principals are asked to take on a hefty role of technology leadership that doesn’t have a clear definition of what it should look like or what should be expected of it (Lander, 2020). The traditional roles of district leaders will always be valuable and needed within a school system. However, it is important that those roles evolve with the world around them. Leaders must begin embracing the digital world and setting the examples of what they wish to see happening in their classrooms with their teachers and students.

Defining Digital Leadership

There are many definitions of what digital leadership actually is. However, the one I found to be most applicable to establishing a foundation of digital leadership came from Eric Sheninger, the creator of the Seven Pillars of Digital Leadership. Sheninger (2022) stated digital leadership “as establishing direction, influencing others, and initiating sustainable change through the access of information, and establishing relationships in order to anticipate changes pivotal to school success in the future.” By examining this definition, it becomes a little more clear what should be expected of digital leaders. It is the job of leadership to clearly communicate the direction in which teachers should be heading with the technology they have access to in their classrooms. Leaders should be practitioners of their own word and utilize technology in their own day to day responsibilities in order to establish relevance among faculty and staff. In communicating clearly and setting an example, it is more attainable to influence others to walk the same path and create a clear picture that the proper implementation of technology integration is a group effort that shouldn’t be handled alone. Once teachers feel supported by the administration, so many positive things can happen.

Rebuilding the Infrastructure

Within the idea of digital leadership, it is important that leaders understand that best practice doesn't necessarily mean access to the best tools. Rather, good leaders aid in offering “a strategic mindset that leverages available resources to improve (teaching), while anticipating the changes needed to cultivate a school culture focused on engagement and achievement” (Sheninger, 2022). Powerful leaders help to develop plans that are impactful and purposeful. If we are going to expect our teachers to integrate technology, there has to be a strategy behind it.

In my experience, I know that I was expected to utilize technology in my classroom and that was the only guideline I was given-to use it. The use of technology was an important criteria on my yearly evaluation, however I received no guideline on what that should look like. Because we had class access to a cart of Chromebooks, I simply had my students listen to a book as one of our reading stations or take a computerized test over something we read in order to implement technology. Surprisingly, this type of integration earned me the checkmark I needed to pass that part of my evaluation.

Looking back, I am appalled that that was the standard for technology use. However, I think it all goes back to lack of knowledge, by both leaders and educators, about the topic. We have been handed so much technology, at such a quick pace, that we simply don’t know how to handle it. The best way to handle this is by prioritizing the important role technology plays in the classroom that contributes to developing problem solving, critical thinking, engagement, sociocultural learning, and fostering learner creativity (Laufer, et al., 2021). When leaders begin to push back the fear and embrace the powerful learning opportunities that the digital world can bring to the classroom, transformation can begin to happen.

By understanding and reviewing Sheninger’s Pillars of Digital Leadership, leaders can begin taking simple and transformative steps to begin molding and modeling digital citizenship as an everyday pedagogy. These seven steps consist of communication, public relations, branding, student engagement/learning, professional growth and development, re-envisioning learning spaces and environments, and opportunity. When each pillar is equally tended to by leaders, clear guidelines can begin to be laid out for educators, who can then set the same expectations for their students. The pillars help to prioritize what is foundational about technology integration by speaking a language that educators understand.

Perception Leads to Transformation

By creating and fostering positive outlooks on technology and supporting educators in their fears, the negative perceptions of technology can begin to shift. Most cultures and climates of any environment are a direct reflection of leadership. When adequate time is taken to train our leaders on how to model technology integration in a way that supports teachers, clear and concise plans can be made that lead to strategic and purposeful use of tech integration. With the pace that our digital world is moving at, we simply can’t just have students read a book on a computer and call it integration. The transformation begins by embracing what is to come and whole-heartedly believing that it can be used to better the learning outcomes of our students.

Additional Resource:

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/9-tips-education-leader-digital-age/

References:

Lander, J. (2020). The relationship between principals’ pillars of digital leadership aligned values and actions and teacher technology use. https://scholar.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1091&context=theses_dissertations

Laufer, M., Leiser, A., Deacon, B., Perrin de Brichambaut, P., Fecher, B., Kobsda, C., & Hesse, F. (2021). Digital higher education: a divider or bridge builder? Leadership perspectives on edtech in a COVID-19 reality. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 18(1), 1-17.

Sheninger, E. (2022, August 31). 7 pillars of digital leadership in education [Review of 7 pillars of digital leadership in education]. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. https://www.hmhco.com/blog/pillars-of-digital-leadership-in-education#:~:text=Digital%20leadership%20is%20not%20about%20flashy%20tools%2C%20but,out%20of%20the%20leader%E2%80%99s%20symbiotic%20relationship%20with%20technology.