I am convinced that this global issue is of utmost importance and requires immediate action.  My response starts with creating a vision for a science leadership academy on the theme of global sustainability. We need all hands on deck and I cannot think of a better way to reach people than by inspiring and empowering the next generation of leaders.

In my ideal school, students select a real world challenge to solve.  Each teacher is trained in both Covey’s Principle-Centered Leadership and Appreciative Inquiry methods.  Teachers facilitate student growth (completely personalized education) by encouraging students to seek positive personal change, assess their strengths, create visions for their future, “sharpen their saws,” access community resources and establish working relationships with professional mentors in their local community.

Will you partner with me to turn this vision into a reality?

Related links:

Career Academy Support Network

Appreciative Inquiry

Covey’s Principle-Based Leadership for Schools

“What has become clear to you since last we met?” – attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

We had our second meeting on Wednesday, March 28 at 7:30 before school began. With the pressure of school beginning at 7:50, it rapidly became clear that we have much to do just in terms of building effective group dynamics. We spent the majority of the time reiterating what had transpired at the last meeting to a critical team member. That was important work, but could have been done prior to the meeting. First lesson learned. We need to establish group norms that will bring everyone to the meeting operating from the same page.

The meeting was attended by five members, but as the majority of the time was spent in a dialogue between two people, I could see some frustration building. There was very little time leftover to check in with the other team members. Second lesson learned. We need to establish a group norm that will allow each of us to speak briefly on our latest activities, prior to any review of the meeting agenda.

As before-school activities limited our time to meet, we felt the time pressure. It will be important to have a timekeeper to keep track of time. Third lesson learned.

Given these three lessons, I’ll be asking my group to agree to the following group norms.

1. We will start on time and finish on time.
2. We will attend all meetings. If we cannot make a meeting, we will read the minutes and ask for clarification prior to the next meeting.
3. We will have a check-in at every meeting to allow each member to report on any new thoughts, connections made or other relevant activities.
4. We will assign a timekeeper to help keep us focused and moving on our agenda items.

Beyond these practical items, my thoughts have been influence by my reading of snippets from Kouzes & Posner’s classic book on leadership, The Leadership Challenge. I’m on chapter 3, Clarify Values, which is the first step in a multi-step process of leadership. They name two essentials to the process of clarification, which I paraphrase:

• Find your own personal voice
• Affirm shared values with your group

Kouzes & Posner point out that groups whose members are committed to the group’s vision and mission are much more successful in achieving their goals than groups that are not.

So my question has become, “What process will allow our group’s individual members to reflect on and share their values in a way that builds group integrity and commitment to our common goals, mission and vision?”

My first thought is that I need to obtain everyone’s buy-in that such a process is vitally important. It has been my observation that anything that smacks of vision and mission statements in the public school setting is met with resistance from years of overuse. Nevertheless, I believe I can frame the process in a way that reveals the value of such work and motivates the team to participate.

I’ll post more along these lines as this process unfolds.

I’m publishing this article from Diigo, a social bookmarking tool that has a simple and powerful tag filter.

Why I am switching to Diigo from Google notebooks

The context:  Over the years bookmarking tools have evolved with ever increasing ease-of-use and power.  Yet many times the migration pathway to new technology presents a formidable barrier to adoption, despite the desire for greater functionality.

In my case, I have accumulated an archive of hundreds of bookmarks.  Most of these have been organized in the traditional way (folders, sub-folders) and reside primarily in my browser.  Occasionally, I need to dip in and find a bookmark, but flipping through folders and sub-folders or trying to remember and appropriate search term is terribly inefficient.

First, Google Notebooks came to my rescue:  Google Notebooks provided a more efficient means of organizing and tracking bookmarks thematically, despite its inability to upload and convert my existing bookmarks, the functionality was compelling.  I made the switch.  Their excellent search engine provides rapid results plus as an added bonus it is incredibly easy to highlight relevant text from within websites. 

Enter Diigo:  So why switch?  Features, features and more features.  Diigo is as easy to use as Google Notebooks with many more features.   These are the features that attract me most.

1.  Bookmarking and highlighting multiple blocks of text.
2.  Easy-to-use sticky notes and tagging form for rapid bookmarking.
3.  A powerful tag filter for rapid searching at all grain sizes.
4.  A method within Diigo to publish to my blog in Edublogs.  (I’m doing that now!)

As a classroom teacher , I am intrigued by:

1.  The possibility of creating a shared resource with other like-minded teachers.
2.  Marking up webpages and sharing sticky notes with my students.
3.  The possibility that student’s themselves can mark-up nd share their thoughts with others students.

About publishing to a blog

Right now, I am writing within Diigo.  I have set  up Diigo to publish to my Edublogs account.  So as I surf the web and come across an interesting website, I can highlight the most relevant text then right-click to bookmark, tag and write a sticky note to comment.  In the same drop-down menu, I can "blog this," which I am doing now.

Here’s the link to a description of a joint venture to produce collaborative video for wikimedia.  This will go into my Diigo bookmarks with the tags, Web 2.0, authoring, video production.

Cheers and happy surfing.
 

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