My 21st Century Transformation

by Jacek Polubiec

Most people agree that schools need transformational leaders in order to become learning communities that prepare our students, teachers, parents and administrators for the challenges of the future. For that reason, I have always aspired to be a transformational leader and a progressive thinker. I also thought of myself as being an innovator up until......1:01 pm, Monday, July 27, 2009, which is when my first workshop at 2009 Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston began.

One of the first questions Alan November asked us was: "Do your teachers have the right information?" which I immediately translated into self-reflective: "Do I have the right information to be a progressive leader I want to be?". As I kept asking myself this question during the five days I spent in Boston, my answers gradually went from "maybe" to "definitely not" to "WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL THESE YEARS!?". In other words, for me, BLC09 was an eye-opening and humbling experience as it caused me to rethink many of my earlier ideas and even shift the focus of my studies in the area of urban school leadership.

Now, that I had some time to sift through the enormous amount of information I collected and digest some ideas I have been exposed to, I come to the conclusion that now I do, because of BLC09 and a great team I attended it with, have sufficient information and resources to be a major force in bringing educational innovation into all aspects of my professional life. As transformational leader, I will provide intellectual stimulation to everyone around me by challenge assumptions of what Internet has to offer and why we should focus on giving students opportunities to contribute to the world of knowledge by the means of wikis, blogs and online discussions. I will inspire and motivate everyone around me by articulating a clear vision for 21st Century education in person, on Twitter and in my posts. I will also, as suggested at the "21st-Century-Ready Student begin with the Teacher" workshop, respect the time and the skill level of the people I am working with so I can mentor and coach them effectively. Individualized consideration is an important element of transformational leadership but equally important is practicing what we preach and leading by example. For that reason, I have developed a plan of action that I will share with my staff and students at the beginning of the year. As you will notice, this list includes not just what I will do at work but also how I will bring these tools into my personal life.

MY POST-BLC09 PLAN OF ACTION

1. Meet with as many administrators, teachers, students and parents as early as possible in order to share my first reactions to the "BLC09 experience".
2. Monitor Twitter activities related to BLC09, TEd21C and current events and my other interests,
3. Show everyone I interact with how to do the above.
4. Continue using diigo, google docs, tinyurl as often as possible.
5. Frequently visit and contribute to learning networks I have joined especially TEd21c.
6. Set up one wiki for my academy and another for myself.
7. Create my own learning network
8. Respond to blogs and discussion threads as often as I can.
9. Use google docs to create interactive chart to take notes on our experiences with using new (to us) Internet tools. My teachers will enter the information in the above chart and I will invite other supervisors to view it.
10. Start an after-school program for advanced students to create tutorials for other students using Jing and Camtasia.
11. Purchase a webcam and start using Skype to communicate with friends, colleagues and family.
12. Train computer lab teacher and classroom teachers on custom search engines, google search tips and tricks.
13. Display charts with google search shortcuts in all classrooms in my academy and in the lab.
14. Clearly label one computer in each classroom as research stations and request that each classroom has a full time researcher who will be changed each day
15. Rename the computer lab on my floor to Global Communication Center
16. Teach teachers how to use google docs to collaborate on lesson plans and agendas
17. Spearhead initiative of teachers using Twitter to send homework information and announcements to parents.
18. Publish some of my older papers on my own wiki and invite other educators to comment on them
19. Use my current written college assignments as blog entries, discussion threads and wiki pages and invite others to visit, critique and contribute.

As I am supervising the installation of two new computer labs (sorry Alan I know how you feel about the labs:) in our school, getting ready to collaborate with nice folks from MOET and Teaching Matters I am very optimistic that our school will zoom up the scale of Dimensions of the 21st Century success. Beginning mid September you will be able to use the following tags to follow us on Twitter WSA4 (William Shakespeare Academy at PS4) or DES4 (Duke Ellington School 4).
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Jacek Polubiec was born and raised in Powisle, a small picturesque neighborhood near downtown Warsaw, Poland. Working on archeological excavations in his youth invigorated his interest in higher education after years under very traditional, teacher-centered school system. Self-driven and taught, he applied and was accepted to the Institute of Archeology, one of the most elite departments of Warsaw University, where he completed three semesters of studies. Upon coming to the United States, Jacek started a family and pursued his passion for music. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from City College and M.A. in Jazz Performance from Queens College. He held many roles in the music world: jazz guitarist, band leader, composer and teacher. His satisfaction from seeing adults and children learn inspired him to work with the New York City Board of Education. There he has worked as a music teacher, a Project ARTS Coordinator, and after graduating from the Principals Institute at Bank Street College, an Assistant Principal—a position he has served in for the past 7 years. Jacek feels strongly about bringing progressive thinking and innovative approaches to teaching and educational leadership. He is a transformational leader passionate about emotional intelligence, teacher and student leadership, collaboration and technology. He is currently pursuing doctoral degree in Urban School Leadership at Fordham University. He is a proud father of two girls ages 15 and 20. When he is not working or studying, he enjoys surf fishing, camping, photography, cooking and salsa dancing.

Ideas for Leading Transformation in Schools from Alan November

While at the Building Learning Communities conference, Alan November sat with leaders from New York City schools to discuss ideas for leading transformation in their schools. Below are highlights from the conversation.

Kids Teaching Kids
->Switch the capacity of learning from the teacher to the student.
->Run a contest where kids create learning objects for other kids using screen casting.
-->Resources: PHPmotion, Techsmith, Camtasia, Techsmith
->Students can produce a video that welcomes other children to your school. This can go to all new students. Written, produced, directed by children in the school.
->Ask every teacher to submit the 10 most difficult concepts for students to learn in each content area.
->Challenge students to create ideas to teach the most difficult concepts.

Integrating Technology into the Curriculum
->Too many schools are doing cool things with technology but it is not aligned with the content area. Select 2-3 areas where technology will make a difference.
->Do not use technology just because you can do it. Use the tools (wikis, podcast, Twitter) but make sure they are strategic.
->Globalize the curriculum. We need to see the work of other kids around the world in every subject they teach. Find the award winning work from students around the world in each curriculum area.

Have a Family Plan
->Create a Grandmother network.
->Get a grandparent to connect to through skype. Have grandmother read books to class.
->Create subject-area guides
-->Have teachers in each content area/department make cds/dvds for families that show the families how they can support their student in that particular subject.

Extend The Learning Time
->Provide opportunities for students to access their learning environment afterschool day, before school, Saturday,
->Think outside the box
->Open up the library beyond the school day and have an internet café.
->Can a librarian come in at 10 or 11 and work til 6 or 7 everyday, or a couple days a week?
->Can any staff members work Saturdays rather than Monday?

Roles of the leader
->Build Capacity
->Create Study Groups
->Develop great communication skills and express yourself using various channels: Twitter, learning networks, blogs, Skype
->Ensure technology is in alignment with strategic goals you set for your school
->The role of the leader is to build capacity (w/ specific tools, study group,)
-->Family capacity building group
-->Global connection group

Jobs of Student
Below are creative ways that students can make valuable contributions to their learning community. Click here for more details.
->Tutorial Designers: Students can document their learning by recording themselves solving problems based on material discussed in class. You can read how a middle school teacher named Eric Marcos is doing this here.
->Official Scribes: Use a collaborative tool like EtherPad or Google Docs to share responsibility to take perfect notes that can be captured, published, and used by an entire class. See how a teacher named Darren Kurpatwa is doing that with his calculus students here.
->Researchers: Many classrooms have a few computers sitting in the back that gets very little use. What if that computer became the official research station where one student each day was responsible for finding answers to all the questions in class – including the teacher’s? Once sites are found that give details about the questions being asked, you might consider adding it to your own search engine built using Google’s Custom Search Engine creator.
->Collaboration Coordinators: Using Skype (http://www.skype.com/), a collaboration team could be responsible for establishing and maintaining working relationships via the Internet with classrooms around the world. Find out more about how middle school teacher Andrea Trudeau did that here.
->Contributing to Society: Teach students about social justice and empathy using sites like Kiva a site that opens the doors of learning and gives students the opportunity to make a small but meaningful difference in the lives of others.
->Curriculum Reviewers: As the resources above come together, the curriculum review team jumps into action to create material that can be used for continuous review. This team combines visual and audio components into podcasts that can be posted online for individuals to download into their mp3 players. See how Bob Sprankle’s class did this here.

Safety Thoughts
->Teachers should be wary of following students on public sites where the teacher subscribes to or receives instant updates of the students activities as we do not want teachers to become responsible for what students do 24/7.
->There are ways to friend a student without subscribing to their updates in some forums
->Family members should be following students, modeling responsible behavior, and should be aware and responsible for what students engage in online and offline.

An Innovation Roadmap: Criteria for Innovative Schools in the 21st Century

Today I will be joining a colleague from Teaching Matters at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities conference to speak with school leaders from around the world. We will be discussing the following questions.

• What is a 21^st Century School?
• Where does my school stand on the continuum of 21^st century success?
• Where do I want to be?
• How might I plan to get there?

At the conference we will be exploring this concept and looking at this question using a newly created tool called the Rubric for School Innovation. The Rubric provides a guide for thinking about different stages in the development of an innovative school. This tool offers a set of guiding questions and indicators of effectiveness and innovation, especially innovation made possible by technology.

You can find out where your school sits right now by visiting What Level is Your School? at The Innovative Principal area of the Teaching Matters website. Leaders can complete this with their staff, discuss the results, discuss where they want to be and then begin building an action plan for innovation to get there.

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Twitters can follow tweets during the conference using the tag 21CL