ITED 532: Leadership in Instructional Technology

Summer 2010

Martha Rice

July 20, 2010

Assignment 1:

Assessing/Improving Leadership Skills

Organization

I teach middle school technology applications at Pewitt Junior High School (PJHS),

Omaha-Naples, Texas. PJHS is the middle school in the Pewitt CISD system. Pewitt CISD was

founded in 1950 and, along with Daingerfield ISD, is one of the only two school districts in

Morris County. Pewitt is a 2-A school with a varying population somewhere just under 1,000

students; the number varies a bit throughout the year. About 250 of those students attend classes

at PJHS in grades 6, 7, and 8 (Texas Education Agency, 2009).

Like most Texas communities, the Naples and Omaha community is obsessed with high

school football, and just about everyone in the two towns loves our Pewitt Brahmas!

I graduated Pewitt High School in 1989 after having attending Pewitt CISD throughout

my school years. I came back to PJHS to teach 6th and 7th grade math in the 1997-1998 school

year. I transferred to Pewitt High School (PHS) in 1998 to teach English. I ended up staying at

PHS from 1998-2007 where I taught English, journalism, and technology applications classes.

For the past two years I’ve been back at PJHS teaching 7th graders and some 8th graders

technology applications. I’m also sponsoring PJHS student council.

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Summer 2010

My instructional technology leadership role

I’ve played many roles during my years teaching at Pewitt CISD. Early on, my peers and

superiors recognized my skills in technology, and I began to help others when they needed to

know how to accomplish any given thing with computers. I also served on campus and district

site-based committees off and on since 1998, and have always served on the district technology

committee.

As a member of the district technology committee, I have worked with Pewitt CISD

technology directors and curriculum directors over the years to improve the technology and the

technology skills of administrators, teachers, and students at Pewitt CISD. I have helped revise

the district’s technology plan. I worked to modernize both the high school and junior high

school computer labs. I helped organize the first technology applications classes at PHS,

teaching digital graphics and desktop publishing.

As PHS English department chair, I not only encouraged my fellow teachers but also my

students to increase their technological skills. I taught using technology, regularly took my

students to the high school computer lab, and tried to help my students become 21st century

learners by encouraging them to use technology in their research, writing, and projects. As

sponsor of the PHS student newspaper, I helped my students create a monthly newspaper

produced wholly on computer, from photography to publication.

For many years I was district webmaster for Pewitt CISD, and I currently serve as PJHS

webmaster. I have encouraged and helped teachers to produce their own webpages as part of the

district website. I have worked to learn everything I can in order to be as helpful as possible,

teaching myself simple html skills, web authoring programs, Web 2.0 site publishing programs

like wikis, and online learning management programs like Moodle, which the district has been
 ITED 532: Leadership in Instructional Technology
Summer 2010

considering for district-wide adoption for the coming year. I also currently serve as webmaster

of the Pewitt Alumni Association website, for which I have experimented with social networking

applications including Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter to disseminate alumni news.

For the past two years, I’ve been teaching my technology applications at PJHS. I have

tried to help my students become proficient in the basics of using computers to help themselves

succeed in their core class work, solve problems, find quality resources for their research

projects, and stay safe on the Internet. I have tried to support my fellow teachers as they struggle

to integrate computers and technology on limited budgets and with little technology resources in

their classrooms. As part of the 7th grade horizontal team, I helped the 7th grade English teacher

get her students involved in making learning videos to share online, the 7th grade science teacher

get her students making online slideshows and videos, and the 7th grade math teacher having his

students solve problems and create presentations using technology.

This year, the curriculum and technology director asked me to serve the district as part-

time instructional technologist, planning technology opportunities and workshops for teachers. I

worked to help my fellow teachers learn about working with our district’s Google mail, docs,

calendar, and sites; with our district’s online instructional enhancement programs like Study

Island and Type to Learn; and with Web 2.0 applications like Animoto, SchoolTube, and Google

Earth.

In the coming school year, I hope that I can continue to help teachers and students

become more comfortable with technology, and I also hope that I can help our new curriculum

and technology director and our technology department in any way I can to keep our school’s

technology programs get stronger and stronger.

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Summer 2010

Essential skills required for my leadership role

In my current leadership roles as technology applications teacher and technology

facilitator to my fellow teachers at Pewitt Junior High School, I need to be a leader. In chapter 5,

Northouse (2009), describes three major categories of leadership skills: administrative,

interpersonal, and conceptual. I think that I have some of the leadership skills I need to be an

effective leader, but I need to work on improving others.

As a teacher, both of students and of other adults, I have to be a sort of an administrator.

I have to be able to manage people, supporting those who want to learn and those who do not

want to learn; those who are confident and those who are unsure of themselves. In order to be a

good teacher, I need to be able to encourage reluctant learners. After our curriculum director

emailed teachers about the summer workshops I would be offering this summer, I had several

teachers ask how difficult the workshops would be. I reassured them that they would be able to

be successful in learning the technology I’d be showing them. I think that I helped those

teachers have fun learning technology with me!

As a teacher, I need to be able to provide all students what they need. In order to do this,

I need to be successful at managing the resources I have and planning how to get what my

learners and I need. I need to be able to give my students resources to help them succeed in

junior high school in my technology class and in their core classes. I need to be able to help my

students get prepared for success in high school and college. I also have to take into account the

individual needs of each of my students, whether they are special needs students, gifted students,

students who hate or love technology, or even teachers who hate, love, or just need to learn about

technology.
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Summer 2010

I need to be able to help students have the confidence to succeed in all aspects of their

scholastic and professional pursuits. I need to present them with opportunities to learn and

practice technologies that they will need, and in order for them to know what these technological

proficiencies are, I need to be constantly researching and learning for myself. I need to know

what technology standards are for my classes and for other teachers’ classes. I need to keep up-

to-date with standards for success in real-life using technology.

To be a successful technology teacher requires a great deal of interpersonal skills. I need

to understand how students feel about learning the technology that I am trying to teach them.

Some students feel more comfortable about using technology than others do. Some students like

to work in groups, but others hate group work. When teachers know their students, they can also

more easily judge when their students are legitimately having problems or when they are simply

avoiding class work.

Understanding what the audience needs, wants, and thinks is also valuable for a leader.

Teaching teachers is a challenge that is very different than teaching young teenagers. Although

both groups can easily go off-task to socialize or surf the Internet, adult learners, especially

teachers, require a level of deference that younger students do not require. Both adults and

students should be respected and motivated, but each group is motivated differently, because

each group thinks differently.

As teacher and leader of a class, I think perhaps the most important set of leadership

skills for me might be the conceptual skills. A good teacher must be able to solve any problems

that occur, and a junior high technology teacher faces not only technology problems, but also all

kinds of problems each student comes up with throughout the course of a day. When they finish
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Summer 2010

my class, I would like most of my students to be able to face and solve their own problems

independently.

A good teacher also needs to be able to identify and solve their own problems with their

individual students, their course curriculum, their fellow teachers, and their administrators.

Good communication and calm logic are good skills for a potential problem solver. Teachers

need to be able to work with their fellow teachers within their departments, within their grade

level, and within the entire school. It’s important to remember that although teachers are

instructional leaders, the students are the most important stakeholders in education. Effective

leaders can help inspire groups to develop strategies and goals to use to inspire a school’s

students. Effective teachers can inspire their students to create their own goals, and those goals

can lead to students’ success.

My leadership skills.

I believe that I am skillful in my work overall. I enjoy working on projects, especially

(and not surprisingly) those I initiate myself. I like to work on research projects and I enjoy

trying out new Internet projects and applications. I like to see my students getting into their own

projects, enjoying the detailed work that I myself enjoy doing.

I think that a few of the leadership skills I have directly contribute to my teaching skills.

I am good at planning and envisioning what I want to accomplish personally and professionally.

I can also plan and set goals for my students. I work hard to encourage my students to achieve as

much as they can.

I am good at turning others’ visions into words and plans and goals. I like being part of

the site-based committees and technology committees because I love discussing what I feel
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Summer 2010

should be done to make our schools better for our students. I like the traditions of our school,

which I’ve been a part of for most of my life, but I also enjoy thinking about changes that could

improve our school, especially where technology is concerned. I would love to see our school

become a 1:1 school!

When I came to PJHS to teach technology, my computer lab was full of old technology.

I would plan my lessons, but my students could not accomplish what they needed to because the

computers were so old and the versions of programs were all but obsolete. I had virtually no

budget to improve the lab (I only had $200). I began to push for an update for the computer lab;

not for me, but for the students who deserve to have better equipment (would the football players

have to use obsolete equipment?). After writing to administrators, lobbying in site-based

committee meetings, and explaining to parents why my students couldn’t be expected to learn

Microsoft Word because the computers were too slow, the district updated the lab last spring. I

was able to find grant moneys that allowed us to buy printers, and I am always on the lookout for

online free alternatives like OpenOffice, Audacity, Paint.Net, and SketchUp. At first I was

irritated about only having a little budget money; now I think that it’s a blessing in disguise.

Having to be imaginative and flexible has helped me be a better leader.

My plan to improve my leadership skills

I plan to more clearly and reiteratively vocalize my goals and encourage my students to

create their own goals this coming year in order to become more of a visionary leader. I want to

help my students become leaders. I find myself taking on more and more of the responsibilities

that should be taken on by others, especially when I get tired. Instead of trying to help students

think problems through for themselves, I give in and help them do whatever they need to do. I
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Summer 2010

intend on helping my students become responsible self-starters, working independently and self-

reliantly in class and also with their student council projects.

I will work on my interpersonal skills. I need to work on listening to my students and

helping them deal with their problems and concerns—reassuring them when I can, motivating

them, and referring them to other specialists in the school when I cannot help. I am usually very

task-oriented in my job, so I need to be less focused on working on my projects and more

focused on how the students are doing, achieving, and feeling about what they are working on in

my class and in other classes. I will also try to address problems as soon as they arise, instead of

hoping they will go away.

I will continue to learn. I would like to learn more about brain research and to learn more

about how junior high students think in order to find out how to better motivate them. I will

continue my Instructional Technology graduate classes in order to become a better overall

technology teacher. I will continue to read and research on the Internet to learn more about 21st

Century technologies and Web 2.0 developments that will help my students and my fellow

teachers.

I want to work on one specific online project this coming school year in order to become

a better technology teacher and instructional leader, especially for my fellow teachers. I would

like to learn more about effective ways to present technology lessons online so that teachers will

want to learn online.

Conclusion

I love being part of Pewitt CISD, especially Pewitt Junior High School. As a teacher and

alumna, I feel a sense of belonging that I could not find at many other places. I would like to be
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Summer 2010

a better leader in order to help my school, and I would like to be a better teacher / leader in order

to help the students of Pewitt Junior High School.

References

Northouse, Peter (2008). Fundamentals of leadership. Sage Publications.

Texas Education Agency (2009). Academic excellence indicator system. Retrieved from

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/aeis/index.html