Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times

Members of the Waukesha North High School learning team recently completed a book study, Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times by Eric Sheninger.

Sheninger is the Principal at New Milford High School in Bergen County, New Jersey.

This book serves as a resource on how school leaders can successfully navigate and harness digital technologies to help successfully build school cultures and to integrate technology into classrooms.

In the book Sheninger lays out what he calls the "Pillars of Digital Leadership."  

Pillars of Digital Leadership

 The use of technology has increased dramatically since the start decade,  In 2000, students spent an average of 2.7 hours per week online.  By 2010, that number increased to 2.6 per day!  Newspapers are no longer the primary source of information in the digital age.

During the19 century as our country became industrialized, schools became the central place to provide students with the skills to be successful.  As 20th century arrived, the factory model arrived at Henry Ford's assembly line.  This "assembly line" concept eventually trickled down to schools.  Unfortunately, the "assembly line" philosophy has not changed in schools.  Learners have transitioned to the Information Age while schools continue to operate under the constructs and assumptions of the Industrial Age.

More recently, in the 1990's Americans outsourced its factories; yet today "schools continue to warehouse young people despite the fact that America no longer needs a workforce trained in the last century."  The factory model  served the United States well for more than 100 years, but since the world has since changed.  Sheninger makes the argument we can no longer afford to sustain a school culture designed for a different era.

Call to action
"It is time to transform school into vibrant learning communities that are connected and allow access to numerous social media tools that can unleash the creativity of our learners."

Here are some other key takeaways:

• Digital leaders are creative and are able to discover solutions to issues and develop strong connections with a variety of stakeholder groups

• As technology role in society continues to become more prevalent, it makes sense to integrate technology effectively into school so students are not short changed upon graduation.                                                   

• Transforming a school culture based on significant shifts in pedagogy require opportunities to learn how to effectively integrate technology

• Technology Mandates:  There are no technology mandates in use of technology at New Milford High School.  Instead, the focus has been on empowering teachers to shift their instructional practices by giving them the autonomy to take risks

• Learning Spaces:  Design is an element of the right brain that we must tap into.  We need to talk with students and teachers about the importance of learning spaces.
  

• Important shift:  We must  personalize learning experiences to all students

                                         

Below is a 17 min interview with the author.