Branding: Digital Age Leadership

In reading Eric Scheninger's Digital Leadership, the chapter about Branding has stuck out at me as I go through this process of becoming a digital age leader.  The concept of branding is to communicate your product or service through a distinctive sum experience, with the ultimate goal having a positive presences in the digital world.  Scheninger presents two types of branding, professional and school.  Your professional brand is a personal  brand, one that communicate who you are and what your believe.  The school  brand is what your school communicates about itself to the outside world.  Scheninger recommends that we look at professional and school branding from a business perspective,to create a focused, positive product or service that captures your audience.    The schools brand should resonate throughout the school and community, as a whole.

Instructional Rounds

July 14, 2014

Well today was my first day back at my new job.  It was a great day!  I had  the pleasure of spending time in an Instructional Rounds training with all the principals in my district, Dr. McDonald, and Mrs. Smith-Faulkner.  I love professional development opportunities.  I feel so energized and ready to get back to the campus to make a difference.

Instructional Rounds concept is all about using the real live instruction to target a practice to improve.  It was a practice adapted from the field of medicine, with the idea of coming together to solve common problems and improve practice.  I love the idea of targeted improvement, with the most simplistic concept of if you want to improve learning you must improve teaching.  Through the Instructional Rounds practice, teachers identify the issue, observer teacher and student actions, behaviors, and instructional practice, analyze that observation, and come up with a small target goals with actions to get there.    

Using observation through instruction rounds

• Will increase the pedagogical skill of educators within a district or school through the reflective discussion that follows an observation.
• Will enable observers to compare and contrast their practice with observed practice.
• Will empower the observed teachers to use the information gleaned from their observations to reflect on their own practice.

- See more at: http://www.iobservation.com/iObservation/instructional_rounds/#sthash.kE4IBJO8.dpufInstud

Will increase the pedagogical skill of educators within a district or school through the reflective discussion that follows an observation. - See more at: http://www.iobservation.com/iObservation/instructional_rounds/#sthash.kE4IBJO8.dpuf

My passion is to make teachers the best they can be.  Instructional Rounds is a tool to do this. I am ready for Day 2 and Day 3 in hopes of mastering Instructional Rounds for teaching improvement.

Interesting article I read when looking at online resources 

 Why Aren't School Leaders More Like Doctors?
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3754210 

Email Campaigns

Funny thing happen today as I was trying to compose a "fancy"email to my new staff members, I stumbled onto email campaigns.  Typically they are not used in education rather, they are used in marketing and business.  It was so easy to use so I thought I would give it a try.  All I had to do is import the email contacts,  choose a template, compose your email, and send.  You can set it up so that the recipients either email you back or not.  I linked it to this blog site so that my new staff members could keep up with my blog easily. 
The email campaign site I used was https://www.cakemail.com/ 

It was easy to use and I highly recommend it when trying to send emails that you want to set apart from an everyday email.

Amie
 

Digital Leadership

     Digital tools are everywhere and deciding how we use them is one thing that I have difficulty with.  When thinking about my past experiences where, we were rich in technology tools, I find that I did not use them to their full extent.  At Castleberry ISD, it is not enough to just have the tools but it's how you use them.  When reflecting on this key aspect, I often time find myself in the developing stages of this.  I am on a significant learning curve.  I know about digital tools and with plenty of time, I am able to apply them, however, I am still working to integrate them into my everyday practice as a school leader.  By integration, I mean, working with digital tools, planning with digital tools in mind, and developing teacher leaders through digital tools.
     With that being said, I have decided to set goals for myself, digital leadership goals, with the hopes that I can transform the way I use the digital tools that are at my finger tips to better myself, my school, my teachers, and ultimately my students.

Goal #1: Ensure the effective practice in the study of technology and its infuseion across the
               curriculum

Goal #2: Allocate time, resources, and access to ensure on going professional growth in technology
               fluency and integration

Goal #3: Model and promote the frequent and effective use of technology for learning 

Lead by Example- New job, New start

Next year will be a challenging year, a new job, new teachers, and a new school.  Challenges are bound to come up and surely I can "lead by example".  What is leading by example? Well it certainly is not "do what I say not as I do".   Walk your Talk and you become the person others want to follow. Roll up your sleeves. Like Alexander the Great leading his men into battle, you'll inspire greatness in your school by never asking your teachers to do what you, yourself wouldn't do.  

Creating, keeping, and following  Personal Learning Network is a start.  Look at how to created a PLN to begin your own and keep up with the rest of the 21st century. 


Creating a PLN

Create your own PLN and start leading by example
Amie