Tag: Digital Learning

What makes a good leader versus an admired leader?

What makes a good leader versus an admired leader? Is Context important?

As our first unit wraps up for LRNT 525: Leading Change in Digital Learning and we are tasked with reflecting on our own experiences and opinions on leadership, I am left pondering the above questions. To introduce my context, I have been a teacher for 4 years, and although I have some formal experience with leadership in the workplace (Curriculum Department Head and occasional Teacher in Charge), the majority of my professional leadership experience has been informal. My current teaching position is at an online distributed learning (DL) school, and involves teaching multiple subject areas. Similar to many DL schools, the number of staff is relatively low, but subject materials, and our experience and comfort working online is varied.

Given my context, the questions above lead me to consider what it is that I admire in a leader. Initially, as we determined important traits of admired leaders, the word admired greatly influenced my opinion. The Oxford English Dictionary defined admired as someone who is “considered praiseworthy or excellent; highly regarded, esteemed” (Admired, n.d.). The vision of great leaders of social and political movements came to mind, such as Martin Luther King, and the traits of inspiring, forward-looking, supportive. However, as I shift my focus on leaders of digital learning environments, the traits that I envision them prioritizing are not the same, at least not all of them. For example, for me to admire a leader in digital learning environment, they still need to inspire, but not at the same level. Furthermore, not only do the traits slightly differ, but the theories that support the traits differ as well, as digital learning environments require different skill sets when compared to other learning environments. Sheninger (2014) discusses how trust becomes a priority as “leaders must give up control and trust to students and teachers to use real-world tools” (p. 2), a trait that I had not prioritized earlier. To establish the trust, I believe that a reflective leadership approach combined with a distribution of leadership tasks would allow for these changes to be implemented.

Trust is something that must be maintained over time. A reflective leadership approach “is the consistent practice of reflection, which involves conscious awareness of behaviours, situations and consequences with the goal of improving organizational performance (Castelli, 2016, p. 217). Using this leadership approach will allow for the needed space to ensure that trust is maintained. Furthermore, as discussed by Castelli (2016), reflective leadership improves performance, reengages staff interests and efforts, and further motivates them. In my context, this could be beneficial to the teachers and students with improvement to the learning environments, as well as beneficial to the Principal for overall school performance and funding. By utilizing reflective leadership, leaders are seen as supportive due to “raising the self-esteem and confidence levels of followers” (Castelli, 2016, p. 228) which translates to trust. The trait supportive was prioritized as one of my top traits of an admired leader, and is heavily intertwined with trust. Due to the ever changing nature of technology, it is crucial that educational leaders are even more supportive of followers as they experience change. Within my own school, not all staff are comfortable with technology and the learning curve associated with new technology can be difficult. Therefore, for our school to be successful when experience change, it is important that all staff feel supported, either by the Principal, or by other staff filling in informal leadership roles.

Due to the diversity of digital learning environments, and the staff that works in them, Principals may not always be the best choice to take on every task. Klar, Huggins, Hammonds, and Buskey (2015) discuss distributed leadership and how it can be used as “A purposeful approach to increasing school effectiveness through the involvement of other formal and informal school leaders in leadership activities” (as cited in Huggins, 2017, p. 3). Having a leader who understands this, and is able to distribute leadership tasks, supporting staff as they go, will allow for the entire team to function with more synergy. However, the risk of failure becomes more present when leadership positions are taken on by other people with less experience (Huggins, 2017). Whenever there is change, there is risk and fear of failure, and leaders must be supportive of potential pitfalls so that others may grow in their own leadership capacities. The Principal in these situations should be forward-looking, and consider that the minor pit falls now, will make their staff better leaders in the future. This mirrors Huggins (2017) discussion on how building leadership capacities in a process, and is one that takes time to develop.

As the digital learning environments continue to evolve, it is important that the leaders of these environments are able to guide us through the unknown. As every situation is different, ideas and solutions may differ depending on the situation. Therefore, it is important that leaders are aware of their strengths and weakness, and utilize their team’s strengths. To be able to do this, among many things leaders must be trustworthy, supportive, an forward thinking as discussed here. By utilizing reflective leadership, and trusting their team with distribution of the leadership, leaders will be able to successfully implement change within their digital learning environments.

Amanda

References

Admired. (n.d.). In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved from  http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/view/Entry/2572.

Castelli, P. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217-236.

Huggins, K. (2017). Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals’ Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 12(1).

Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education.

 

Dr. Tony Bates

“Tony-smiling-2013-UBC” By Tony Bates is licensed under CC  4.0

In one of our earlier activities, while discussing the history of educational technology in my blog post, From printing press to the internet, what is next? I cited Dr. Bates (2014) for his discussion of  A short history of educational technology. I truly enjoyed reading his work and his style of writing on his website, and immediately wanted to explore his website more. It did not take me long to realize that I had stumbled on a gold mine of information which lead me to choose Dr. Bates for this assignment as a leader in his field.

To briefly introduce Dr. Bates for those who are unfamiliar with him and his work, he is an educator, researcher, speaker, and author with over 50 years experience in the field of educational technology. He is currently the president and CEO of Tony Bates Associates Ltd, a consulting company; a research associate at Contact North; and visiting professor at Ryerson University (Bates, n.d.). His credentials continue on from there and are nothing short of impressive.

His articles and books touch on subjects such as distance education and using technology for teaching- something that is relevant to many of us in this program, and me personally as a DL teacher.  Upon researching more about Dr. Bates and browsing through his website and accomplishments, I was amazed by his ability to lead by example and “walk the talk” (Daniel, 2015, para. 10). This can be seen by looking through his 2015 Book, Teaching in a Digital Age, an open source book, written with links and sources including visuals and audio, which is an optional reading/resource from this course. The entirety of his book now sits high on my ‘to read’ list. I also have added his website to my RSS feed, as he is often posting and adding to it. As someone who is currently teaching online courses, to be introduced to resources that not only discusses the current theories, but gives the tools to implement these theories is priceless.

Useful links to learn more about Dr Tony Bates

His personal website

His RSS feed for his website posts

Link to his book Teaching in a Digital Age

Link to his twitter page.

References:

Bates, A.W. (n.d). Tony Bates Biography. Retrieved from https://www.tonybates.ca/tonys-publications/tony-bates-biography/

Bates, A.W. (2014). A Short History of Educational Technology. Retrieved from https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/12/10/a-short-history-of-educational-technology/

Bates, A.W. (2015). Teaching in the Digital Age. BC Campus.

Daniel, J. (2015). A review from an open and distance education perspective. In A. Bates (Eds.), Teaching in a Digital Age. (pp. 579-580). Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Impacts of Digital Learning on Poverty

 

Impacts of Digital Learning on Poverty

Group Activity 1 Unit 4 Royal Roads MALAT
Danielle Beare, Jessica Brown, Amanda Dunn, Chad Flinn, & Alastair Linds

“In the world today, information is a resource for development, and the absence of reliable information is an epitome of underdevelopment” (Huang & Russell, 2006, p.160).

As we began to discuss and further explore the topic of poverty in relation to digital learning, it was clear to us that we could easily go into a rabbit hole of information and research. We choose to narrow our scope to focus on rights around access to information and technology (or lack thereof), and how the cycle of poverty, and already present digital divide, are further impacting those in poverty.

Societal barriers that are already in place and how digital learning is further impacting them.

Social Mobility:

  • As the world becomes more reliant on a digital marketplace it is important that individuals are taught digital literacy.  It is becoming essential that people learn to evolve their digital skills at the same pace as the industry is growing. This means that not only do they have to have access to information and communication technology (ICT’s) to use, they have to understand how to use them to their full potential (Krish, 2018, p.3).
  • It is important for people to have a base level of competence in traditional literacies in order to fully benefit from access to ICTs.  Studies have shown that children from a higher economic background exhibited higher levels of information and multimedia literacy than those from a lower economic background (Warschauer, 2007, p. 43).
  • Access to ICT and online learning may in fact increase the digital divide.  Even with an equal amount of access the minority students will not engage as actively as those from a higher economic background.  Studies show that a shift from oral to written creates anxiety in those who do not possess basic skills in traditional literacies (Tawfik, 2016, p. 600).

Cycle of Poverty:

  • Poverty doesn’t just affect financial decisions but the stress of poverty takes a toll on cognitive decisions. Even if someone in poverty has access to the internet, because of this the idea of further education may not be substantiated.
    • Being poor means coping not just with a shortfall of money, but also with a concurrent shortfall of cognitive resources. The poor, in this view, are less capable not because of inherent traits, but because the very context of poverty imposes load and impedes cognitive capacity. The findings, in other words, are not about poor people, but about any people who find themselves poor (Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, Zhao, 2013, p. 980).
  • Poverty influences the perception of education. Without significant possibility of reward education is often determined to be of less value than labour.

    • Particularly in rural areas, many children may be involved in agricultural work or domestic duties (for example, fetching wood or water), so sending them to school involves an opportunity cost to the household (Van der Berg, 2008, p. 14).
  • Engagement online is directly affected by the level of poverty. Access to the internet, how people access the internet, and what they do with the internet are all diminished.

    • Social inequalities such as poverty, illiteracy, and unequal educational opportunities, prevent all Americans from enjoying full participation online and in society more generally (Yoshikawa, Aber, Beardslee, 2012, p. 157).

How has digital learning changed the access to information and what impacts has that made?

  • Access to information, including the creation, application and communication have been the key to the evolution of successful societies, including having access to education, employment, social interaction and civic participation (Farmer & Studies, 2015).
  • With receiving and sharing information being a human right (United Nations, 1948, Article 19), and digital learning and technology fast becoming the forefront of sharing information (Warschauer, 2007, p. 41), the digital divide currently seen between the different socioeconomic status’ ( Marien & Prodnik, 2014, p. 36) could be looked at as infringing on one’s rights.
    • Digital Divide – the economic, educational, and social inequalities between those who have computers and online access and those who do not (Merriam-Webster, 2018).

What is being done to bridge the divide?

Access to Education for All:
As movements towards open education flourished, there rose a belief  that open, digitally distributed educational resources could bridge some of the educational gaps prominent within vulnerable populations, and thus, we are morally obligated to share educational content:

 “If educational materials can bring people out of poverty, and information can now be copied and shared with greater ease, there is a moral obligation to do so. Information should be shared, because it is the right thing to do” (Caswell, Henson, Jensen, & Wiley, 2008, p. 8).

  • As mentioned above, subsequent research related to digital literacy suggests that making content open does not mean that it is accessible to vulnerable populations: “something being freely available (e.g., open access, open educational resources, etc.) is insufficient to enable many people to successfully engage with a more open educational provision” (Lane, 2009, p. 9).
    • With open education, came massive open online courses (MOOCs) that have the ability to reach new learners; however, it has been seen “that MOOCs are not increasing access to postsecondary institutions and knowledge for underserved populations” ( Tawfik, 2016, p. 600) and are being primarily used by currently employed and educated people (Tawfik, 2016, p. 600).
  • A Way Forward: Although making traditional educational content open may not assist to limit divides and “bring people out of poverty”(Caswell, Henson, Jensen, & Wiley, 2008, p. 8), tailored content designed with vulnerable populations in mind could be effective.
    • “It  is how  that openness  is instantiated or  structured to meet the  particular needs of excluded  groups that makes the difference” (Lane, 2009, p. 9).

 

References

Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Content and Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v9i1.469

Digital Divide. (2018, May 12). Merriam-Webster Online. Retrieved May 29, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital%20divide

Farmer, L. S. J., & Studies, A. (2015). Information as a Human Right, 6(March), 18–35. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijavet.2015010102

Huang, J., & Russell, S. (2006). The digital divide and academic achievement. The Electronic Library, 24(2), 160–173. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470610660350

Krish Chetty, Liu Qigui, Nozibele Gcora, Jaya Josie, Li Wenwei, and Chen Fang (2017). Bridging the digital divide: measuring digital literacy. Economics Discussion Papers, No 2017-69, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2017-69

Lane, A. (2009). The Impact of Openness on Bridging Educational Digital Divides. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 10(5). doi:10.19173/irrodl.v10i5.637

Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function. American Association for the Advancement of Science; 341, 976-980. https://doi:10.1126/science.1238041

Mariën, I., & A. Prodnik, J. (2014). Digital inclusion and user (dis)empowerment: A critical perspective. Info, 16(6), 35-47. doi:10.1108/info-07-2014-0030

Tawfik, A. A., Reeves, T. D., & Stich, A. (2016). Intended and Unintended Consequences of Educational Technology on Social Inequality. TechTrends, 60(6), 598–605. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0109-5

United Nations. (1948). Universal declaration of human rights. Paris, France: United Nations. (http://www.claiminghumanrights.org/udhr_article_19.html)

Van der Berg, S. (2008). Poverty and Education. Education Policy Series, 1-28. ISBN: 978-92-803-1322-2

Warschauer, M. (2007). The paradoxical future of digital learning. Learning Inquiry, 1(1), 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11519-007-0001-5

Yoshikawa, H., Aber, J. L., & Beardslee, W. R. (2012). The Effects of Poverty on the Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health of Children and Youth Implications for Preventions. American Psychologist, 67(4), 272-284. doi:10.1037/a0028