First%20Steps%20Toward%20Creating%20a%20Leadership%20Road%20Map%20for%20Teaching%20and%20Learning%20Technologies%20in%20Your%20Knowledge%20Era%20Schools:%20A%20Policy%20Network%20and%20Community%20Approach

1
First Steps Toward Creating a Leadership Road Map
for Teaching and Learning Technologies in Your
Knowledge Era Schools A Policy Network and
Community Approach

• This presentation will probably involve audience
  discussion, which will create action items. Use
  PowerPoint to keep track of these action items
  during your presentation
• In lide Show, hold down the control key and click
  the mouse button
• Select Meeting Minder
• Select the Action Items tab
• Type in action items as they come up
• Click OK to dismiss this box
• This will automatically create an Action Item
  slide at the end of your presentation with your
  points entered.

• Eugene G. Kowch
• Assistant Professor
• Graduate Division of Educational Research
• University of Calgary
• Alberta, Canada
• Prepared for the Online Conference January 20 to
  27, 2003Linking Research to Practiceby the
  Graduate Division of Educational Research

2
Introduction

• Presentation Outline
• A. The Teaching and Learning Technology (TLT)
  Road
• B. The TLT Leader Subjective and Objective
  Responses
• Objective Responses
• to Technology
• to Administration
• to Policy Making
• Subjective Responses
• to Technology
• to Education Administration
• to Policy Making - Networks and Community
  Organization
• C. Summary Discussion

3
The TLT Road
4
The TLT Road Is there an End?
Distance Education ?
Computer Literate Learner Achievement
Classroom Instruction ?
Learner Achievement ?
Or..
5
Or consider the TLT Journeyas a cycle of
adoption and disuse...
6
TLT Leadership ResponsesWe take Two Kinds of
Outlooks on Three Important Subjects
Objective
Subjective
Technology
Policy Making
Administration
7
Objective Leader Responses to Technology

• Computers are tools for learning (Reader Rabbit)
• These tools achieve better learning outcomes.
• Better, Faster learning can happen.
• Build it and they will Learn logic...
• Leader Motivation We must do this for the sake
  of progress everyone else is doing the TLT
  thing weve got to keep up.

8
We often think of networks as Mechanics, not
processes
9
Global Mechanical Networks are allowing
new Global networks of relationships
10
Objective Leader Responses to Administration

• Our Learning Community will be more effective
  with TLT (Distance Education in Rural High
  Schools).
• We tend to focus on costs and machines.
• (Ellul, 1990).
• Info Systems people become technocratic leaders
  with power.
• Systems thinking prevails.

11
Objective Leader Responses to Administration

• The adoption of a given technical system
  requires the creation and maintenance of a
  particular set of social conditions as the
  operating environment of that system
• (Scarbrough, 1992 Woodward, 1971).

12
Objective Leader Responses to Administration

• Technological Determinism
• Mechanistic View (the answers are in the
  machine)
• Technology-Led View (technology forces us to
  change)
• Reification View (If I use technology, I am
  right)
• Autonomy View (The Technology made me do it).
• The technological determinist leader loses some
  of their own independence to the promises of
  technology and perceived technocratic expertise.

13
Actor Leadership Characteristics
1. Poet 2. Technician 3. Pragmatist 4.
Careerist
1. Leader 2. Steward 3. Servant 4. Advocate
Subj
Obj
(Walker, 1996)
(Hodgkinson, 1997)
Leadership Styles
14
Objective Leader Responses toPolicy Making

• Policy is a response to issues. It can be any
  kind of response or non-response (Pal, 1997).
• The leader creates policy to fix a problem
  systematically
• 1. Choose your objective or goal to achieve
• 2. Consider ways to get there
• 3. Outline impacts of different approaches
• 4. Determine criteria for success
• 5. Apply models and inform everyone
• 6. Implement policy as organisational action

15
Objective Leader Responses to Policy Making

• Assume that the educational organization is
  independent of other organisations.
• Work best with one decision maker.
• Assume that social values, cultures, other
  institution agendas do not affect governance
  decisions or realities (Mintzberg, 1994).
• Assume linear decision making

16
Subjective Leader Responses to Technology

• Technology is a system that entails far more
  than its individual or material components.
  Technology involves organization, procedures,
  symbols, words, equations, and most of all, a
  mindset technology is a process (Franklin,
  1990, p. 2).

17
Subjective Leader Responses to Technology

• Prescriptive Technologies
• Specialized labor works to make technology
  achieve specific ends.
• Example Network Technicians create the perfect
  intra divisional student email list serv to
  create a feeling of rural community.
• Holistic Technologies
• Labor works to control particular processes to
  create or do something technology fades into the
  background of the emerging work.
• Example Teachers collaborate to create new K-5
  Viewing curriculum by sharing collections of
  media and student responses. Instructional design
  is constructivist.
• Leaders consider the cycle of technological
  integration at decision points.

18
Technology Integration Cycle
1. Invention
(Innovation)
Technology Integration in Social Systems
4. Stagnation
2. Growth
(Exchange)
(Use/disuse)
3. Standardization (Performance Indicators)
19
Subjective Responses to Educational Administration

• The traditional view of schools is grounded in a
  mechanistic worldview, which is associated with a
  positivist epistemology and a rationalist
  methodology. From this perspective, control and
  power reside at the top of the school
  organization, and roles, responsibilities, and
  spheres of decision making are clearly
  delineated there is one best way to do
  something. Recent investigations in human
  development have shot holes through the
  mechanistic view. yielding to a new wholeness
  worldview associated with constructivist
  epistemology and interpretivist methodology.
  (Sackney, 2000, p. 125).

20
Subjective Responses to Educational Administration

• Leaders today must respond to new issues
• Shifting time and space (distance education)
• Networked Communication (rural is not
  isolated)
• Organization walls are permeable
• Governments do not make decisions independently
  of organisations
• Learners have more say in learning processes
• Decision making involves groups and ideals in
  meaningful ways
• The autonomy of the system is uncertain.
• The pace of change is increasing in education.
• Understanding he WAY we organize interests
• becomes more critical - we need models to
• Address complex phenomena, without
• Complicated research methodologies.

21
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Imagine a number of groups responding to a
  complex issue
• (teaching and learning technology in rural
  schools)
• Cost issues
• Training issues
• Education issues
• Student access issues
• Government initiatives
• Software issues
• Maintenance issues
• Assumes that an organization is not alone in
  making policy
• Assumes that governments / governance bodies are
  not alone in making policy (Atkinson, 1999).

22
Decision Making. Can we continue to Use
process models that Are linear to describe
Complex social And Leadership Phenomenae ?
23
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making
Policy Domain

• Knowledge and Expertise is different
• Epistemic Concerns - do we all know the same
  things?
• link networks - who is influential and why?

Boundary shifts
24
(No Transcript)
25
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Policy Community A constellation of actors who
  are interested in a policy issue (exHigh School
  Distance Education)
• Policy Network A set of relationships between
  actors who work together to make policy on an
  issue.
• The issues Within What matters to you, and who
  is influential in addressing the matter?

26
An example of a policy network in the education
environment
27
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Is your TLT policy network a High Capacity or Low
  Capacity Network?
• High Capacity Network Characteristics
• Clear concept of its role in policy making
• Supporting Value system
• Professional ethos
• Can generate information internally
• Is coherent, cohesive
• Can organize complex tasks
• Can rise above self interests

28
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Policy networks are collections of state agency
  and public sector people who create policy
  together.
• Think about Community Net
• Did you organize your interests with the state?
• Highly Autonomous Network Characteristics
• Know their role in policy making
• Have a strong value system
• Can find answers to unanswerable questions
• Are less dependent on other groups to understand
  complex issues.

29
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Organizing from within State and public sector
  issue organization amount to both a cooperation
  and degrees of codependence.
• In Pressure Pluralist Networks
• State is not autonomous
• Sector is not autonomous
• Associations are dispersed and weak
• Groups advocate responses rather than
  participate.

30
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Clientele Pluralist Network Characteristics
• State is not autonomous
• Sector is more autonomous
• Associations are dispersed and weak
• Groups advocate responses rather than
  participate, and the sector has its way
• State Direction Network Characteristics
• State is autonomous
• Sector is not autonomous
• Associations are weak
• State has its way (fiscal instruments are
  popular)

31
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making

• Corporatist Network Characteristics
• Higher state organization of interests
• Higher sector organization of interests
• A few powerful groups participate in a response
• Elites tend to dominate
• Concertation Network Characteristics
• State and public groups are equal partners
• Both are highly organized
• Both can research and identify answers to tough
  problems.

32
Actor Interests and Organization
CapacityStrengths on both parts mean varying
degrees of dependence
33
Subjective Approaches to Policy Making
Policy Domain

• Clusters of people form from ACROSS government
  and institutions - as a response to an issue

Boundary shifts
34
Policy Communities
A Taxonomy - If everyone in the network Undstands
the same things, and the State And institution
(or society) have consensus
Is there a Dominant Episteme ?
YES
NO
Hegemonic Community
Leaderless Community
YES
State - Society Consensus
Imposed Community
Anarchic Community
NO
Hult and Wolcott after Wilkes, Atkinson .. 1990
35
Summary

• Presentation Outline
• A. The Teaching and Learning Technology Road
• B. The TLT Leader Subjective and Objective
  Responses
• Objective Responses
• to Technology
• to Administration
• to Policy Making
• Subjective Responses
• to Technology
• to Education Administration
• to Policy Making - Networks and Community
  Organization
• C. Summary Discussion

36
Summary

• Look Within your TLT response.
• 1. As a leader, do you see a road with an end, or
  do you see your TLT plan as a journey / cycle?
• 2. As a leader, do you have a subjective (fluid)
  or objective (hard wired) view of
• Technology (prescriptive or holistic?)
• Administration ( hierarchical or networked?)
• Policy Making ( High or low capacity?)

37
Summary (continued)

• Low Capacity Networks
• Do not overcome self interests
• Government depends on the sector and vice versa
  for direction and answers
• No one knows who is doing what
• Interests in govt.. and Schools are disorganized
• High Capacity Networks
• Government and Schools are interdependent
• Government and schools have clear ideas of where
  each wants to go with TLT
• Each can generate answers to tough TLT questions
  on instructional design, leadership and distance
  education options in their system
• Can handle changing environments and survive

38
First Steps Toward Creating a Leadership Road Map
for Teaching and Learning Technologies in Your
Knowledge Era Schools A Policy Network and
Community Approach

• This presentation will probably involve audience
  discussion, which will create action items. Use
  PowerPoint to keep track of these action items
  during your presentation
• In lide Show, hold down the control key and click
  the mouse button
• Select Meeting Minder
• Select the Action Items tab
• Type in action items as they come up
• Click OK to dismiss this box
• This will automatically create an Action Item
  slide at the end of your presentation with your
  points entered.

Thank you for your attention

• Eugene G. Kowch
• Assistant Professor
• Graduate Division of Educational Research
• University of Calgary
• Prepared for the Online Conference January 20 to
  27, 2003Linking Research to Practiceby the
  Graduate Division of Educational Research

Contact ekowch_at_ucalgary.ca