Learning In The Digital Age

The principalship is like a fire.  People are drawn to it, look to it for light, and it can get a little hot!  Principals lead buildings, initiatives, create more leaders, and help to provide environments where everyone can be successful.  The heat and light given off tend to wane if that fire is not fed.  But where?  Principals are often the lone wolf in their building - they are isolated and often work within a silo.  There may be assistants, dean of students, or directors, but often only one principal.  Being the leader of a learning organization means modeling the learning.  The opportunity to connect virtually with others in the principal position has the potential to be invaluable to the growth of leaders, and subsequently, schools.  Becoming connected as a principal is a great way to model that learning.

When considering the role of the school principal it becomes clear that the position is no longer singular in focus - the school principal is expected to go way beyond the administrator who sits in the office all day pushing papers around. Among the many challenges facing principals today is maintaining the balance between addressing the administrative mandates while also meeting the demands of being transformative instructional leaders. The school principal went from being a program manager/administrator in the 1960s and 70s to today when principals are expected to be transformational leaders who bring about change within the entire school community by successfully addressing both instructional needs (instructional leader) and administrative expectations (administrator) (Hallinger, 1992). An effective transformational leader, according to Hallinger (2003), is one who possesses strong instructional leadership abilities and skills that can be shared with the entire community.

The expectation of being an effective transformational instructional leader, along with the need to seek out current and relevant professional development opportunities, have led me in a new direction: to Twitter and the thousands of other educators using that platform to connect, share, learn and grow. A socially networked online community, Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites and is considered a form of micro blogging that encourages educators to tweet and share their thoughts, opinions and resources in 140 characters or less (Perez, 2012). As educators, we have experienced the power of Twitter firsthand over the last several years and this has led us to find out how principals may address their professional development needs by participating in this socially networked community. Twitter, like other social networking sites, functions as a social learning resource and space where educators can be exposed to a whole other type of discourse and literacy practice (Greenhow 2009). Jane Hart, a social media and learning consultant, has classified Twitter as a tool for personal and informal learning that goes beyond the confines of any building (Galgan, 2009). Learners can use Twitter to ask and answer each other’s questions and Twitter can in turn help support collaboration and deeper understanding (Galagan, 2009). Since information on educators using Twitter for learning and professional development is limited because it is relatively unchartered territory, we will be offering a guide about what systems need to be put in place to begin supporting the professional development of principals using platforms such as Twitter.

Although one of our focal points will be Twitter, the bottom line is that we want to show that people, in this case specifically principals, can learn through social interactions and in the digital age, these are interactions no longer have to be inhibited by physical boundaries. So, check out our latest book, Principal Professional Development: Leading Learning in the Digital Age so you can take control of your own professional development and ensure that it is personalized to best meet your needs in your efforts to stay current and relevant in the 21st century!