Blogs on Leadership

You've been teaching for five years, and you love every part of it. You love the kids, your colleagues -- well -- you love teaching. The parents are happy, the kids learn, but you’re getting an "itch." School isn't as exciting as it used to be. The routines are becoming routine, and you know what the kids are going to get stuck on, push back at, get excited by -- nothing is new anymore.

You are not alone.

Yes, let's give students iPads so they can be smarter and learn better. It sounds so easy. The reality is that there are many unknowns, like how do you hand out 800 iPads and keep track of which student has which iPad, and how do you get 800 students to register with iTunes so they can use their iPads on the school system? (The school system: How do you provide enough bandwidth for 800 iPads? That's another challenge entirely!)

Students should have a significant voice in school-based decision-making in every high school. They rarely do. With the teaching of democracy a stated goal of every high school, I still find this hard to believe.

#Satchat is a great example of the power of social media to improve education, and the benefit of expanding an educator's Personal Learning Network (PLN). The premise behind this Twitter chat/hashtag came about when Scott Rocco (@ScottRRocco) and I (@bcurrie5) connected on Twitter in February 2012. Both of us had a passion for education and knew other school leaders around the globe who shared our enthusiasm. What we would soon realize is that this passion was not restricted to local or national educators, but had a global reach.