Today's Superintendent's meeting

In our meeting today my Administrators are experiencing what learning should look like in a 21st Century classroom using technology in an inquiry based model. Administrators are sitting in Family of Schools groupings and they have come up with an inquiry question that they would like to jointly investigate. They are huddled around a computer and they are sharing ideas and challenging each other.

The group leading the session have set-up flip cameras around the room and we are filming the work. When we are done, we are going to show the Administrators the film so that they can see themselves, first hand, demonstrating a cooperative, collaborative, inquiry based lesson using technology. Groups have also been challenged to create a presentation to share their inquiry question with the group.

As a group of instructional leaders, we keep coming back to our motto; If We Are Going To Lead It, We Need To Do It, and today is a prime example. I wish you could hear the excitement, the focussed talk and the laughter. It is a big accomplishment for a group, many of whom had very little experience with technology 5 months ago, to be beginning to set  a vision for how we want to move forward.

Each group is now presenting their inquiry questions and it is amazing what they have done in 30 minutes. The presentations are diverse and extremely creative.

The group that is on right now did all of their work on a brand new iPad that they just took out of the box this morning. The group is demonstrating what our kids could/would do if we only gave them the opportunity. The room is alive with "aha" moments. It is just so incredible.

Superintendent meetings can be immersed in administrivia but we need to trust the professionalism of our administrators. I will email them the things I need them to know. I trust that they will read the information and forward any questions they may have to me. Instead of putting my administrators to sleep by inundating them with knowledge, my administrators have been immersed in learning and discovering what they want the classrooms in their schools to look like. Talk about a Wow!!

Today is part one and we will be continuing the journey at out next meeting. We will also be working our way through Prensky's book and building our knowledge and understanding of where we want our schools to go and how we can help them get there. Talk about an amazing morning!!