My Career/Passion Sketch; What About Yours?
May 8, 2015What might we learn by looking in our own rearview mirror? In reading Rise of the DEO by Maria Giudice and Christopher Ireland, I noted the quick sketches of life/career by some of their interviewees. I grabbed a flip chart pad and knocked together my own career/passion pencil scribble in less than ten minutes. And…
Lessons From The Valley III: Yes, We Can Measure Innovation
May 4, 2015This is the third post in a series that asks “why is Silicon Valley the Magic Kingdom of innovation, and what lessons can K-12 schools learn about how innovation succeeds in times of rapid change?” If you have a management team or board that is asking “how do we know we are actually becoming more…
Ready For Change? A Pre-Flight Checklist
May 1, 2015What questions should schools ask as they embark on a process of innovative change? What are critical expectations they must have of their community? What are the big challenges they will face? Here is a lis of questions and challenges you can use to provoke the discussions of “are we ready” and “are we serious”…
The New Franken-Teacher?
April 30, 2015What if we could evolve a new “teacher” who was 1/2 great leader-learner and 1/2 entrepreneurial start-up fiend? What if we could weave those two strands of personal and professional DNA together? Isn’t this the model we want our students to follow? Schools that are moving quickly off of the traditional assembly line model of…
Lessons From the Valley II: A Roiling Stew of People and Ideas
April 29, 2015Why is Silicon Valley the Magic Kingdom of innovation, and what lessons can K-12 schools learn about how innovation succeeds in times of rapid change? I have been pondering and studying this and will write a series of short blogs based on the findings of some long-standing experts from the Valley, translated into ideas and…
We Still Struggle With a New Paradigm of School Leadership
April 26, 2015Another great #satchatwc twitter chat yesterday focusing on our roles as leaders in schools, an outpouring of ideas and ideals about the importance of leadership. There was a lot of good advice and many poster quotes. But I left feeling that sometimes we miss one of the main points; there is still an enormous amount of implication…
Lessons From The Valley: Increase Effective Density
April 25, 2015Why is Silicon Valley the Magic Kingdom of innovation, and what lessons can K-12 schools learn about how innovation succeeds in times of rapid change? I have been pondering and studying this and will write a series of short blogs based on the findings of some long-standing experts from the Valley, translated into ideas and…
Scaling School Change; Check Out Landmark Consulting Group
April 22, 2015“If school change is not systematic and systemic, it is interesting, appealing, and maybe exciting, but not, ultimately, important.” I just sent out that Tweet, and it can sound as if little changes don’t matter, as if I fail to recognize that small changes, taken together, are the pioneering elements of systemic change. That is…
Inside My Head
April 17, 2015I gave a keynote and hosted a deep dive workshop today at the inaugural ATLIS conference for technology educators. One huge highlight: attendees in the deep dive did everything from creating strategic pathways to building a deep learning prototype for students…and almost all of them self-identify as “IT” people. We are ALL educator-leader-teachers, and we proved…
A Mom and a Load of Cardboard
April 16, 2015How might we engage community stakeholders more deeply in what happens at school? It is a critical question regardless of where your community lies on social and economic curves. Take this short story I heard this week and translate it into something powerful for your school. We visited Vista Innovation and Design Academy this week. Last…
Job Description for Chief Innovation Officer, via Lindsey Own
April 13, 2015Schools are increasingly understanding the need to have an in-house innovation leader; leaving the job of promoting innovative practices up to the site CEO means innovation always gets stuck behind the daily obstacles of keeping the school lights on. Over the last year or so, I have had a number of calls, particularly from independent schools:…
What If a Fish Did Not Know It Lived In a Pond?
April 12, 2015The 1884 novella Flatland explores the perspective, movements, and relationships of human-like creatures who might inhabit worlds with different numbers of dimensions. It is the stuff of social satire and science fiction, what often provoke us to radical or disruptive thinking. What if the universe in which we live is actually very different from the one we perceive…
Search Blog
Connect with us
