technology

The Rear View Camera – Powerful Invention & Metaphor for Leading #engage109

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“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”
– William Faulkner, American writer and Nobel Prize laureate

One of the coolest inventions of the modern times is the rear view camera. It’s safe: the rounded view shows people and images as they approach. The camera is also integrated into other safety features like “collision avoidance”. In my car (a VW Passat) for example, if I am going in reverse while a person/vehicle is moving behind me, if I don’t brake – the car brakes automatically!

History of Back Up Cameras (from Wikipedia):

he first backup camera was used in the 1956 Buick Centurion concept car, …. The vehicle had a rear-mounted television camera that sent images to a TV screen in the dashboard in place of the rear-view mirror.[8] The first production automobile …was the 1991 Toyota Soarer Limited ..The system was discontinued in 1997. In April 2000, Nissan’s Infiniti …introduced the RearView Monitor on the 2002 Q45 flagship sedan at the 2000 New York International Auto Show. .. operated from a license-plate-mounted camera in the trunk that transmitted a mirrored image to an in-dash (7-inch) LCD screen. It was available as optional equipment upon North American market launch in March 2001.[9][10] The 2002 Nissan Primera introduced the RearView Monitor backup camera system to territories outside Japan and North America.

In addition to the artificial intelligence “seeing” possible safety issues and “taking over” the automobile preventing accidents and injury (and being really cool technology); there is something powerful from a leadership perspective as well.

From a leadership perspective, the rearview camera can be a metaphor about being able to learn from the past (behind) to guide us with confidence. The camera let’s the driver see behind himself in order to guide and direct his actions and behavior. The rearview camera allows a driver to back up into a parking spot safely, accurately, with confidence and with more safety than the mirrors or eyesight (vision) of the driver (leader).

Philosopher George Sanatayana is credited with the quote: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Think about it: the past is represented by the rearview camera- images and sometimes hazards looking behind us/the camera guides are actions and driving with accuracy, with guidelines, with support—the rear view camera is a powerful invention & metaphor for leading. Be sure to look back in order to guide your forward! As we lead our organizations forward and as we forge new and better futures for those we serve, it’s incumbent upon us to honor the past and learn from and seek guidance from the experiences of the past (as guidance) so we learn and create new future realities!

Technology is not always new (first back up camera 1956) and our ideas are not always new (stay in education long enough and the pendulum swings back and forth). The juxtaposition of looking back to move forward resonates with me just like the accuracy and confidence of backing up into a parking spot using only the camera and the screen (technology and not my mirrors); and the accuracy and confidence we can lead forward is in front (or in back) of us with support. New and better is innovation.

Innovation is the greatest invention of the present – the gift we leaders provide to those we serve.

Modern technological advances can represent efficiencies that reflect the past, explain or define the present, and help support our leadership for the future.

I welcome your feedback, comments, ideas, reactions!

Digital Citizenship – #HaveTheTalk

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“All good athletes make mistakes; the great ones learn to make that mistake only once.”
– Raul Lopez

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“The one who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.”– Albert Einstein

This month we are launching a new parent education program aligned with our Digital Privacy, Safety, and Security (DPSS). In partnership with BrightBytes, one of our technology and data research partners, we are deeply reviewing our technology policies, practices, safety and security.

Topics for our inaugural session emerged from surveys, meetings, and input from members of our community. We’ll be joined by a high school student who has a passion for cyber security and for helping to keep families informed and children safe. We’ll host workshops on the following topics (Twitter for parents, Raising digital citizens, Growing up in the Digital Age, Digital Footprints, and more).

In addition to the parent education sessions, this year I have been sending letters with digital “tips” to our parent community. With this blog post I’m sharing excerpts from some of these letters as well as information about our upcoming parent education night. In today’s world digital literacy is essential for all, it’s not ok to leave technology knowledge “to the young people” … it’s for everyone!

 

“…On Wednesday, April 12, we will add a parent program on digital privacy, safety and security (DPSS). Before then, you’ll be hearing more about DPSS, in the schools and directly from me. In March, we will conduct our annual BrightBytes survey of students (in grades 4-8), staff and parents to evaluate the impact of our 1:1 environment and overall community technology use.”

We have been partnering with Bright Bytes since 2014 to measure the impact of our transformative 1:1 teaching & learning initiatives. Our overall scores and performance and growth have been growing since our focus on excellence transcends children, adults, school, home, and community. 

From BrightBytes:

The Technology & Learning module provides educators with insights into the factors that determine the effectiveness of technology in improving student achievement. The heart of the module is CASE™, a research-based framework developed by a team of educational researchers, higher ed statisticians, and K-12 practitioners.

Based on your data, the module calculates your organization’s overall numeric score (between 800 and 1300), which is aligned to a five-color maturity scale: Beginning, Emerging, Proficient, Advanced, and Exemplary. This same maturity scale is used to highlight your organization’s technology readiness and use in each of the framework’s domains, indicators, and variables.

As shown below, the trends are following an upward trajectory because each year’s focus on continuous improvement as well as engaged learning and teaching are having a positive effect and impact.

Sharing more tips:

DPSS in 109 Tip #1: Check your child’s phone. Do you know who your child is texting or messaging…and what they are sending and receiving? As the person paying the cell  phone bill — and as a parent in the digital age — you have a right and a responsibility to know with whom and how your child is communicating. 

The chart below compares the DPS109 results (solid) with all who use BrightBytes (several hundred schools across the country and Canada) of teachers who feel rewarded for integrating technology into teaching:

 

“Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.”

– Zig Ziglar

DPSS in 109 Tip #2: Conduct a computer, device and social media audit of practices in your home and include your children in the process. Here are helpful tips, many taken from the US Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation:

  • Be sure to monitor what others are posting about you or your children on their online discussions. You can set up a Google Alert to be notified when something shows up online about you or your child.
  • Change your passwords periodically, and do not reuse old passwords. Do not use the same password for more than one system or service. For example, if someone obtains the password for your email, can they access your online banking information with the same password? There are products that help you manage multiple passwords; here’s a recent list of free products.
  • Do not post anything that might embarrass you later or that you don’t want strangers to know.
  • Do not automatically download, or respond to content on a website or in an email. Do not click on links in email messages claiming to be from a social networking site. Instead go to the site directly to retrieve messages.

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffett

DPSS in 109 Tip #3: Follow the Terms of Service for popular social media sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; wait until your child is 13 to allow him or her access. Sites that impose these rules are following the government’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). The age requirements are put in place to protect your child; children under age 13 typically aren’t emotionally ready to handle the impact, implications, and responsibility connected with social media.  

We’re looking forward to our learning experiences on April 12th and beyond! The chart below shows an example of digital citizenship; teaching students how to cite online information. The frequency of “never” is decreasing and the frequency of “weekly” is increasing!

 

Vision – Change – Growth #Engage109

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“Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved.”
– Bill Gates

Vision (eyesight) is one of our five senses, eyesight is how ‘sighted’ people get input from the world around us. Eyesight is something that I do NOT take for granted, especially due to personal circumstances over the past six months. In this blog post I am going to draw parallels to my personal experiences with my vision and the concept of Vision in terms of organizational growth and change.

For 35 years I wore eyeglasses to correct my vision – correct as in meaning to improve sight. Sight in terms of what I could see with focus, distance, depth, perception, etc. I could still “see” without glasses, but my “vision” was distorted. With a distorted vision, I was not able to fully “see” or take in the world. The change I needed to make in my life was the change to wear glasses to “correct” my vision.

Often our vision needs to be corrected so that change and new methods can be embraced for improvement

Last year I started to lose my clear vision in my left eye (even with the change I had made 35 years prior) – even with glasses, the vision in my left eye was deteriorating. Again, I had to make choices: 1. let my vision deteriorate and accept a new limited reality; or 2. embrace change again to “correct” my sight.

During the period last year when my vision was departing from my left eye  I discovered I was developing cataracts. A cataract “grows” on the lens of the eye and impedes sight. During this experience the first change method I used to correct my vision, eyeglasses, was no longer sufficient.

For 35 years one method of correction worked and I was able to “see”. All of a sudden, out of nowhere I had two options: 1. live with limited vision or 2. have cataract surgery. Cataract surgery is not Lasik surgery; lasik works on the cornea (see the image at the left). Cataract surgery requires the removal and replacement of the lens in the eye. I also discovered during this process of stress, uneasiness, chaos, dissonance, “cheese moving” so to speak – that I needed to replace the lens in both eyes not just in my left eye. So … for a guy who is queasy with “health” stuff … I had to make a choice to confront my fears, confront risk and uncertainty and depart with the habits I had developed over a 35 year glasses wearing period.

So, after two surgeries – successful thankfully – my vision had not only been improved, but I did not need glasses anymore. My brilliant opthamologist inserted a distance lens in my right eye (still 20/20) and a reading/mid range lens in my left eye (20/20 reading and mid range). Wow – change was awesome! Wow – surgery and recovery was not so bad after all.

A change model I use in graphic form is the Virginia Satir change model (depicted in the image to the left). Applying this model to my personal health changes, the discovery of cataracts equate to the foreign element (by red triangle) introduced in my life.

Initially there was resistance (step 2). I was scared, angry, resentful, concerned, confused, and uncomfortable. The chaos, step 3, was the surgery, recovery and my experiences in those settings.

The Transforming Idea (red triangle at the bottom of the image) was the fact that after two surgeries I had better eyesight  than I had ever had. NO more glasses! NO reading glasses! The ability to wear sunglasses! No limited night vision. This all led to “integration”, step 4, and a new status quo. The change was fantastic and the new status quo was far better than the old one!

Change is a process, change is part of life, change is inevitable. Few of us seek change but in the end, many changes are far better than “that’s the way we have always done it” mentality.

ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER

In the Deerfield Public Schools, District 109, we are engaged in a Strategic Planning process. Strategic means change, improvement, new, different. Strategic Planning means that the Satir Model of Change will now be applied to our organization.

In strategic planning organizations (in our case as a public school district) the Board of Education sets the mission, vision, values, and goals, and the superintendent and leadership team works to develop objectives for each of the goals. Each objective aligns to a goal.

Each goal is also aligned with the values or guiding principles. Those principles are aligned to the portrait of a graduate (beginning with the end in mind).

The portrait of a graduate is aligned to the vision and mission. I’m deliberately stating all of this to set the stage for how vision and change are coming to the Deerfield Public Schools! Our past 3.5 years have been filled with completing plans made by previous boards and leaders – we are proud of these plan completions and I have penned a number of blog posts about the impact of these changes. Now, the stage is set for the next few years to be guided and directed by and grounded in the new Strategic Plan.

In terms of strategic planning, setting the stage for what we hope to become, or setting the vision, is a complex process of input, review, soul searching, input searching, and hope.

Vision on in an organization refers to an aspiration   — or hope about the future.The vision describes what the future will become. It describes how the organization will lookin its future. The visions that get actualized are those that are based upon shared values and ideals.

A shared vision is powerful because members of the organization synthesize their hopes and aspirations in support of the common cause – or SHARED VISION. As a leader my aim is to inspire a shared vision. My aim is to generate ideas and synthesize multiple points of input into coherent action plans. My aim is to plan for change that is powerful, meaningful, and that becomes all hands on deck change.

Kouzes & Posner, authors of the Leadership Challenge, have found through extensive research across industry, that the 5 Exemplary Characteristics of leaders are:

Model the Way/Inspire a Shared Vision/Challenge The Process/Enable Others to Act/Encourage the Heart

Over the past few years our leadership team has spent significant time engaged in book review, 360 degree assessments based upon the Leadership Challenge LPI 360, and as a team we have strived to embody all five of these characteristics in all that we do as we lead and serve. The leadership framework upon which Nick Polyak and I frame in our upcoming book, The Unlearning Leader, is based on the 5 exemplary practices of a leader! These practices resonate with me and my leadership team.

By Inspiring a Shared Vision, when the “foreign” element is added into the mix, and the old status quo is challenged (challenge the process is another of the exemplary practices of a leader) the resistance is lessened and the pain is diminished when large numbers of stakeholders are engaged in the planning, vision creation, and planning!

In the Deerfield Public Schools we received more than 1,700 people’s input into our Strategic Plan – our district has 3000 students from 1,850 families, so the 1,700 voices helping guide our work give me great comfort that all voices are on the table as we prepare to make our system better – and as we prepare to make changes in our system.

Just like my personal experiences with change have had painful and uncomfortable moments, and just as I did not control elements of what happened to me, our organization is on the path toward meaningful change!

For another post at another time, I’ll explain how my perfect vision and my revised status quo was once again challenged as a torn retina became yet another foreign element in my life creating chaos, and change. As I march towards my new status quo I’m proud that my medical team, family, friends, co-workers, and employer have all helped inspire a shared vision in me — quite literally and figuratively!

To the future ….

As always comments are welcomed and encouraged!

Perspective and Context – #Engage109

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“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your actions.”
– Dalai Lama 

As we approach this holiday season and the end of 2016 many people are busy getting the “new year’s resolutions” … eat better, exercise more, spend more time in nature, etc… The end of year is a fine 2017time for reflection and contemplation.

Did we accomplish what we set out to accomplish in 2016? Did we do the best we could for ourselves, our families, our co-workers, our communities? Did we listen enough to opposing viewpoints? Did we stand up for what is right? Questions like those and so many more fill our minds and hearts as the work world slows down, if only for the week between Christmas and New Years Day.20140803-165030.jpg

Whatever we did in 2016 … it’s coming to a close.

2017 allows us new opportunities, new learning, new challenges, and new realities! As this year comes to a close, and as I write the final blog post of 2016, I realized that my blog, in effect since July 2013, has about 300 posts.

So in roughly three and a half years I’ve written 300 posts, responded to about 100 comments; there have been 50,000 page views with an average reader spending a minute and a half reading the posts. Google Analytics reports that there have been 23,458 users engaging in one form or another with the blog. 40% of the blog readers are regulars and 60% of the readers are categorized as new visitors. This is pretty cool – in the context of one person’s blog. Is this significant in terms of all bloggers? Is this significant in the blog world of superintendents? Depends on the context of review.

Readers of this blog hail from the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Japan, and some 1100 sessions unidentified.

The title of this blog post Perspective and Context came to me after viewing the following video that gives perspective to how earth relates to the rest of the “universe”. The context is “space” and size:

Our universe, this blog, your identity – all form ‘parts of wholes’. Wherever we are in time and space, from wherever we hail, we are significant and meaningful. Ideally we always add value to our family, our community, our world. We, though, are but a small parts of a larger reality.

Regardless of our perspectives, our importance, our perspectivevalue, we must be mindful of context. We also must be mindful that each new year allows us to learn more, to grow more, to do a better job than perhaps we did last year.

The new year allows us to “reset” to redo, to start whatever it is we’re doing with fresh eyes. Perspective and Context guide and define our thoughts and actions.

Earlier this year in the Deerfield Public Schools District 109, we spent time looking at two films: Beyond Measure and Most Likely to Succeed. Both were shown to hundreds of people in our community. Both challenged long held assumptions about public education and the forms of instruction best suited for our future. Both challenged our perspectives and caused a review of our context. I wrote blog posts about these films and the viewing experiences.

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As we approach 2017, I’m equally as energized with hope and vision about the realities we will create here in Deerfield, IL, and Riverwoods, IL (my small parts of the world) on behalf of students, staff, and community. We are on the forefront of causing change, perhaps forcing change in some contexts on behalf of the future we are creating – like it or not – we in education are future creators.

Are we supporting structures and systems that perpetuate the 1893 era thinking and needs and context? Or do we change our perspective and support structures designed for future context.

Happy New Year 2017

Best wishes to us all to consider our perspectives and to consider our contexts, and to realize the value and power of change for innovation, improvement, and the future.

future

 

ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER

 

How school superintendents explored the future of learning together

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“When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and effort, it is ready to climb.”
– Patanjali

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This following is from a blog post I co-authored with Nick Polyak, and it is originally published on the Google EDU blog

EDUCATION

How school superintendents explored the future of learning together

WRITTEN BY

Nick Polyak

Michael Lubelfeld

As education leaders, we’re expected to have all the answers. When we don’t, we solve problems by talking to our peers. The School Superintendents Association (AASA) invites administrators and educators to come together and talk about the challenges superintendents face, like how best to integrate technology in the classroom. This is a focus of the AASA’s digital consortium leadership cohort, which recently reached out to Google to see how they could further the AASA’s goal of leading new ways to use digital media in classrooms. We also reached out to Education Reimagined, an organization that advocates a paradigm shift to learner-centered education.

Google hosted a meeting of the AASA’s digital consortium with Education Reimagined at Google’s Chicago office in July 2016. Our discussion led us to realize we were thinking about the problem we wanted to solve in the wrong way. We had been making plans for how technology would transform our schools without considering one of the most important voices — our students! “The group’s discussion was a powerful reminder that we don’t make decisions in a vacuum,” said Mort Sherman, Associate Executive Director of the AASA. Putting student voices at the center of everything we do will help us design the future with them and for them. This will be a long journey for all of us, but one we are thrilled to embark on.

Putting student voices at the center of everything we do will help us design the future with them and for them.

Discovering student voices

At the Google office in Chicago, Education Reimagined Director Kelly Young kicked off the day by emphasizing the need to put students at the center. She advocated for a student-centered approach, where learning revolves around the needs of individual students instead of traditional classroom structures. She also encouraged us to bring students to the event to make sure that student input informed all of our discussions.

Google then worked with us to leverage their innovation methodology, informally known as “10x thinking” or “moonshot thinking” to help solve the challenges we were facing. It’s a version of “human-centered design thinking” that helps participants develop solutions while keeping the end-user at the center of the process.

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Superintendents used a design thinking process to explore learner-centered education
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In the STAT program at Deerfield Public School District 109, students facilitate a technology review committee meeting.

As we began, it occurred to us all that students are our users, and our users weren’t part of our conversation as much as they should be. Without their input, we wouldn’t be poised for success, because we weren’t empathizing with their daily experience. By going through the 10x process with the students present, we gave them a voice in a way we rarely do. As the realization of user-centric education sunk in, we were excited to share our takeaways with our schools.

After meeting in Chicago, we returned to our districts to put this learner-centric approach into action. Leyden High School District 212, for example, created two student advisory board member posts, giving students the opportunity to weigh in on meaningful decisions. Another, Deerfield Public School District 109, set up the STAT program (Student Technology Advisory Team), in which students provide their input on how technology in the classroom impacts them and what tools, devices, or practices are relevant and effective from their perspective. These are just two examples of the learner-centric transformation happening across the country.

Cementing our progress

More recently the AASA’s digital consortium re-convened in California to discuss, among other things, how we could turn this “aha” moment into action. A huge barrier to action is getting buy-in from teachers and parents, most of whom grew up in a classroom-centric education system.

Consider this: each of us spends over 16,000 hours in the classroom — that’s a lot of experience to work against. So together, we’re working to develop ways for schools to pilot learner-centric education without abruptly abandoning the classroom model. Google’s approach to innovation had us work through six questions in groups. We asked questions such as “If I look back in 12 months, how will I know I succeeded?” We ended the session with answers to some of the questions we had posed, bearing in mind our work isn’t finished.

We’re still working to implement learner-centered education in schools. And it’s not easy. When we meet next spring, our superintendents will report on progress made in individual schools and districts.

It took combining Google’s approach to problem solving, the philosophy from Education Reimagined and the amazing network of superintendents brought together by the AASA to help us think differently about the role of technology in learning. Now that we’ve identified the paradigm shift that needs to happen, we’re excited to share our moment of realization with districts, schools, and classrooms across the country.

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Vanessa Gallegos, left, of East Leyden and Noelle Lowther of West Leyden were introduced as student representatives for the school board during a meeting on May 12 at East Leyden High School.
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