leadership in high schools

What uses do wiki’s have in our classrooms?  I see the possiblities for middle and high school students where the emphasis on team work and collaboration are huge socialization pieces that need to be taught and modelled. 

I have surfed through Classroom 2.0 and find this web site very useful in answering all types of questions regarding interactive planning units in science and writing projects that are incremental in nature and  encourage group authorship.  I became a member of this site and have really expanded my learning this way. 

http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topic/show?id=649749%3ATopic%3A92225

The above forum Classroom 2.0 contains a valid case study in support of web 2.0 technolgy use by teachers  Kindergarten through 12th grade.  Dr. Jeffrey Felix, Superintendent of Bonsall Union School District, Bonsall, California conducted reasearch on edublogging and published his findings in Dec. 07.  His summary is as follows:

1. Writing plays a very important role in education.
2. Blogging represents a new way for teachers to interact with their students.
3. Blogging as an instructional practice allows teachers to be active participants and co-learners with students.  The foundation of good pedagogy.  The I, Thou, It relationship that is crucial to all learning. 
4. Without attempting to consider blogging as a technological tool amongst others, the teaching profession will have difficulty relating to students in a digital age and this will affect the student/teacher relationship.   

I just read a Superintendent’s in British Columbia’s blog in which he celebrated his faculty and staff for their “appetite for changing practice”.   In his power point presentation to the school community it was his intention to tie student achievement across all data strains to the changing dynamic occurring in the school district and the show the response of teachers and staff to the needs of students.  I am impressed. 

Entering the new school year this September, as a participant in High Schools New Face (HSNF) and as team and member of the the Erie 2 CC Boces Wiki devoted to promulgating intra-departmetal use of web 2.0 technologies, I know that I will have to be the best culinary artist and epicurean, if I am going to develop an insatiable appetite amongst the teachers I work with for the embrace and appreciation of web technologies.  I am slowly developing and forming a team of teachers who will assist our Center in bringing more teachers on board.  The start of a blog in Social Studies that 3 content teachers can help support and build is a great foot mark. 

Are there any other idea out there for me in the virtual school community, as I go down this path where some will be skeptical, others will reject and still others will be totally resistant to and shut down?     

REQUIREMENTS:  TEACHERS WHO BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE TEACHING THE NEXT WAVE OF EMPLOYEES WHO WILL NEED 21ST CENTURY WORK SKILLS IN ORDER TO BE COMPETIVE.

TEACHERS WHO BELIEVE THAT OUR DEMOCRACY RESTS ON THE NOTION THAT WITHOUT AN EDUCATED WORKFORCE, OUR COUNTRY’S ECONOMY AND STANDARD OF LIVING ARE AT STAKE. 

•  Identify the core group of teachers who are already familiar with the virtual world.  The school principal must be involved in the training process in order to model “new learner fear” and take the place of teacher/coach/simultaneous learner with faculty.
• Include  IT specialists within this core group.
• Decide on the goal.  Does the teacher want to be the sole proprietor of the blog thereby controlling it, its content and exposure or will students own the blog as a response “notebook” to classroom assignments. 
•  A teacher can start a blog to increase stage 1 awareness and improve written response from students.  A teacher can also get students to develop the blog based on his/her needs.  This process would involve exploration of widgets, design, outreach etc. 
• A teacher can get students to set up their own blogs which will be a chronicle of student work in response to classroom expectations.  For instance the English teacher have students set up an individual blog that will respond to all English assignments throughout high school.  In this case the blog will become an interactive tool between the teacher and the students.  In addition this blog will show the progression of students thought, communication, rationale, and growth in web 2.9 skills over time.  I call this stage 2.  In this stage the blog will become a portfolio which the student can take with him/her after graduation and maintain as a historical memento to be referenced later in life.  Perhaps the student gets an interview with a college to review admission, this portfolio of work can be referenced electronically and perhaps clinch the scholarship and college admission.  Is this cool or what? 
• The Principal of the school should set up professional development time devoted to blog development.  The first few meetings will be devoted to general introductions using a video data projector and laptop. Walk through the process using Edublogs which is a very user friendly tool. 
• This training room should be open daily with prescribed times during which teachers can come in and work with a trainer to ask questions.  This training room would accommodate different learning curves.
• As teachers feel more comfortable, they will be able to leave the training room and return to their computers to develop their blogs.
• The core group of trainers or specialists will then be responsible for doing door to door sales asking if teachers have questions and need help.

In the above model, all teachers with be exposed to the technology plan.  Over the first 5  week period all teachers at the high school and middle school level working with computers in their classrooms will be encouraged and trained in the beginning level of web 2.0 technologies. 

Blog development will be shared with parents so as to bring them on board with the idea. 

This training and outreach should occur weekly during scheduled Faculty meeting time and involve door to door salesmen and women who belong to the core group, and will go around meetingasking if teachers need help in their classrooms as they develop their blogs,

In June 08, before the end of the school year, the Student Council voted for a $300 seed fund to distributed to the summer school High school classes.  The purpose of this fund is to challenge the thinking of students in free enterprise.  the goal is to see if the students can double the $300 investment and turn a profit for student council based on the idea of free enterprise -running a summer school business over 6 weeks. 

In the first week July 7-11, the students sponsored a salad bar and made a profit of @$54.  Each week the students working with three teachers, Cindy Jackson, Amy Montgomery and Jim Hedlund will embark on a business venture aimed at teaching successful work habits, the value of profit and loss, advertising, how to start and run a business, customer relations etc. 

In the new school year, 2008-09 student council might well benefit from sponsoring a sister club SIFE devoted to the notion of promoting free enterprise with an additional foray into donating some of the profit to a needy organization that benefits students eg.  research into autism, cerebral palsy, mental illnesses or pervasive developmental disorders   all issues that impact the quality of life of our students.  What do you think?