As I move into the new year, I am aware that my role in our school has changed evolved over the past 18 months in particular, moving from middle leadership to whole school IT and ICT. Within this role, our Headteacher has noted my enthusiasm for innovation but also my caution. We aim to be at the cutting edge, its too risky to be at the bleeding edge. Regardless, innovation, whether it is from a middle or senior leader viewpoint, leaves us in a perilous position. Let me outline why as Hans de Zwart , newly promoted to the position of ‘Innovation Manager,’ quotes Machiavelli The Prince (via Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations),
There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things…. Whenever his enemies have the ability to attack the innovator, they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.
W
- Whatever you are about to do, has probably be investigated, tested and reviewed. Grow your PLN and be a positive contributor to sharing good practice within that PLN. You never know when someone may offer your their support, pay it forward.
- Create a test beds for your ICT and IT innovations within school. Develop your innovations in micro, with pilot groups and with a range of users. This could be staff, technicians, students or any combination of these, before sharing the innovation. Our Digital Leaders (students in years 7-11) offer our team the most insight. We invest and plan ernestly as it is far easy to get an idea off the ground than it is to land it successful and get whole school traction, especially if staff lose confidence in the pilot during takeoff.
- Support the innovators but dont ignore the bruised. The most important point is to to reduce within school variance. That simply means your bottom line must be developing faster than your innovators.
- Grow yourself. One of the most effective ways to accelerate and share innovation, is to accelerate your own learning. Again, developing a proactive and sharing PLN is very valuable to you.
This January we have final hit a point where our aspirations and work flow are in balance. The backlog is nearly clear and we have staff available to help land our main projects. The VLE now has dedicated management with in-classroom and teacher support. Year 2 of the netbooks ‘Laptops for Learning’ should in theory be more established and easy to implement. The new domain is structure and ready for migration at Easter and planned for Sept 2010. For once, we are cruising at 3000 feet but checking the dials daily.