Always Learning

I recently participated in the eCourse Educational Leadership in the Digital Age. The course is offered from Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) and was instructed by Lyn Hilt @lynhilt who serves as an elementary technology integrator in Pennsylvania. Although the course is officially done, I am still immersing myself in the vast sea of resources and ideas that we explored over the past five weeks. Here are my top (in no particular order) take-aways from from those five, very fast but very fruitful, weeks:

1. Educational leadership in the digital age is less about leading and more about learning. How I build my own PLC, how I connect with others and contribute to the collective knowledge of teaching and learning, how I ask questions and explore curiosities, how I use technologies in a way that transforms my work, how I share & collaborate with others, how I stretch myself...it all really is leading, in that it models and contributes to a culture of learning that can move others toward a vision. 
2. Good content curation tools will save a ton of time, and maybe your marriage!
3. Connecting is powerful. Being connected educators allows us to consider and contribute to emerging ideas in ways not possible earlier in my career. I truly enjoy learning from people whose ideas challenge and inspire me and whose thoughts I admire. 
4. No matter how many great apps and tools you know and use, there are more even better ones! 
5. Regardless of the technology integration framework used, technology becomes a regular, integral, and transparent part of the learning process when technology integration is learning-focused. 
6. I'm always learning.

I have been in three different administrative positions over the past 15 years, but as a first year instructional technology coordinator, I found this course to be very helpful in looking at technology & leadership through new lenses as well as increasing my resources and connections to great ed tech minds. Lyn Hilt did a fabulous job creating a welcoming, encouraging, collaborative, and inspiring "classroom" for those of us seeking to be better leaders and learners in our digital age!