Portable Data Empowers Leaders

Journal #9
Portable Data Empowers Leaders
By: Mary L. McNabb

This article talks about a training program for administrators called LTF that encourage a leadership infrastructure for school improvement through handheld technology. School administrators face many challenges like the pressure to increase all students’ achievement scores and to create a safe environment for students that promotes learning.

How was the LTF created?

Administrators in Michigan have pulled together in a statewide effort to meet these challenges with the help of technology. Their connecting point is a collaborative leadership development program called LEADing the Future (LTF), funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2002, the LTF grant team set out to train at least 80% of the administrators in the state (approximately 4,000) to use a variety of technologies with specific emphasis on four goals aligned with ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS•A).

Why do we need the LTF?

The LTF team models sophisticated integration of technologies during its face-to-face trainings. Administrators are exposed to a wireless technology infrastructure, handheld computers syncing to laptops, external keyboards, flash drives, secure digital cards, digital cameras, projectors, an audience response system, real-time online surveying with immediate feedback, and specific administrative applications such as the GoLead research channel online, GoLead Newsstand, and an Internet-based administrator learning community. The LTF team also models data collection and analysis processes. For example, as part of the initial training, project facilitators use an online survey service and an audience response system integrated within PowerPoint to demonstrate how to gather realtime data from participants at a meeting and how to access graphed results instantly for data-driven decision making purposes.