The Challenge

How does one get universal acceptance of the concept that the wise educational deployment of information and communication technology (ICT) is the responsibility of the principal?

How do we get all educational architects – those in the schools, in the central offices and teacher education - to recognise that ICT will only enhance learning when it is used to improve the quality of the teaching of the total teaching staff and the principal plays a leading role in shaping all elements to ensure its appropriate use?

Introduction

A key to improved school effectiveness and enhanced student attainment is the principal. The same holds equally for the effective use of ICT in the school.

However in the past two decades schooling world wide has witnessed the rare phenomenon of this key facet of the school’s operations moving out of the purvey of the principal into the hands of the ‘ICT experts’. It is hard to think of a comparable devolution in the history of educational administration.

One can fully understand why the shift has transpired. The rate of development, sophistication and indeed rate of change and level of uncertainty associated with the ICT, coupled with the added responsibilities being loaded on to the principalship, has made it extremely difficult for principals to carry the ‘new’ responsibility.

However the research over the past decade has made it very clear that unless the prime responsibility for ICT is with the principal and is treated as an integral facet of school operations there is little chance of the vast investment in ICT improving student attainment.

Ironically it is the sophistication of the ICT that should make it that much easier for the shift to occur and for the principalship to once again take responsibility.

Present Situation

The vast majority of principals, particularly in the larger secondary and K-12 schools, have devolved, formally or informally, the deployment of ICT to either the ICT coordinator or business manager.

At the system level, in both the state and independent school sectors, the same kind of shift has occurred. The ‘ICT experts’ decide on the choice of the technology, how it will be installed and used, who will have access and when it will be replaced.

The daily responsibility for ICT has shifted away from the principalship - the educational leadership - to the technical or business leader.

As the investment by schools in ICT has grown and other demands on the principals’ educational expertise have increased, so we have witnessed a virtual institutionalising of the shift of responsibility for ICT to the non-educators.

Look at any conference or seminar that has to do with ICT. The propensity is to delegate that involvement to an ICT expert’.

Most ‘roll outs’ of ICT are handled by the ICT middle managers at the system and school level.

Examine the global media releases of the technology companies and invariably it will be the school or system ICT Coordinator who is quoted.

It is appreciated that there are a significant number of principals who have not, and would not devolve responsibility for ICT from the principalship, and the educational leadership. They will invariably have excellent ICT staff and teaching staff well versed in the use of ICT, but they remain in charge of the in-principle decisions.

The one major variation to the shift in the responsibility for ICT is within the primary school sector. There the size of the school and the staff, the organisational structure and the holistic nature of the education provided, all contribute to most principals playing a central role in the deployment of ICT.

It should then be no surprise that the initial successful whole of school deployments of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) should have happened within primary schools. The principalship should look at the primary situation for the way forward for all other levels of schooling.

Perhaps the most important lesson to emerge from the path-finding primary schools is that the principal, as the prime educational architect, must oversee the wise educational use of the technology.

The effect of shifting the responsibility for ICT away from the principalship has been to see little or no enhancement in the quality of teaching or improvement in student learning.

In the UK where there is an immense investment in IWBs for schools, there is a growing number of critics who are concerned with the preoccupation with the rollout of the technology, and that too little is being done to address the whole of school integration of the technology, school change or the use of the technology to markedly improve the teaching.

The lesson for the rest of the world is plain to see.

The Way Forward

ICT will only ever improve student attainment when it is viewed as an integral part of the total teaching and learning process and its responsibility firmly entrusted to the principalship.

The wise educational use of ICT is first and foremost an educational issue. The current technology, like the many forms that preceded it, is simply a tool to assist to enhance the richness of teaching.

Although far more powerful and sophisticated than the technology that preceded it, ICT is only another educational tool and needs to be viewed as such.

The key to any improved student attainment is a lift in the richness and effectiveness of the teaching.

Unless the chosen technology, be it film, video, laptops or interactive whiteboards, is used in a way that enhances the effectiveness, one should not expect any significant improvement in student attainment.

The challenge is to learn from the lead provided by the path-finding schools around the world.

The Lessons

In all the path finding deployments of IWBs, the principals have taken responsibility for the implementation of the IWBs and the integration of the tools into the school’s educational program.

All those principals are first and foremost very good school principals with the appropriate leadership attributes.

Few are what you would term ICT experts. They have a sound appreciation of the technology.

One of the great attributes of IWBs is that while they are a highly sophisticated piece of technology the sophistication has been used to make them exceptionally simple to use – and in turn to make it very easy to realise how they can be deployed educationally.

All the principals have grasped how the technology can be used to enhance teaching and learning and what they need to do to help harness that opportunity.

They have an educational vision for the use of the technology and are ensuring the educational vision sets the agenda and not the technology per se.

All have enough understanding of the technology to appreciate the changes they need to make to the school’s budget, staff development program, pedagogy, curriculum and classroom management and school administration to harness the undoubted power of the technology.

All have very good people skills and know how to delegate while at the same time remaining in charge.

All have appreciated they needed a project manager, a ‘CIO’, a member of the teaching staff with a strong educational background to take operational responsibility for the whole of school implementation and integration of the IWBs and related technology.

All have been prepared to back their educational judgement and their belief that deployed wisely, this technology can add immeasurably to the education of their students.

IWBNet has built on these experiences and its own research and published the School Leaders IWB Guide.

Conclusion

The reality is that unless the principal has prime responsibility for ICT and uses the ICT in a way to enhance the teaching of all the teachers, there is scant chance of the school’s investment in ICT improving student attainment.

If the deployment of ICT is left to the ‘ICT experts’ – and is not integrated into everyday teaching and learning – the school will invariably waste its very considerable outlay on ICT and the opportunity to markedly improve the learning of its students.