Technology as a Leadership Tool

Information is the framework connecting technology, leadership, and the common work of education, namely, responsive situational decision making. Decisions are based upon some form of information perceived, taken in, and acted upon. The ways that administrators and teachers process information is the variable associated with effective educational leadership. Schools are effective to the extent that they provide access to information at the time and place it is needed. Psychologist Edwin Deming's premise that the quality of a product is directly influenced by the frequency of informed interaction between a caring worker and that product can be applied to education. Feedback about the effects of previous decisions is probably the most valuable information in educational decision-making. Isolated practitioners (one teacher in a classroom, one principal in a building, one superintendent in a district) have restricted access to such data for self-correction. Ways to help generate and gain access to these types of information are being explored to help individual decisionmakers generate learnings from their own experiences, to orient and align their decisions to those of others in the organization, to break down the invisible limits on what is perceived as acceptable and possible, and to facilitate self-correction. Technology can provide ways to make needed information more comprehensive and accessible. Practical non-futuristic methods are available to provide this access through telecommunications and computer technologies. (ALL)