Digital Leadership

 Digital Leadership

What do you envisage digital leadership to be? Leave your comments below.

According to Sheninger, (2022) the seven pillars of Digital Leadership are:

1. Public Relations
2. Communication
3. Professional Growth
4. Student Engagement and Learning
5. Branding
6. Opportunity
7. Re-envisioning Learning Spaces and Environments

1. Public Relations

Leaders can construct the foundation of a positive public relations platform using free social media tools to create a positive school image. For example, the school's Facebook page.

 

2. Communication

Stakeholders can be provided with relevant and important information speedily through various devices.

 

3. Professional Growth

Leaders can form their own Personal Learning Network (PLN) and Professional Learning Communities (PLC) to meet the diverse learning needs, acquire resources, access knowledge, receive feedback, connect with both experts in the field of education as well as practitioners, and discuss proven strategies to improve teaching, learning, and leadership.

 

4. Student Engagement/ Learning

Through the effective and efficient integration of technology, students who were uninterested can become engaged. This way improved student achievement can be realised. Real life situations are required to ensure learning is meaningful and students are acquiring skills which they can use outside of school. This is an important pedagogical shift as it focuses on enhancing essential skill sets—communication, collaboration, creativity, media literacy, global connectedness, critical thinking, and problem-solving – that society demands.

 

5. Branding

School should be viewed as business places, and as such the value of the brand and its impact on current and potential consumers must be understood. The creation of a positive brand through communication and public relations can help to attract and retain families when looking for a place to send their children to school.

 

 

6. Opportunity

It is imperative for leaders to purposefully ascertain ways to improve existing programmes, resources, and professional development. Digital leaders should utilise connections to improve the school.

 

7. Re-envisioning Learning Spaces and Environments

As educational leaders comprehend these pillars, the next step is to transform existing learning spaces and environments to simulate real world scenarios using technology. 

Digital Technology Infrastructure

 Digital Technology Infrastructure

Digital Technology Infrastructure has four areas of concentration:

• Procurement and maintenance of digital devices and other technology resources
• Internet connectivity
• Digital safety, digital security, online safety
• Technical support

These areas are sorely lacking at Milton Lynch Primary and once improved will lead to improved student performances. This strand of the digital strategy address the ISTE Standard for leaders of being system designers and an equity and citizenship advocate. 

What are your thoughts on the importance of these four areas? 

Digital Literacy and Capacity

 Digital Literacy and Capacity

What is Digital Literacy? Here is a short video about it. You are free to share your understanding of the term in the comments section.

    According to USAID, (2022, p.9), digital literacy is defined as "the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate, and create information safely and appropriately through digital devices and networked technologies." In addition, digital capacity is having the requisite knowledge and skills need to effectively and efficiently use various digital devices and services. 

Digital Literacy and Capacity has five tenets:

• Digital skills and competences for teaching staff and students 
• Digital tools, subject content and pedagogy 
• Teaching, learning and assessment 
• Professional development 
• PLN and PLC

Brief Sporting History

Sporting History

Milton Lynch Primary School has been and continues to be a major sporting school throughout the various sporting disciplines offered to primary schools. 

• Cricket - The team is a regular up to the stage of Quarterfinals, on a couple occasions we have made it to the Semis and Finals of the Herman Griffith Cricket Competition.
• Athletics - At the zonal meet of the National Primary School Athletics Competition (NAPSAC) we are usually in the top three. 
• Football - Similar to cricket, we usually reach the Quarterfinals stage and on a couple of occasions have gone on to the Semis and Finals of the Bico Football Competition.
• Chess - This sport has seen our greatest achievements, as we are the perennial champions and runners up in the Competitions. We usually enter two teams, and the battle for supremacy is between them.

Special mention must be made of Thierry Thomas who placed 2nd out of 200 competitors in the just concluded Trevor Straughn Memorial Cross Country, held on Thursday 1st December, 2022. He along with his three team mates ensured the successful sporting history of the school continued by placing 3rd in the team component of the race out of the 50 plus schools to participate.

Several alumni have garnered success in the discipline of cricket. Raphael Lovell was successful in leading the Barbados Under 15 team to another regional title at that age level in 2022. Johan Layne was a member of the West Indies Under 19 team at the latest edition of the youth World Cup here in the Caribbean in 2022. The most notable alumni of the school is Carlos Brathwaite, who was instrumental in the West Indies securing their 2nd T20 World Title in 2016. Mr. Brathwaite hit four sixes in the final over off Ben Stokes of England to win the final and the World Title for the West Indies.