Emerging technologies in global communication - CiteSeerX

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Emerging technologies in global communication Using appreciative inquiry to improve the preparation of school administrators Raymond L. Calabrese Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, USA

B.E. Roberts Scunthorpe, UK

Scott McLeod Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA

Rae Niles Apple, Cupertino, California, USA

Kelly Christopherson Eston Composite School, Eston, Canada

Paviter Singh Schools Division, Ministry of Education, Singapore, Indonesia, and

Miles Berry Alton Convent Preparatory, Alton, UK Abstract

International Journal of Educational Management Vol. 22 No. 7, 2008 pp. 696-709 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0951-354X DOI 10.1108/09513540810908593

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how practitioners from Canada, the UK, Singapore, and the USA, university educational administration faculty from the USA, and the editor of a premier international journal of educational management engaged in a collaborative process to discover how to improve the preparation and practice of educational administration on a global basis. Design/methodology/approach – An appreciative inquiry theoretical research perspective was used to discover a positive core of experiences that could add to cultural proficiency as it relates to educational administration. Findings – In each cultural context, the central nature of the highpoint stories focused on appreciative ways to work with other people. The stories suggest that relationships and collaboration are at the heart of an educational administrator’s practice. It was discovered that twenty-first century educational administrators operating in a global context believed that they could become difference makers in education. Originality/value – The findings from this study provide encouragement for extended global collaboration for practicing educational administrators as well as those who are responsible for their preparation. The findings also suggest that using collaborative technologies in the framework of a cross-cultural educator partnership can enhance the preparation and practice in educational administration programs. Keywords Globalization, Cross-cultural studies, Educational administration, Narratives, Communication technologies Paper type Research paper

Practitioners from Canada, the UK, Singapore, and the USA, university educational administration faculty from the USA, and the editor of a premier international journal of educational management engaged in a collaborative process to discover how to enhance the preparation and practice of educational administration on a global basis. What can we learn about educational administration practice from researchers and practitioners in the field of educational administration who represent these three continents and four countries? Through our computer-mediated collaboration and formal conference conversations, we used an appreciative inquiry (AI) theoretical research perspective to discover a positive core of experiences that could add to our cultural proficiency as it relates to educational administration. Our collaboration promoted a deeper sense of social and cultural proficiency that was characterized by our ability to work well as a diverse group representing cross-cultural backgrounds, to respond with respect, and to value, and learn from each other (Hawley, 2006). Our collaboration segued into a community of practice (CoP) that explored the positive core of experiences from a cross-cultural perspective of preparation and practice of educational administrators. The notion of CoP fits with the concept of cultural proficiency and with our AI theoretical research perspective (Bruce and Easley, 2000; Wenger, 1991). AI is the search for the best in people, their organizations and the context in which they live and work (Cooperrider et al., 2003). AI is grounded in social constructionism, image theory, and grounded research (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2003). AI is a form of action research, developed as a response to the perceived problem solving orientation trend of contemporary action research (Egan and Lancaster, 2005). Since AI’s inception in the late 1980s decade, it has evolved as a methodology and as a theoretical research perspective. As a methodology, AI employs a collaborative 4D cycle: discovery, dream, design, and destiny. The AI process provides for several forms of engagement depending on the number of participants ranging from small learning teams comprised of fewer than 30 people to whole groups comprised of thousands of participants. Whatever form of involvement, the participants interactively participate in four distinct stages (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2003). The purpose of an AI methodology is to facilitate participant focus on positive successes in the past and to envision positive future outcomes. AI also serves as a theoretical research perspective. As a theoretical research perspective, the purpose of inquiry is considered fateful since the line of inquiry determines the outcome of the inquiry (Bruck and Weber, 2000; Frantz, 1998). In that sense, an appreciative line of inquiry asks questions to discover, value, and cultivate generative growth in humans and their organizations (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). AI focuses inquiry into the positive core of an organization, linking the positive core of the past to positive images of the future (Thatchenkery, 1999). In effect, AI promotes a collaborative, whole group effort to identify and describe what works through sharing of past successes, highpoint experiences, and by appreciating what it is about the organization and its participants that are worthy of replication in much the same way that Maslow asked, “What makes a human being good?” We sought to apply an AI into educational administrator practice from a global perspective by sharing our highpoint stories. As educational administrator practitioners

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and university faculty, we sought to discover, from a cross-cultural perspective, highpoint experiences related to practice. We then sought to extrapolate the cross-cultural lessons for global application to improve practice among educational administrators. In the following sections, we present seven cross-cultural highpoint experience stories. We first present the stories of current school administrators and follow with the stories of university faculty. We conclude with a discussion of the cross-cultural lessons for improving preparation and practice among educational administrators on a global basis. Bringing a community together – reflection of a school principal, Canada[1] As an in-school administrator, many of my professional events are linked to what happens within our school. Sometimes, they embrace my school’s community. Two years ago, a young man committed suicide at the end of Easter break. His suicide was devastating and ripped the community apart. During that time, many people blamed the school for his suicide, and as the in-school administrator, they suggested I played a part in this horrific event. After dealing with the immediate issues surrounding the student’s suicide, I reflected on how to prevent such a thing from happening again as well as how to heal the pain between the school and the community. I believed that anything the school did that focused solely on the school might be misinterpreted. Instead, I wanted to involve the community. As a first step, I contacted the mayor to begin a dialogue to address this issue as well as other school and community issues. Together, we decided that a meeting involving all organizations in the town would be an important first step. We secured a venue, contacted organizations, and asked resource groups from outside the community to participate. Over the next few months, a planning group met to discuss how to address the issues and problems within the community. During this time, the mayor resigned leaving the leadership of the planning group to me. The planning group met monthly and began to make progress. Our greatest success was organizing a “Get a life day” for our high school Grades 11 and 12. Students from our school and surrounding schools attended a serious of workshops that covered the following topics: . moving from home to living by yourself; . resumes and interviews; . organizing finances and balancing a budget; . renting and rent information; . a global perspective of the economy; and . self-esteem on your own. The day concluded with professionals who represented various professions discussing their occupation with students. The health district, school, and local organizations sponsored this event. Feedback was positive; it included a number of suggestions that the “Get a life day” take place each year. This school division adopted the event and made it a division-wide event for all students in the school-division.

The devastating event of the student’s suicide led to people believing that we could do something if we worked together. During our first meeting this year, we decided to hold a public informational meeting, inviting all members of the community. We plan to discuss our successes from the previous years and establish plans for events that the community believes are important. Moreover, we are continuing discussions to organize a youth center that will be available for youth during the weekend. From the tragic event two years ago, we are witnessing the beginning of a school and community partnership. It has become something where the community and school are working as partners. Our goal is to work with other organizations to better the life of people in the community.

School reorganisation – bringing divergent groups together, UK[2] One aspect of my administrative role in the UK as a director for a local council area was to oversee school reorganisations and to deliver the change that ensued. This was not a comfortable process for those not ready for change; yet, on many occasions, I had to assess future needs, discuss options for change, and plan accordingly with them. In one particular area, there were two schools separated by a playing field. These schools served two different primary age ranges. Each school was a legally established separate entity that required a specific legal course of action if changes to their status occurred. Neither of the original two school buildings was capable of coping with the whole number of pupils. The larger of the two school buildings may have been able to handle enrolment in future years; however, in the short-term, it would be necessary to establish one school in two different buildings. The result was less parental resistance to the change because the younger children would continue to attend the building they were used to attending. I consulted with the schools to help determine if a merger should occur. I held three separate meetings on two evenings in each school with parents, staff, union representatives for both teachers and other staff, and governors of each school. An independent clerk carefully maintained minutes of each meeting to ensure accurate records. Inevitably, there was some hostility. One school staff appeared open minded, but nervous. The other was hostile – fueled by a small number of staff. The process was complicated because a recent inspection at the larger school resulted in some issues that needed to be resolved in the near future. The headteacher at this school was unable to be present during this inspection due to illness (he subsequently retired) exacerbating the situation. Having completed my consultation, I reported to the local area councils. They decided that the schools should merge. They appointed a board of governors for the new school. This led to the appointment of the new headteacher – who was the headteacher of the smaller school – and now the only substantive headteacher for both schools. The headteacher agreed to new staffing structures and policies with the shadow governing body. Most staff continued in similar roles to those they had fulfilled before the change occurred. Subsequently, after an extremely hard work period of holding staff and premises together, staff entered a more positive phase and demonstrated a greater sense of purpose resulting with an inspection that turned out to be more positive than before. The success of this school with a new name included a


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workable new structure and staff who had a new sense of purpose that they transmitted to the pupils and parents.

Wikis for homework – reflection of a school principal in the UK[3] My use of web-based technology with students helped me to link a personal vision, educational philosophy, and practical classroom experience to my work as a school administrator. My story comes from my work as a teaching deputy head (vice principal) of an independent elementary school. Philosophically, our model aspired to notions of social constructivism, collaborative learning, classroom as learning community, and independent learning. My class of 10-11 year-old girls, had previous experience of using the Moodle virtual learning environment on a daily basis. Each day’s math homework was set online as an interactive Moodle quiz accompanied by links to online resources, an interactive copy of our textbook, and a discussion forum. My pupils would sit high-stake entrance exams in January of their final year at the school, which meant that their final six months at the school provided an opportunity to broaden their curriculum beyond the confines of a traditional elementary school syllabus. For their math lessons, our focus became the applications of mathematics in many areas, from agriculture to cryptography, and included a unit on finance, both personal and corporate. My challenge was to find ways of extending the social learning that characterized my classroom further into my pupils’ home environments. I wanted to move beyond approaches normally afforded by discussion forums and chat. The pupils’ weekend homework was to take a passage I wrote that summarized our work on finance where they had to explain the meaning of the technical terms used in the summary. Instead of each pupil working independently, the passage became the starting page of a class wiki inside Moodle, with each of the terms linking to his or her empty page. My expectation was that all the pupils would contribute something to the wiki over the weekend and gradually build a shared artifact embodying their collective understanding. The students had some initial anxiety regarding the security of their homework (being potentially changed by their classmates). Their anxiety was alleviated and the homework task was successful. The keen students, logged on straightaway on the Friday evening, went for the low-hanging fruit of the easy definitions, but as the weekend progressed, it was interesting to see the more difficult vocabulary tackled by students who were doing additional research for themselves, either online or from their parents. Still others were taking time to read their peers contributions, often adding additional information or correcting spelling or grammatical errors. More interesting, was the number of students who logged back in later on in the weekend to see not only what their peers had written, but also to see how their definitions had been adapted by their classmates. When the pupils and I debriefed at school on Monday, the most interesting observations were about the way they appreciated their friends reading what they had written and improving the document through their contributions. The greater awareness of writing for an audience, and more importantly the sense of being able to trust others with one’s work, was the transformative effect on this class as a result of the weekend’s homework. Being able to bring something of the experience

of collaborative writing and peer review into elementary education was of lasting benefit. After the success of using wikis as a class, further vocabulary and research homework were set using this technology. We extended our use of wikis beyond the math curriculum. We were particularly successful using a wiki to act as a shared repository of content for the school magazine. In this venue, pupils took on a number of roles including commissioning work, writing content, and sub-editing written by their classmates. Furthermore, this experience of writing for a wiki encouraged the children to adopt a discerning attitude when using Wikipedia as a source for their research work. We also used Moodle’s wiki in our “virtual staffroom” for school policy documents, allowing for collaborative writing and editing before formal adoption. The collaborative writing and editing for an audience of one’s peers should have a place in the professional development of school leaders, and indeed in their day-to-day work. Personal wikis make a good way of keeping a collection of linked notes about any aspect of school administration, and sharing these notes with other members of the school leadership team, as well as trusted members of a wider professional network, privacy issues apart, could be an invaluable tool for collegial management. Podcasting – building student confidence – an experience in Indonesia[4] I had a student in my secondary social studies class who, every time I called on him to answer a question, would mumble to himself, look down, and wait until I asked him to sit down and passed the question on to someone else. This scene was a frequent reoccurrence – until we began podcasting in social studies class. As part of our regular lessons, I began to use podcast instead of teaching the content in a traditional manner. Students worked on podcast activities in teams of two. They had to research, construct a storyboard, and record their podcast. Then they added pictures, hyperlinks, jingles, and stingers before publishing their final product for their classmates to review. During the first of these activities, I saw one student light up. He was not a poor student; however, he was really shy, lacked confidence, and was not fluent in English. During the podcasting activities, his talents emerged. He was excellent at research and had amazing ideas on weaving the material into a wonderful, creative storyboard. His finished product was a podcast of a journalist in a war zone with his partner. He surprised everyone. His work contrasted with the rest of the class. The other students created ordinary podcasts – most were dialogues between two people. The two boys created the background sounds of a battle and did the podcast in character. It was so good, that everyone in the class was silent for the entire five and six minutes of the podcast. This was a podcast by someone whose voice I had barely heard when I used my traditional teaching pedagogy! The class conducted a vote for the best podcast. Their choice was unanimous. They awarded the two boys the top podcast award (a round of applause). This student’s experience with podcasting gave him increased confidence. From that point forward, his classmates considered him the podcast master. During our podcast activities, he would lead by asking questions, making suggestions, and helping others who had difficulty using the software. In November 2006, the news of what the students were doing with podcasts reached the state level; the ministry officials wanted to see for themselves what was happening.


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They asked me to get two students to make a presentation to about 200 officials and senior teachers. I selected this student and one other. The students were petrified when I told them they had to make this presentation; however, we worked together, planned it out for a few days (we were given a week’s notice), and then practiced the presentation. The highlight of our presentation occurred during the question and answer period. I was supposed to answer all the questions. I was surprised when this student took the microphone from me and asked if he could take the questions. I stared at him. I was shocked. This was the same student, several months ago, who could not stand in front of a class of 40 to answer a simple social studies question. Here he was, on stage, in front of 200 teachers, smiling and answering questions as if he had been doing it all his life. The preparation of educational administrators who are to be instructional leaders needs to include an understanding of the integrating of technology into the classroom and its potential for improving instruction. The educational administrators of the future will be co-learners with the students in understanding the applications of technology to an instructional setting. Changing lives: the magic of technology – reflection of a director of technology, USA[5] In my role as Director of Curriculum and Technology, I have had numerous opportunities to witness how technology influences teaching and learning. Occasionally, I witness how technology can positively affect the lives of students as well. The following is an example of how technology positively affected the lives for students and teachers at my school. During the 2006 -2007 school year, my high school hosted two female foreign exchange students: Sumi from Japan and Julianna from Hungary. This was their first visit to the USA and their first extended time away from their homes and families. During the first few days of school, Sumi and Julianna were having a difficult time adapting to life in the USA They struggled to speak English and to understand their peers and teachers. The use of traditional translation dictionaries failed and excessive pantomiming and speaking louder and slower were unsuccessful with their high-school teachers and peers. Julianna became more and more withdrawn and no amount of pantomiming could help students, teachers, or her host family understand her withdrawal. It was at this point that several caring students approached me and asked if I had any idea of how to help Julianna. I suggested we contact her family in Hungary for more information. How to contact her family was a challenge. Using the school’s telephone for an international call was expensive. So, I suggested we use Skype, an internet-based application that allows for phone calls from a computer to a computer or from a computer to a telephone, with minimal cost. Julianna and two of her friends came to my office. We “called” her home from my computer using Skype. In an instant, the audible voice came through my computer and Julianna burst into tears. Her mother spoke in her native language and as their dialogue continued, Julianna began purging herself of intense sadness and frustration. While none of us understood the conversation, we understood Julianna’s emotion. Julianna was homesick for her family in Hungary. We later learned Julianna was not

only homesick, but also clinically depressed. Using technology, we were able to connect Julianna with her mother in hungry and understand the reason for Julianna’s withdrawal. She returned to Hungary prior to the end of the semester. Although Sumi’s situation was different from Juliann’s situation, we used technology to provide a successful outcome to Sumi’s experience. Sumi was happy to be attending school in the USA. She enjoyed academics and sports. She had many friends and worked hard to please her teachers and volleyball coaches. Sumi’s challenge was language – what was being said, then having others understand her. Sumi’s USA friends asked me if I could help them with the language barrier. We tried different ideas, including using a translation dictionary and pantomiming, as well as speaking slower and louder. Nothing worked. At that point, I suggested we use technology for language translation. Each of the high-school students at my school has a wireless laptop computer. The computers are equipped with several applications. One little-used application on the students’ computers was software that translated languages. At the time, I did not know how to use the translation widget. I started by typing something similar to “Hello, Sumi. We are glad you are at our school. This computer program will help us talk to you and you talk to us,” then I hit the “translate” button. Immediately, Sumi’s expression turned from uncertainty to understanding. She quickly grabbed my computer and typed back using Japanese characters, “This is amazing! I can understand everything you say now!” There were few dry eyes in my office that morning. Since, Sumi had a student computer, we could talk to Sumi and she could talk to us. We could communicate with no language barriers. The excitement was contagious. I witnessed how technology changed the relationships Sumi had with her friends and teachers. These two experiences affirmed the importance of “thinking outside of the box.” For Julianna and Sumi, the technology closed the gap between feeling isolated to feeling included, accepted, and understood. I witnessed how administrators can use technology to benefit students. Using technology to make data driven decisions – reflection of a university faculty member, USA[6] One of the most significant professional experiences I have had in my eight-year career as an educational leadership professor was my ongoing work with my children’s elementary school in Minnesota. It started innocuously with a simple letter to the principal. I explained that my oldest daughter was starting kindergarten and that I would like to be involved as a volunteer. I wanted to do something beyond helping with field trips and the school carnival. Little did I understand how that relationship would grow over the next four years. The elementary school was a rapidly growing school in a neighborhood of new homes and new families. In a little over four years, the school grew from 400 to more than 900 students. The school was one of the district’s most ethnically diverse elementary schools. It included racial minorities, students from poverty backgrounds, English language learner, and special education populations. The principal and I decided to focus on data-driven educational practices with the teaching staff. Unlike most traditional professional development approaches that involve a high profile, daylong workshop or kickoff event, the principal and I decided to circle in from


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the side. We held a short meeting with the staff. We asked each grade-level team to use their year-end assessment scores to identify one key area of weakness for their students. We then asked how they might do a quick check-in during the year to see if students were making satisfactory progress on that skill to be where they needed to be by the end of the year. At that moment, powerful learning began. Teachers immediately realized they could not agree on what a high-quality common assessment would be for their students, even on one single key skill (which each group had identified readily). They were not only frustrated, but also somewhat embarrassed, and the conversations that occurred over the next few months were phenomenal. They began to reexamine core assumptions that had gone unchallenged for years. Once each team reached agreement on how they would assess their students, I made data collection and analysis templates for them in Microsoft Excel. The templates were set up so they could easily drop in formative assessment numbers and then immediately get to dynamic pivot charts that allowed them to “slice and dice” their data any way they wanted. Once teams entered a couple rounds of data, the building technology integrationist and I showed them how to use the charts. It only took about ten minutes, most teams were eager to dive into their data and talk about what they were seeing. A few teams were hesitant at first, but with some assistance and prodding from the principal, they were running smoothly within a couple of months. Then it got interesting. Some teams immediately saw the power of the technology. They began asking for more templates, or tweaks to existing templates, as they identified additional items they wanted to track. Other teachers, who were initially hesitant, took a little longer; but they too began seeing that the regular collection of data that they identified as important, along with an easy way to store and analyze those data, had great power for them. They were off to the races. My relationship with the teachers became more synergistic as time passed. The teachers’ data-driven orientation and practice exploded. The teachers continued to ask me for more and more sophisticated spreadsheet templates. Their conversations became richer, and their instructional interventions became more data-centered. They began making significant changes in student grouping practices, early identification procedures, and assessment practices. They completely rethought parts of their curricula and began identifying “target” students by name that required ongoing attention, discussion, and care at the beginning of each school year. They began asking for specialized training in formative assessment, setting measurable goals, or instructional techniques. I began showing them some useful Excel skills to decrease their dependency on me for progress monitoring tools. Results on standardized tests showed their progress quite clearly. The school went from middle-of-the-district in terms of student performance to one of the district’s top five elementary schools. The school became the model for the district regarding effective data-driven practices. The staff and principal received a great deal of well-deserved acclaim. One of the best moments of our work occurred when the principal said: We’ve been redoing our schools’ mission statement and values. The staff insisted, without any prompting on my part that we include a statement that we are a building that regularly collects data and uses it to improve student learning because they want to ensure that new staff know what we’re all about.

Recalling my highlight experience reminded me that principals are called to be productive data-driven workers. They are visionary leaders who know how to gently, but firmly, encourage teachers. I also learned about the importance of the technology as one of the driving forces for data-related reform efforts. What is holding many teachers back is not reluctance to change their ways or fear of what the data will show, but the fact that they do not have a simple way to collect and manage their data. The spreadsheet templates made all the difference when it came to helping the staff realize that data-driven decision-making was possible. A barrio school – reflection of a university faculty member, USA[7] When I was a faculty member at a university in Texas, USA, a former student of mine, Maria Martinez, was appointed to her first principal’s position. Maria’s elementary school was located in the center of the city’s barrios. This urban school was the lowest academically performing elementary school in the district. Moreover, the area surrounding the school was a breeding ground for drugs, violence, and other forms of crime. In effect, the situation for students, faculty, and parents, seemed hopeless. The school’s faculty was rife with dissention. They saw parents from a deficit-based perspective: according to faculty, the parents were poor, uneducated, unable to speak English, and did not care about their children. Faculty did not attempt to foster a partnership with parents in this Spanish-speaking community in order to create an outstanding education for the children in a safe and nurturing environment. Maria was full of confidence when she assumed the principalship. After two days as principal, the honeymoon was over, a faculty grievance shattered her confidence; darkness enveloped the school. Maria called me on the evening of the third day and said, “You have to work with my teachers. I do not know where to begin, or, what to do.” She wanted help in changing a school culture where teachers were pitted against the administration, parents, and each other. She wanted students to come to school because they enjoyed learning instead of complying with the state attendance laws. The next day, I traveled from my middle class neighborhood to the west side of the city. I exited the highway and turned onto the streets leading me to Maria’s school. I pulled into the parking lot. The school building was uninviting. The school yard was surrounded with high fences. As I walked into the building, I wondered how anyone could tolerate this situation. The school was old, out of date, and smelled of wax and oil. After a lengthy conversation with Maria, I agreed to work with her on one condition; she and her teachers would meet with me each week during the fall semester for 45 minutes each session. Maria responded, “Can you begin next week?” The teachers and Maria sat in a circle. I began by asking them to recall a story of a teacher who made a difference in their lives. They looked at each other and were somewhat reluctant. Then, one by one, their stories unfolded. Some teachers cried as they told their stories. Their personal stories began to break down barriers that separated them. Instead of demonizing each other and the administration, they began to see others much like themselves. That was the beginning. Over the next 12 weeks, I introduced relaxation techniques and scripted visualizations to begin each session. During each session, teachers recalled successful events of the previous week. By week 10, Maria and her faculty were working well together. They collaborated without my assistance; they designed a strategic


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plan, formed working partnerships with parents, and visited families in the barrio. The teachers openly encouraged parents to come to school and meet with them. Teachers were excited to use their new knowledge. They taught their students to relax and to visualize success before taking the state assessments. I do not make a causality claim; yet, when the assessment scores were published, the school was no longer considered a low-performing school. It moved off the low-performing school list. The school became a model elementary school for the school district. Effective educational administration preparation programs integrate the knowledge of how people work well together into the preparation of educational administrators. Educational administrators are provided a technical knowledge base and taught to raise aspirations and provide hope, and to become the catalyst to ignite the fire to make the dreams of students, faculty, and parents become a reality. Discussion Educational administration practitioners, university faculty in educational administration, and the editor of an International Journal of Educational Management representing three continents and four countries, participated in this AI into educational administration preparation and practice. We shared highpoint stories from our practice. We also discussed our stories at the 2007 annual convention of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) that focused on educational administration preparation and practice. Our educational experiences were separated by distance and cultural context; yet, two common themes emerged from our shared narratives. Theme one: relationships and collaboration In each cultural context, the central nature of our highpoint stories focused on appreciative ways to work with other people. Our stories suggest that relationships and collaboration are at the heart of an educational administrator’s practice. The educational administrator enters into a common space with other people and is open to a shared journey. In this shared journey, the educational administrator may intervene to provide relief as in the case of the foreign exchange students. It may be in the form of liberation where the educational administrator’s relational work facilitates or encourages a student or teacher to achieve a new level of competence as in the case of the shy student embracing podcasting or assisting teachers to make data driven decisions. Our stories suggested that the work of the educational administrator does not direct or tell the student or teacher what to do, instead the educational administrator and student or teacher form a relationship and work together in a beneficial way. In some cases, the educational administrator was the leader of the collaboration, in other cases the educational administrator was the facilitator of the collaboration, and in all cases, the collaboration produced a greater good that affected the Gestalt of the organization. When educational administrators collaborate with those within and without their domain, they collectively solve problems, invent new ways of addressing challenges, create paradigms, build models, and achieve desired outcomes. Collaboration is a normal activity for adults. It is an important aspect of adult learning theory (Garmston, 1997).

In our highpoint stories, an educational administrator collaborated with two, seemingly divided, school communities. This administrator collected information related to the school communities and helped them reach a fair decision to form a single school unit. An educational administrator collaborated with a principal and a divided and divisive faculty in an urban barrio school. This administrator listened to the principal and faculty and helped them to understand the importance of working together and with parents in their poor neighborhood to improve the education of their children. And, a principal collaborated with his school and community. Through collaboration, this principal assumed responsibility, valued others’ viewpoints, and used a tragedy that affected his school and community to bring a community together to better meet the needs of high-school students. Theme two: applications of technology Technology is an important aspect for preparation of educational administrators as well as providing ongoing professional development of current educational administrator practitioners. Our highpoint stories provided multiple examples of the virtual collaboration nature of our work. Virtual collaboration allows us to engage in learning through technology. Virtual collaborations occur when people, working as a team, function interdependently. They share responsibility for what the team achieves. Although separated by time, space, and location, they rely on computer-mediated collaboration to work toward achieving common goals (Haythornthwaite, 2005). We used computermediated collaboration to share our highpoint stories. Moreover, we used computer-mediated collaboration as part of our presentation at the UCEA convention. Participants from Singapore and Canada attended vis-a`-vis the application of web-based cameras and joined those who traveled to the convention site. In our highpoint stories, an educational administrator used technology to unite foreign exchange students with their parents. This administrator collaborated online to raise awareness of a student’s critical health issue and for facilitating communication. Conclusion The participants obtained several important lessons from our shared highpoint stories. We discovered that knowledge gained in educational administration programs had to be informed by compassion and passion. We recognized when faculty and administrators collaborate and share stories of success, barriers are broken. And, we understood that a primary function of educational administration programs is to form difference makers. In essence, we saw twenty-first century educational administrators operating in global context who believed that they could become difference makers in education. We illustrate the importance of remembering the fundamental core of the work of educators: human development and growth (Monroe and Obidah, 2004). The human nature of educational administration indicates that we begin with the relational aspects of education as suggested by Noddings (1992). The preparation of educational administrators begins, centers, and concludes with the centrality of the educational administrator’s relationships. To form collaborative relationships based in respect and trust that evolve into increased social capital is at the heart of the enterprise. Computer-mediated collaboration is an important way to enhance the application of knowledge, performance skills, and construction of caring relationships for educational administrators.


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Notes 1. Contributed by Mr Kelly Christopherson, Principal, Eston Composite School, Eston, Saskatchewan, Canada. 2. Contributed by Dr B.E. Roberts, Editor/Professor, International Journal of Educational Management, UK. Dr Roberts’ story occurred when he was Deputy Chief Education Officer. 3. Contributed by Miles Berry, Head, Alton Convent Preparatory, UK. 4. Paviter Singh, Special Assistant, Schools Division, Ministry of Education, Singapore, Indonesia. 5. Contributed by Dr Rae Niles, National Professional Development Assistant Manager for Apple, USA. 6. Contributed by Scott McLeod, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Iowa State University, USA. 7. Contributed by Dr Raymond Calabrese, Professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA.

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