How do you gauge your success?

Over the last few months I have been working with several schools as they look to develop their strategic plans for future development in eLearning. As a facilitator my role is  pose questions and  scenarios, challenge thinking, prompt the exploration of possible options and in some cases suggest alternatives. As I work with schools I always reflect on these questions:

• what guides and determines decision making?
• what strategies are available for exploring options, considering possibilities, future thinking?
• what opportunities are available for professional dialogue? Do these opportunities foster and promote the dispositions of 21st century learning - collaboration, critical reflection, risk taking and open-mindedness to assist them build capacity from within?
• how do schools know what they don't know? What systems and processes do schools have to keep up to date and informed of new initiatives, trends, opportunities? 
• what other networks are available to assist this school on their journey?
• whose plan is it?

At the end of the planning development session I like to take time to critically review my performance.  I am proud of my role in the process when a school is  empowered to implement their strategic plan. At that point I become somewhat redundant.  I am available for support, but I am not the driver, the impetus for development comes from within. In many ways effective facilitation is like doing yourself out of a job. When empowerment is the focus, redundancy is a measure of success.
However, the ultimate success is when the same school invites you back to facilitate the next stage of strategic planning and development.

Are you ready for this?

I recently caught up with some of my 'nearest and dearest' and had the pleasure of observing my great nephew as he contemplated the differences between technologies. He had been playing a game on an iPad and then switched to watch a DVD on a portable DVD player. I watched with interest as he pinched and expanded his fingers, on the screen, in an attempt to make the screen bigger. As a two year old he has already identified some of the key functions, similarities and differences between technologies. He knows which technologies to use for particular functions.

I have reflected on this over the last couple of days and I wonder - 'Are we ready for him?' As a two year old he has another three years of pre-school learning before he enters his first primary school. Imagine how much knowledge he will have developed by then.

What will his first school learning environment look, sound, feel like? Will we have learning programmes, that are personalised and designed

• to build on his existing knowledge, fostering new knowledge
• to challenge his thinking and stimulate his inquiring mind
• to capture and foster his creativity
• to promote the dispositions of 21st century learning eg. collaboration, risk taking, open-mindedness, reflection
• to integrate technology seamlessly and discerningly

He will be expecting this. Will we have the capacity and capability to deliver?