Blog Post #8: Interview Reactions

For me, the most salient points in John Burns’s interview (Boll, 2015) center around taking a closer, deeper look at your own organization and finding ways to work better together in order to make connections.  He mentions that these connections can be made by 'deprivatizing' practice and having a deliberate plan on how to scale change.  Aspects such as robust learning environments, a technical infrastructure, and a willing and capable faculty are all crucial to 'deprivatizing' practices and scaling innovation. At Singapore American School (SAS), we have all three of those components, so why is authentic and consistent technology integration only happening in pockets or still seem a bit haphazard?  I would argue that there is very little sharing of practices vertically across the school,  One way John Burns mentions in his interview to build better community and a sharing of practices, internally and externally, is through social media.  SAS does have a hashtag and teachers do post, but it seems to always be a small select group of teachers that post and learn from each other.  Our school is so large, it is hard to keep up with everything that is happening, but with tools such as Twitter it is possible.  I will admit that even though my office is on the 2nd grade hallway, I learn the most about what they are doing through Twitter.  If SAS coaches were to build a greater online community of teachers sharing, I believe practices would become more 'deprivatized' and teachers would be more connected at our school.  I try to encourage and promote change by using social media as a platform to highlight teachers’ practices that are compelling evidence in support of a new change, innovation, or initiative happening at SAS.