A principal who gets it!
Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Tim Tyson, the principal of Mabry Middle School. I had blogged about his take on Friedman’s book, The World is Flat on an earlier post, He thinks it is essential
reading for every parent of every child at Mabry Middle School and
should even be required reading for most of the students, at least in
the 8th grade. Hear! Hear!
We had
connected through our blogs and exchanged a couple of emails but it was
really nice to talk to him about blogging and other aspects of
technology. If you have not taken a look at mabry online
you need to do so. Right at the top there is a link to Under the Hood
of Our Website…. One excerpt from this explanation:
One of the key features of the website is that the overwhelming majority of it is built from blogs. Additionally, each of the teachers at Mabry has his/her own blog
which links from our site through the top navigation bar. We strongly
encourage you to syndicate each of your student’s teachers’ blogs as
well as Dr. Tyson’s, the counselors, and the Media Center’s blogs.
Syndication is really very simple and brings the most currently posted
information directly to your computer rather than your having to go to
each blog to see if new information has been posted.
There’s even a printout that
readers can print that gives a flow chart of the organization. I love
how all this is explained for readers. Dr. Tyson is not only educating
his students but the public as well.
Podcast Central features
several podcasts from Dr. Tyson. His explanations are outstanding. He
explains everything they would need to know to understand this
technology. He has podcasts of his open house and challenges to students. The section I really love is Kid Capacity. Voices from the students are heard. Stephen and Stephanie have
kicked it off and their podcasts are well worth hearing. Dr. Tyson is a
principal who gets it and is putting it in the hands of the students!
Even with all the many good things going on, Dr. Tyson is continually
thinking
ahead to other initiiatives…… a global collaborative, kids writing
their own textbook, and other ideas to empower students in many
innovative and creative ways. We need more leaders like Dr. Tyson!
September 25th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Wait a sec., isn’t a primary message of The World Is Flat that many kinds of intellectual work will be lower paid and less secure in the future? Isn’t the rational response of an individual parent or child to NOT go into science, radiology, accounting, and pretty much anything else that can be moved offshore? Luckily, at least this bodes well for the quality of people becoming teachers.