Technology Leadership through Social Capital: People Moving Technology

Yeo Hong Mui, Tan Tai Huat, Lee Peck Ping.

9th World Convention of the International Confederation of Principals Singapore
2009

Abstract

This paper describes how leadership can augment the growth of social capital in
building technological innovations in a school. Broadly conceptualized, it first
explores the inter-connectedness between resource allocation and staff support,
linking critical decision points with measured risk and true innovation under the
auspices of a direction without a roadmap (Owen P, 2004). When teachers
come together to make sense of technology for learning in a safe, enriched
environment for experimentation, social capital is created The leadership in
harnessing the passion of niche groups of teachers through developmental
assignments and recognition is an important factor towards breaking new
frontiers. The differentiated expertise of teachers is also crucial in the generation
of new ideas, a natural outcome of social and networked environments rich
semiotic and intelligent environments in which everything speaks (Peters M,
2009). The success of the community of practice linking teachers to one another,
increasing participation, encouraging reciprocity, and thereby fostering social
capital (Arnold M, 2003) is also studied. Illustrated with specific examples of the
initiatives undertaken by a young junior college in Singapore, the paper traces
how social capital can be created and proposes an implementation model to
facilitate systemic permeation of technology integration in education through the
augmentation of social capital.

Key Words: community of practice social capital education technology

innovation distributed leadership leadership

INTRODUCTION

The positive relationship between social capital and education, was first mooted
(Woolcock and Narayan 2000) by Lyda J. Hanifan, then the superintendent of
schools in West Virginia, in her writing on how community participation enhances
school performance.

" If [an individual comes] into contact with his neighbor, and they with other
neighbors, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately
satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the
substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community." (Hanifan,
Lyda J. 1916:130)
However, it was the work of Robert D. Putnam (1993; 2000) that launched social
capital as a popular focus for research and policy discussion. (Smith 2007).
Putnam has elegantly pointed out the difference between physical capital, human
capital and social capital (Smith 2001, 2007)

Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to
the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among
individuals social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness
that arise from them Putnam (2000: 19)

Cohen & Prusak (2001) further elaborated on social capital as social

connections and networks that are embedded in interactions among people and
fostered by trust and shared understandings, values and behaviours that enable
cooperative action and that high social capital supports collaboration.

Though the concept of social capital has gained much prominence, the effects of
social capital may be easily overlooked in any given situation in organizational
design simply because they are ubiquitous (Frank, Zhao and Borman, 2004)

As rightly pointed out in the same article, educators are too often absorbed on
producing new curricula and training teachers, thereby losing sight that schools
are fundamentally social organizations. (Ibid) School leaders actions and
directions, should thus work towards enhancing the social processes within
schools.

It is therefore the intention of this paper to share some of our experiences and
point out the importance of actions and directions that are needed from school
leaders in engineering an environment where the growth of social capital is
consciously nurtured, particularly in building technological innovations in a school
as well as how social capital augmentation impacts the Adoption Cycle (Moore
1991) Broadly conceptualized, the inter-connectedness between resource
allocation and staff support is emphasized, with the school leadership linking
critical decision points with measured risk and true innovation under the auspices
of a direction without a roadmap (Owen P, 2004). When teachers come
together to make sense of technology for learning in a safe, enriched
environment for experimentation, social capital is created The leadership in
harnessing the passion of niche groups of teachers through developmental
assignments and recognition is an important factor towards breaking new
frontiers. The differentiated expertise of teachers is also crucial in the generation
of new ideas, a natural outcome of social and networked environments rich
semiotic and intelligent environments in which everything speaks (Peters M,
2009). The success of the community of practice linking teachers to one another,
increasing participation, encouraging reciprocity, and thereby fostering social
capital (Arnold M, 2003) is also studied. Illustrated with specific examples of the
initiatives undertaken by a young junior college in Singapore, the paper traces
how social capital can be created and proposes an implementation model to
facilitate systemic permeation of technology integration in education through the
augmentation of social capital.

BRIEF BACKGROUND OF THE JUNIOR COLLEGE (JC) UNDER DISCUSSION

Innova started its operation in 2005. One of the authors of this paper, Yeo H.M.,
has helmed the JC since its inception. In 2004, she had the opportunity to
interview teachers who expressed interest in joining the new JC through the
annual open posting exercise. Through this interview, she recruited some of the
teachers who showed a high level of competency in using technology for
education and she also shared her vision on how the new JC make use of
technology with the interviewees.

In its first year of operation, teachers interested in the use New Media and New
Media Arts (NMA), which was a relatively new terminology in 2005, was given the
go-ahead to set up the NMA Committee where teachers could explore the use of
New Media.

By the end of its first year of operation, tablet PCs and wireless networks were
set up which enabled teachers from different disciplines to come together to
experiment with the use of inking technology afforded by the technology. Two
classes were selected for the pilot programme and the outcome of the project
was shared with the other teachers. Since then, the tablet PC programme has
been an integral feature of the JCs academic programme, involving teachers
from different subject expertise. Activities conducted ranges from innovative use
of technology to the sharing of technical and pedagogical skills among the
teachers involved. To tap on external resources, the JC also participated in the
BackPack.Net programme, jointly organized by IDA, Microsoft and MOE.

As the JC matures, she began to conduct numerous sharings with other schools,
presenting papers in local and overseas conferences, especially on research
involving the use of new media in education. In 2006, the JC successfully
applied for inclusion in the Lead ICT@Schools Scheme. In 2007, the JC was
awarded the Lenovo Award (Merit) for its use of 2nd Life in the teaching of
General Paper and the JC was also recognized as a Centre of Excellence (CoE)
for New Media at the cluster level. By 2008, the JC CoE has been further
recognized at the national level.
THE ERT MODEL

The authors used their experiences, in the capacity as school senior and middle
management, to propose a model to engineer an environment that leads to the
growth of social capital, which will form the quintessential engine for the diffusion
of the use of technology in schools.

1. The Experience and Expertise of School Leaders

School leaders, in general, would have accumulated a wealth of experience and

expertise by virtue of their wide-ranging involvement in different educational
contexts compared to that of the teachers. With more than half of Singapores
teachers aged 35 and below, the role of school leaders is especially important in
determining what constitute measured risk and true innovation (Owen P. 2004)

The skillful leader will have to exercise judgement to decide on the potential of an
endeavour and the right amount of resources to be invested, at the same time
empower the champions of the endeavour to make decisions. While Owen also
emphasized on the use of champions as a form of distributed leadership which is
essential to obtain a high degree of buy-ins, the role of the leader in providing
wise counseling and suggestions are essential to breaking bottlenecks.

It is through a thorough understanding of the interconnectedness between

resource allocation and staff support, balanced by an assessment of the
opportunity cost to the school that the school leader decides on the optimal
resource investment that commensurates with the potential benefits to the school.
It certainly helps that the school under discussion is helmed by a school leader
who was involved in the implementation of Singapore's Masterplan for ICT in
Education.

School leaders experience and expertise is one of the crucial factors when
schools embarked on what Owen P. describes as true innovation which
necessarily entailed a direction without a roadmap. This is so as true
innovation, despite good planning, will have an inherent risk of error. (Ibid) The
support school leaders gave to the group of teachers trailblazing NMA back in
2005 is a prime example, which subsequently blossomed to become the college
CoE.

The commitment of the leader to the innovation instills safety and confidence in
the teachers and helps them cope with serendipitous events (Ibid) which are
precipitated by the aforementioned inherent risk of error. Example of how
school leader demonstrates commitment is that there are no mixed messages
about the importance of the use of technology in the college, it is part of the JC
first and foremost strategic thrust, and reiterated over the years to ensure the
consistency of messaging.
2. Recruitment

Social capital, residing in social networks, is accessed via social ties. It is thus
important to have a core group of experts who can form the seeds to these social
networks through which ties can be built. In fact, social capital leverages on
existing expertise and social relations and when it is readily available, it is more
economical and less time-consuming than having to purchase physical resources
and to change the perception of teachers about the value of technology in
Education (Frank et al, 2004). Hence, the recruitment process is vital to the
identification of teacher experts with an innate interest, in the context of our
discussion, to want to use technologies in their professional work.

As the college matures and wins accolades such as Lead ICT@Schools, Lenovo
Award and the status of Centre of Excellence for New Media (National), teachers
who are innovators and early adopters of technology tend to gravitate towards
choosing the college as their choice workplace.

Using Moores model, successful recruitment of the experts will help greatly
increase the number of innovators and early adopters, which act as nodal points
in the teachers social networks that provide the necessary ingredient to fill up
The Chasm. (The Adoption Cycle, Moore 1991). While Owens article points to
the role of leadership in establishing incentives to help faculty overcome their
anxiety and skepticism and cross the The Chasm (Owen. 2004) and the
traditional construct of the diffusion of innovations is about changing perception
of actors and letting the new perception drive innovation (Rogers 1995:5), our
model emphasizes the establishing of social networks, which we will elaborate in
the next segment on teacher development.

(Figure is from What Ever Happened To Instructional Technology?, by William H.

Geoghegan, IBM Academic Consulting)
3 Teacher Development

As mentioned in "Singapore ICT Masterplan 1997-2008", the learning points

sieved from ICT Masterplan 2 are as follows:

"The key challenge in mp2 continued to be teachers readiness and capacity to

change their classroom practices to effectively integrate ICT into the curriculum,
thereby equipping students with the skills necessary for the 21st century. The
varying degree of teachers readiness and competency in mp2 made it
challenging for professional development programmes to meet the specific needs
of all teachers"

Recognising that schools are social systems, we must be careful about viewing
professional development to mean setting up more training programmes and
more curricula re-design. The focus, first and foremost, is to recognize schools
as social systems and hence professional development should be geared
towards enhancing the social processes in schools.

Skilful leaders hence employ staff development as a means to build up their

teachers capacity to effect positive changes. Beyond the normal skills training,
teacher development also comes in the form of mentorship and guidance from
School Leaders in harnessing the passion of niche groups. The mentorship and
guidance from School Leaders is in effect, the building of social ties for the staff
to gain access to the resources of the school leaders themselves, which
establishes a social network between teachers and school leaders.

Through an assessment of the potential of the teachers, development

assignments catering to the passion of the teachers will guide the teachers
towards greater achievements, which are then recognized through both tangible
and intangible awards.

The absence of a social network in schools often resulted in the resources of

Innovators and Early adopters to be inaccessible to the Early Majority. In
Moores book on Crossing the Chasm, he emphasized the importance of
winning over this group as securing this Early Majority is tantamount to securing
a beachhead in a conquest (Moore, 1999). Therefore, the formalizing of sharing
platforms provides the opportunity for social ties to be built and hence allows the
Early Majority to access the resources embedded in the network of the
Innovators and Early Adopters. Effectively, social capital is used to fill the
Chasm, bridging the gap for the Early Majority to join the Early adopters. When
the Early Majority successfully crosses the Chasm, the creation of a safe
environment is further enhanced as teachers will find safety in numbers.

Sharing platforms can be as informal as professional interactions in the hallway

or the staff room (Penuel, W., and Riel, M. 2009) or formalized into professional
sharing sessions that occur on a regular basis which can be structured into the
timetable of teachers. More sharings and discussions allow the cyclical process
of asking questions and providing solutions which leads to the build up of social
capital as social capital accumulates through a cyclical process (Bryk and
Schneider 2002; Putnam 2000).

Apart from forming social ties between the Early Majority and the Early Market
Group, the core group of teachers (Innovators and Early Adopters), who may
possess expertise in different areas, can also be orchestrated to interact such
that these interactions within the core group or Early Market teachers, through
building social ties, obtain the necessary synergy to test the frontier of
pedagogies. An example of that happening is the collaboration between the ICT
champions between teachers teaching General Paper, teachers in the ICT
Committee and the lecturers from National Institute of Education. This core
group of teachers worked together to complete a pilot project on the use of 2nd
Life as a virtual immersive environment to teach argumentative skills in GP.

Through the expertise and experience of the school leader, coupled with the
effort spent in identifying the right people and the creation of the corresponding
social network, and with the right dose of teacher development, social capital in
schools can then be harnessed towards enabling teachers to move technology.

IMPACT OF USING THE ERT MODEL

Technology use

Recruitment Teacher
Experience Development
and
Expertise

The ERT model can be visualized as a 3-legged stool as shown in the diagram
above. As Experience and Expertise of the school leader drives Recruitment and
Teacher Development, and Recruitment of expertise improves the quality of the
teachers potential social network which in turn enhances Teacher Development.
Dark bars are drawn between the three legs of the stool to symbolise their mutual
interactions, which is also the social capital that adds strength to the ability of the
3 legs to raise the platform (the use of technology in education).
 Peak of curve
Number shift up and to
the left
Maroon region

Black region

Time

New New Mainstream

Early market
Original Displaced
Chasm Chasm

The figure above demonstrated the possible impact of applying the ERT model
on Moores Curve. The region shaded in black represented the increase in the
Early Market group as a result of the successful recruitment of teachers having
a higher competency and inclination in the use of technology in education.

The region shaded in maroon represents the increase in the Mainstream Market
group. The increase may be attributed to the migration of a portion of original
Late Majority into the Early Majority group due to the effectiveness of teacher
development that has received a boost from the social capital that is created. The
migration of a portion of the Late Majority group also necessitates that there is a
decrease in the number of Late Majority in the new curve.

The overall impact is a shift of the curve to the left, i.e., meaning, the
Mainstream Market has increased, with proportionately more of the
Mainstream Market in the Early Majority. Hence, when these big group of
teachers crosses the chasm, the effective number or buy-ins is greater.
TESTING VALIDITY OF ERT MODEL

In establishing and affirming the validity of the proposed ERT model, a video
interview was conducted with 10 teachers (5 key personnel and 5 teachers)
identified as part of the early market. A total of 16 questions were asked in the
domains of school leadership, resource distribution and teacher development.
From the interviews, it is affirmed that leadership plays a vital role in engineering
a social capital augmenting environment leading to widespread adoption of ICT.
A representative combination of 5 Key Personnel (middle managers) and 5
teachers were chosen in order to maintain a balanced perspective.

The profiles of the interviewees are shown below:

Name Years in Service Subject Teaching Key Personnel

Teacher 1 3 Economics No
Teacher 2 9 Mathematics No
Teacher 3 4 Mathematics No
Teacher 4 2 General Paper No
Teacher 5 4 Chemistry Yes
Teacher 6 3 General Paper Yes
Teacher 7 3 Economics No
Teacher 8 5 Physics Yes
Teacher 9 5 Chinese Yes
Teacher 10 13 Physics Yes

The results are discussed in accordance with the various components of the ERT
model as follow:

Expertise and Experience

Casting a Shared School Vision and aligning actual practice

9 out of 10 teachers could clearly outline the colleges strategic thrust of

Achieving Academic Excellence through Innovative Pedagogies and ICT, while
those who could do so also reported positive experiences with the Principal
and/or Vice Principal in championing this cause.

8 out of 10 respondents have also indicated Senior Managements support as

most important in ICT integration, revealing expectations on the part of teachers
and that have been met by the school leaders as mentioned above.

Expertise and experience of the school leaders therefore is relied upon in

engineering the appropriate environment by setting a clear direction and casting
a shared school ICT vision, as well as aligning actual practice to it.
 Resource allocation

As with any change processes, physical as well as human resources have to be

adequately allocated in order to achieve the intended outcomes of the processes.
In addition, social capital, manifested in the form of access to expertise and
support, also acts as the catalyst in encouraging early majority group to move
into the early market group and the late majority to move into the early majority
group.

For instance, all teachers who were interviewed expressed receiving strong
support in ICT in both hardware / expertise and are aware of how and where to
access these resources. This strong support was also manifested in teachers
confidence when they compared themselves vis--vis their peers in other schools
to conclude that there is a higher rate of ICT integration into teaching and
learning at Innova JC. The 1:1 ratio of teacher to tablet PC was often quoted
during the interviews.

The observation does not end with the hardware. Teachers confidence was also
manifest in their perception of the ease of access to expertise, through the many
formal and informal channels available.

The school leaders have also commissioned two committees in its ICT adoption
process: a New Media Arts Committee that engages in pioneering research and
development of emergent technologies into teaching and learning as well as an
ICT committee that looks into scalable implementation of these tested
technologies at the department and college level. Each of the committee was
chaired by a Head of Department and consisted of champion representatives
from each department a substantial investment of human resource where most
schools only have one committee.

Empowerment

As was highlighted in the ERT model, empowerment of champions by school

leaders was essential in encouraging true innovation. School leaders have to
exercise their expertise and experience in gauging the potential of new
endeavours as well as to manage and guide the champions in breaking bottle
necks.

In the video interview, 2 teachers shared about the encouragement and support
the school leaders have shown towards the development of the college as a
Centre of Excellence for New Media.

In this very instance, the empowerment of the New Media Arts committee led to
rapid changes and development, from a school niche in 2005 that quickly
developed into a Centre of Excellence in 2007, conducting 3 action research
groups in 2008 which expanded to 7 groups by 2009. Papers on technological
integration were shared at various cluster, national and international platforms.

Under the broad directions of the school leaders, project owners were not only
provided with the resources and expertise, they were given the flexibility and
were empowered to run their projects their way a form of distributed leadership.
With adequate empowerment, trust and ownership, a safe environment for
experimentation is again nurtured, and in its process, augments the growth of
social capital.

Recruitment

In naming the three important milestones of the college, 9 out of 10 teachers

highlighted the Centre of Excellence (COE) for New Media, while 3 out of 10
teachers highlighted both the COE and Lead ICT @ Schools. On recruitment
wise, half of the teachers were attracted to Innova JC as it was a new school
which offered different possibilities and the chance to try out new ideas. There
was also a teacher who indicated that he had opted to come to Innova JC
because of the COE and because of his former media industry background.

In recruiting staff with former experience and expertise in ICT and others who
were ready to try new things, the pool of innovators and early adopters has been
expanded. With more expertise available within the school that could be tapped
on (increased social capital), a safe environment has been built.

Teacher Development

Mentorship and guidance from school leaders

7 teachers indicated that they had benefitted from the school leaders expertise,
either through formal mentoring and guidance or through day to day informal
discussions and sharings. 3 teachers quoted steep learning curves from the
Finland Study Visit with the Principal with at least 1 citing a perspective changing
experience.

Availability of platforms

A plethora of formal and informal platforms were put in place and encouraged
social interactions and these included departmental professional sharings, ICT
sharings, action research groups etc. All the interviewees reported having shared
their ICT successes with their peers, either during departmental professional
sharing, committee sharing and sharing at national conferences or in the action
research groups they have joined. A strong culture of sharing is prevalent and
augments the social capital leading to the formation of Communities of Practice.
 Developmental assignments

It is interesting to note that though 8 out of 10 teachers have expressed that they
have received some form of reward and recognition for their efforts in ICT, 9 out
of 10 teachers have ranked tangible rewards and recognition as the second least
if not the least important factor when it comes to their ICT integration in teaching
and learning. In our opinion, this should not be interpreted as rewards and
recognition being unnecessary in boosting staff morale, but rather job satisfaction
achieved by these teachers has gone way past what tangible materials gains has
to offer.

In actual fact, these teachers all had developmental projects in one form or
another, be it conceptualizing a paper, designing a programme, heading a
department, leading action research, building a facility. At least 2 teachers
expressed that in being given the opportunity to present papers at national and
international conferences, they felt recognized.

All in all, social capital is reportedly most important when it comes to accessing
resources and support. 9 out of 10 teachers referred to other peers whom they
would turn to for aid while the remaining teacher indicated Internet and sharing
folder. A salient takeaway from ICT and new media sharing was that human
relationship management (i.e. social capital) plays a key role in encouraging the
early majority to cross the chasm while at the same time provide the motivation
for the early adopters to continue to spread the good word.
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