Essential Point Three

Essential Point Three:

Leadership in Electronic Communities (Managing/Stimulating Electronic Debate)

To focus the efforts of any educational group it is necessary to have strong leadership. The group will flounder without leadership or facilitation of one sort or another. This goes for all types of groups, not just electronic. A good leader/manager is an excellent observer of human interactions, capable of interjecting when necessary to re-direct the group’s efforts or to provide additional seminal information to individual group members. A good leader/manager also diffuses problems and helps the group work through differences to reach compromises.
Historically, in most classrooms, the teacher has assumed this leadership role. However, in middle and high school classrooms where student collaboration is the norm, teachers can begin to relinquish this control to the shared leadership of the classroom groups. Key to successful leadership in these classrooms is the initiation of discussions by middle school and high school students as to what constitutes true leadership, compared to individuals that have charismatic personalities. Secondly, classroom teachers have to help students understand that leadership attributes are often influenced by the historical time period, in addition to geographic and cultural influences. It is electronic collaborations that can broaden this scope of leadership. The possibility for expanded global dialogs between students which foster and expand the definitions of inclusion, and therefore foster and expand the definitions of leadership can become reality easily and inexpensively with electronic communication networks. Additionally this multiplicity of global perspectives introduces the increased possibility for differing perspectives. It is not difficult to be a leader of like-thinkers, all that is required are modest management skills. To truly lead in NEW directions of thinking first requires that not all the group members already think alike and second that the leader can relinquish preconceived ideas and embrace the groups direction, whatever and where ever that is!