Manager vs. Leader
After listening to the various definitions Dr. Newberry provided us in regards to the differences between a manager and a leader, I believe that I'm a combination of both. I'm not an educator, but I do work and interact with educators and students in my current job. In my job I consider myself a manager, I'm in charge of the maintenance of our website and our online assessments, that include tasks such as updates, registration, and compilation of grades. In the previous case I consider myself a manager, but in the last couple of years I believe I have developed some leadership qualities. In my job we already had a website and an online assessment for our program, also I had access to many different software that was not being used at its full potential. My first step was to conduct an analysis on how the site and online assessment could be improved in order to better serve our students. My proposal included the use of new technology to make this improvement, such as the use of an interactive movie created in flash for the online assessment to ensure its effectiveness and security. Also the use of CSS to make our site easier to navigate and and most importantly ADA complient, features that the previous one did not include. The success of my first proposal gave me the necessary confidence to keep improving my leadeship qualities as well as the resources that our program provides to educators and students with the integration of new technology.
9 comments:
Hi Edgar,
Initiative is definitely a very important leadership quality. In your story, you took the initiative to look into a way to improve the website. At the same, time some old equipment was put to good use demonstrating some great managerial skills were at work also. Leadership and management, in my opinion, go hand in hand. One compliments the other. It is not surprising that your proposal was successful.
It is funny that many of us get to wear both hats at times. Then there are times that you only get to wear one of the hats and you can see the errors or strengths of the other person with the other hat. :-)
Nice to hear from someone who's not a teacher every once in awhile. I came from working in entertainment and a little business in my background and I've always looked at education in similar terms as a business (except that you don't get big raises and "climbing the ladder" is a little different). However, thanks for sharing your situation for us to compare to.
Edgar,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. I am interested in knowing where did you check to find the ADA requirements for online materials, like your new website?
James
Hi James,
The CSUSB campus provides all web masters associated with the campus a detailed list of what is needed to be complient. Also, they run a software on all sites and provide us with a percentage of compliance, as well as workshops that explain a bit more. You can visit their site at http://acm.csusb.edu then go to the services link, and select web accessability at the bottom of the page.
J.
I was in some training awhile back and the presenter offered www.section508.gov as a good source for training and information regarding federal accessibily stadards.
E.
CSS is on my personal list of things to learn can you post a link to your site so we can see your stuff in action?
Edgar,
I particularly liked your idea of using interactive movies on the Site for the Online assessment. I would LOVE to see this in action. Please keep us updated.
Robert
Hi Edgar
From reading your message, I notice that either we are in management or leadership; it is hard to distinguish or draw a line in between. These two functions have many areas which thay are overlapped.
It is good to read your posting, and I am looking forward to read more from you.
De Nguyen
Thanks for sharing your personal account. Also, thanks for sharing the ADA information. Is the cast.org site still useful?
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