We are future Doctors in Educational Leadership, currently studying at Concordia University Irvine.
As part of our learning in the course: Technology in a Systems Approach to Leadership, we created an open textbook to support educational leaders looking to ignite their leadership with technology. This course was the third in our doctoral program and utilized a different approach to how we might apply what we were learning in a meaningful and more public way. This work was created under the guidance of Dr. Bonni Stachowiak, to whom we are extremely thankful.
“We choose to be motivational leaders grounded in faith who advocate for and empower each other to achieve success through encouragement, collaboration, and transformative learning.” ~ Irvine 9
This statement represents our cohort’s collective mission, which came alive throughout the process of creating this work. Our team’s strengths were vital in being able to accomplish this feat within such a condensed timeframe.
The Team
Writing a book like this, especially in eight weeks, is not a solitary endeavor. We had quite a group working on every aspect of creating this open textbook and associated website, and we are proud of the final result.
Project Lead – Jodi McClay
Our fearless leader for this project was Jodi. She is accustomed to navigating tight deadlines and working with diverse people in her administrative role for her district. Jodi was able to identify each of our strengths and help us work together to come up with a resource that we believe will be valuable to K-12 leaders around the country.
Interviewer – Shayna Golbaf
When we recognized that we needed a curious leader to draw out the experiences and leadership lessons from our experts, we thought right away that Shayna would be perfect. We appreciate her working within a short period of time to finish all eight of the expert interviews and for asking such thoughtful questions. She also served as our point person for communication with all of the interviewees so we could ensure we had their permission to use what we captured in the book and also share pieces on the book’s companion website.
Cover Design and Biography Compilation – Julie Tipton
Julie has amazing creative talents and accepted early on the task of designing our amazing cover. She also compiled all of the interviewee biographies to be sure we effectively communicated how accomplished and qualified these experts are.
Technology Lead – Walter Nixon II
Walter was instrumental in ensuring that the podcast platform we used to capture each interview was up-and-ready. We truly appreciate the countless hours he spent to be sure everyone was comfortable with the technology.
Website Developer – Dawn Thuong Horne
We decided rather late in the project to develop a website dedicated to the book and immediately thought of Dawn. She is our resident technology ‘guru’ and created a beautiful site to advertise and share the book’s contents in an amazingly short time frame.
Proof Reader – Leslie C. Villaseñor
Every book needs a strong proofreader with a keen eye for details. Thank you to Leslie for her late-night reviews that ensured our text was error-free.
Additional Transcript Editors – Suha Abuzaineh, Ricky Anderson, Amanda Gil, and Luca Tirapelle
All ten of our Cohort 9 team participated to some degree in editing the interviews from the audio transcripts. This required, in many cases, listening to sections repeatedly to ensure we captured everything according to the original intent.
This project required a great deal of collaboration and dedication. We are thankful for everyone who engaged in this project in big and small ways.
Our Interviewees
And last, thank you to our interviewees. We feel grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from such esteemed educational leaders. We are confident that what they shared was not only valuable to us but will also ignite and inspire other educators!
