The first few days

Well, what a start!

Day 3 - at evening's end.

The world is smaller than I thought it was yet so much bigger at the same time.

My family are so far away from me yet so close (perhaps closer then ever) at the same time.

You the reader are not here with me physically yet we are connected.

I fear not doing justice to my experiences thus far by attempting to commit them to words. Rest assured though - I will do so and 'put pen to paper.'

In the interim - let me tell you where I am know: quite possibly the coolest accommodation I have ever experienced (and maybe I have something to base that on after more than 10 years in the hospitality industry): Air bnb - 2068 Front St San Diego CA 92101 United States. The host is a genius!

Dinner in Little Italy  was delightful. Civico 1845 restaurant was amazing. An Italian Restaurant with real Italians, patrons and staff - and the food?  Magnifico.

Enough raving - this is a blog about Leadership and innovation in education - right?

Let me post my (attempted) sketch notes - (thanks Lora) - from Days 1, 2 and 3 ... you'll need to zoom in on them (please, let me know what impacts you).

I think I am getting better with this stuff - Day 1 was dreadful in hindsight. Day 3 - better.

I ask myself - why am I afraid to draw?

In addition to these 'Sketch notes' - I have a fair amount of notes and a reasonable number of photos. I am thinking of the best ways to share these.

I wonder if the man in the room across from me will survive much longer - he has a terrible cough that can only be smoking related... I assume ...

I wonder what the great people that I have met so far think of my 'adventure'. They are such generous people - I hope to be able to repay the favour some day ...

I wonder what you think of this blog - am I being self indulgent or is this helpful, thought provoking ad useful ...

I admire the people and the organisations that I have met that have taken an idea, taken their passion, seen a problem in need of a solution, and done something about it, have seen an opportunity, a need, and turned it into reality ...

I wonder who has stayed in this room before me ...

I wonder how I may be different when I get home in just under a month ... maybe I wont be ... would that be a waste?

Did you know that it takes more computer power to do a Google search than it took to put Neil Armstrong on the moon?

I think that this study tour is providing an amazing opportunity for open minded reflection .. I invite you to engage with me, challenge me, encourage me.

Until next time.

Yours

Tim

P.S. for the first time ever I was served a take away beverage bottle in paper, the same way that Christopher Lambert was able to reveal the 'Brandy 1783' in Highlander - I can strike that off the Bucket List ....

What an opportunity ...

My journey will take me across 3 continents to more than 15 schools.

A selection of these amazing schools that have been so supportive and generous is below.

I'd encourage you to explore what these schools are doing via the websites listed.

City/location	School/sites visiting	website
Canberra
San Francisco	Samaschool	http://samaschool.org/our-model/
Mountain View	Khan Academy	https://www.khanacademy.org/
to San Diego	High Tech High	http://www.hightechhigh.org/
Santa Monica	New Roads School	http://www.newroads.org/page
New York
	P-Tech High School	http://www.ptechnyc.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1
Philadelphia	A4LE Conference -	http://learningscapes.a4le.org
	A4LE Conference -
	A4LE Conference -
London	School 21	http://school21.org.uk/
	Mathew Moss School – Richdale	www.mmhs.co.uk
	Hartsholme Academy – Lincoln	http://hartsholmeacademy.com/
Edinburgh
	Moray House School of Education – University of Edinburgh	http://www.ed.ac.uk/education
	Auchlone Nature Kindergarten	https://www.facebook.com/Mindstretchers/about?tab=page_info
Amsterdam	Steve Jobs School – Amsterdam Netherlands	http://stevejobsschool.nl/
	Facilitair Centrum Niekee – Roermond, Netherlands	http://www.niekee.nl/
Canberra

Pre departure

In just over a week I depart on an international study tour.

The study tour has been made possible by a generous scholarship I was successful in applying for through NGS Super and their Dedicated to the Dedicated program

I have been awarded a scholarship to undertake an international study tour to explore the relationship between leadership and innovation in a variety of educational contexts around the world. 

My investigations will consider what can be learned about visionary educational leadership in other countries, and how that learning can be applied to schools in the ACT and more broadly across Australia. My study tour will look at examples both nationally (in Australia) and internationally to observe highly effective leadership in practice, innovative practice across the school, and speak to leaders in those contexts that would be able to share with me wisdom and experience about what works and what doesn’t work with regard to leading and fostering high levels of innovation, learner engagement and educational progress.

My proposal is to take in as many high quality sites as possible to capture the various experiences and document them and identify the common elements, and perhaps the not so common elements, present in each.

 
The dates when I am travelling are 19 September to 16 October 2016.

I will visiting sites sequentially beginning on the west coast of the US, then the east coast, across to Scotland, London and then around through to the Netherlands.

My study tour and my engagement with leaders in each school and system will seek to explore and answer range of questions such as:

• What management structures best suit innovation?
• What are the attributes of leadership necessary to promote and foster effective innovation and to lead meaningful change?
• What are three key things your school has done to be so effective in creating great change?What curriculum reforms have been necessary to enable effective innovation?
• What are the most effective ways to engage with the community of your school to enable change and to address and overcome any barriers to change?
• What’s the single biggest barrier you have had to overcome with your community?
• How do you lead and guide a whole school community through significant change?
• What are the most effective scaling and diffusion strategies that can be applied to ensure that change and benefit are shared between schools?
• What policy challenges have the various journeys of success overcome and what were the best strategies for overcoming these policy barriers?
• What accelerators have been seen to advance the journey toward innovation?
• How did you define success when you began your journey of change?
• How would you describe success now?
• What measures of success have been applied in different contexts and how have these been measured?

My intention is to gather my findings and publish these in a summative report. I also intend to develop a variety of social media feeds to cover my journey. 

If you are reading this and feel inclined to, I'd be delighted, if you had some views or opinions about the questions above, for you to contribute to this dialogue by leaving a comment or by getting in touch with me directly.

The posts that I present here will include images from my travels, so until I depart I thought it made sense to begin with some of the iconic Canberra images.