Teacher leadership and the internet: Sowing seeds for lifelong learning

In the context of educational reform initiatives, lifelong learning, with its fundamental grounding in notions of critical learning and autonomous learning, is seen as a significant factor in revitalising school systems, energising the teaching learning processes therein and preparing students to be knowledgeable members of society. Policy makers, governmental and non-governmental agencies, educators and other stakeholders have emphasised that adopting Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education is an effective means to realise this goal. However, there is little empirical support to show that usage of ICT in schools has indeed led to consistent and sustainable improvement in learning. Paradoxically students are engaged in large-scale autonomous learning (school-valued and otherwise) in out-of-school situations, via the Internet. In this article, I argue a more realistic way to promote lifelong learning is to systematically investigate ways by which teacher leaders can extend their instructional leadership roles to situations that lie beyond pedagogies traditionally associated with classroom teaching and thereby explore the new contexts for student learning. Copyright © 2012 The Australian Educational Leader (ACEL).