This document contains the slides from a talk given by Isabela Villas Boas on connected leadership in ELT. The talk provided an overview of why and how ELT leaders can become more connected through various means, including by following experts on blogs and social media, participating in online professional communities, taking online courses, subscribing to professional newsfeeds, and modeling 21st century skills for students. The slides also discuss challenges in engaging and retaining teachers from different generations and how connected leaders can stay informed on topics in education, assessment, technology and language acquisition.

1. The Connected Leader in ELT
Isabela
Villas
Boas

2. These are the slides used in a thirty-
minute talk delivered at the XXXV
Binational Center Symposium in
Franca, SP, Brazil on October 04,
2013. In it, I provided an overview of
why and how ELT leaders can
become more connected.

3. http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/sep/24/eight-qualities-
successful-school-leaders

4. Passion
Emotional
Intelligence
Judgment Resilience
Persuasion
Vision
Courage

6. What comes to
mind when you
think about
connected leaders?
Connected in which
way(s)?

7. The
teachers
The field
The ELT
community
(PLN)
The
students

8. What they
talk about
What they
listen to
What they
play
Where they
go
The gadgets
they use and
why
What makes
them tick

9. How are teachers today
different from in the
past?
What challenges have
you been facing regarding
hiring and keeping
teachers in your staff?How is their relationship
with students and with
you different?

10. That generational gap plays out in
very distinct ways: Many baby
boomers were taught by their
parents that you don't hop around
from job to job, that it makes you
look unreliable. But Gen Y, with
their Mark Zuckerbergs and Larry
Pages, aren't letting any grass grow
under their feet. (USA Today – Are
Millenials Really the “Me” Generation?)

11. ELT
Assessment
Second
Language
Acquisition
Educational
Technology
Methodology
Teacher
development
The ELT
Market

12. Education
Assessment and
evaluation
Public policies
Educational
Technology
Educational
leadership

13. The ELT and Educational Leaders
Community

15. We principals will never get staff and
students to employ social media tools for
higher-level learning if we don’t use the
tools, for basic communication at least. It’s
simply a step principals need to take.
Larkin, P. (2013).Tweeting the good news – and other ways to use social media. In Educational
Leadership, Vol. 70 No. 7.

16. Ways to become connected
Follow blogs written by educational leaders
/experts you admire; comment on their posts;
share the posts you like; start your own blog.
Join professional groups on Facebook.
Follow educators on Twitter; share interesting
tweets; share what you read on twitter;
participate in or just be a lurker on edchat.

20. Ways to become connected
Take an active role in a teachers´ association:
Braz-TESOL; TESOL; IATEFL.
Write for associations’ newsletters.
Take an online course, such as the e-teacher
course offered by the RELO Office, or others
offered by TESOL.

21. Ways to become connected
Subscribe to
professional
websites
and sign up
for news
feeds.

22. Tools to organize and keep track of
information

23. Tools to organize
and keep track of
information

25. http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/author/tom
whitby/
How can we teach our students to
become 21st Century citizens if we
do not model these 21st Century
skills?

26. isabela.villasboas@thomas.org.br
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