Connected Administrators

I think I have an idea for my major project (thanks to Alec).  I have been struggling with how administrators can get connected based on the number of unique situations we deal with on a daily basis.  I have learned that administration can be a very lonely role.  Many of these situations involve a level of privacy that we are just not at liberty to discuss with colleagues.  However, upon looking up connectedprincipals.com, I see that I was looking to narrowly when trying to see how I might be able to connect to my colleagues around the world.  As administrators, we are continually changing our role to that or instructional leader rather than school-based manager.  Although we still deal with a number of managerial tasks, we are increasingly being asked to lead our colleagues in the area of instruction.  When I looked through connectedprincipals.com, I saw that this is where the the connected principal truly lives.  Multiple opportunities to read about leadership from others, many stories of developing collegiality amongst a staff, many ideas about how to facilitate change in a profession that, at times, looks very similar to how it did 50 years ago.  This is where I can developed my connectedness. 

Not only am I learning about the value of connectedness, I am also learning the value in a story.  George Couros' TEDTalk found here, discusses this importance.  This has been a bit of a struggle for me as so much of graduate work is framed around peer-reviewed resources.  While writing a formal paper, your resources cannot simply be a "story" you heard, your own experiences, or an experience from someone else found on a social media website.  This has also been something I have struggled with and am now beginning to accept - Connected principals/teachers are about learning from others' stories (not peer-reviewed resources).  We learn so much from the power in a story.