Educational Leadership and Digital Culture

Abstract

Digital culture is a new multifaceted notion that it is embedded with culture and arts, linking different aspects of cultures, media and information technologies. The emergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has created a connection between people through networks and challenged our traditional ways of comprehending culture and eventually digital culture. Therefore, culture today must be seen as a dynamic process rather than an enclosed system because ICT has given these associations a new facet. With it comes a change in economy and education in all levels including leadership. In line with this, the current global economy is changing due to the advancement of technology, and with it its leadership capacities. Moreover, innovative technology has the ability to change the distribution of power and the development of associations in today´s organizations. In the same context, some authors debate the following critical question, i.e., “how can educational leaders keep up with the daily onslaught of information when new literacies rapidly outpace traditional literacies, and access to technology and information expands exponentially?”. This question would have a wider implication if we consider other educational means which are called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Based on that, this study examines different perspectives in this topic to determine what kind of educational leadership is emerging in the current new age of digital culture, and whether it is appropriate for the values and goals of education. In addition, it suggests and discusses the type of leadership needed in the digital culture using MOOCs as active dynamic examples. This study is structured into three interrelated sections. The first focuses on what digital culture is and examines a number of definitions and approaches. The second concentrates on leadership theories that are mostly associated with digital cultures, and examines whether they are appropriate for education based on another scholars’ work. The third section focuses on the author’s experience with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) where the leadership style of the professors was observed and evaluated. The instrument used for this purpose was careful observation. And the theoretical framework was based on Ebrahim, Ahmed and Taha’s (2009) four aspects of effective virtual leadership, i.e., a) communication, b) understanding, c) role clarity, and d) leadership attitude.