For Ed Zaiontz, executive director of information services for the Round Rock Independent School District in Texas, and Leo Brehm, director of technology for the Sharon Public Schools in Sharon, Mass., being an effective school district chief technology officer (CTO) begins first with a passion for the job ... and then the adoption of several habits.

The No Child Left Behind Act stipulates that all students should be technologically literate by the end of the eighth grade. But how to assess technological literacy has proven to be a complex challenge for school leaders. At an annual conference hosted by the Consortium for School Networking, ed-tech leaders in West Virginia and North Carolina discussed how their states are trying to meet this challenge.

During a session at the Consortium for School Networking's 13th annual K-12 School Networking Conference in Arlington, Va., on March 10, panelists discussed whether cell phones present an opportunity, or a distraction, for schools ... and conference attendees learned that schools in at least one state, North Carolina, have embraced cell phones as tools for instruction.

"The greatest challenge we face with ed tech and with evolving education is human," said Keith Krueger, chief executive officer of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), at the group's 13th annual K-12 School Networking Conference in Arlington, Va., March 10.

he latest in an annual series of monographs about issues facing K-12 leaders in education technology has been published by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). Major concerns this year: online safety, emergency planning, digital identity management, Internet2, and standards and trends aimed at facilitating technology integration. The material also takes a look at the role of chief technology officers (CTOs) in K-12 school systems.

Personalizing the learning experience with the help of technology was a key theme at the Consortium for School Networking's 12th annual conference, held in San Francisco March 28-30. This year's CoSN conference, which drew more than 1,000 educational technology experts, also had a strong international feel, featuring more than 50 international participants from more than a dozen countries.

This year's annual conference of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) in San Francisco has had a decidedly international feel to it, highlighted by a closing general session on March 30 examining what might be the world's largest effort to transform instruction through the use of technology on a national scale in Great Britain.

At the annual Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) conference in San Francisco March 28, past CoSN board chairs participated in a roundtable discussion about the need to advocate more forcefully for change in higher education. Seven former chairs of CoSN's board of directors, as well as many other industry leaders gathered for an informal conversation centered on the question: Given the needs of today's learners, as well as the current context of technology in most school districts, what are the most important ed-tech leadership issues that are not receiving attention?

The Consortium for School Networking's Emerging Technologies Committee has created a new blog where CoSN members and other participants can discuss, debate, and exchange ideas to accelerate the use of emerging technologies in education.

Washington, DC (September 7, 2006) - The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) today released a new report, Collaboration in K-12 Schools: Anywhere, Anytime, Any Way, which focuses on the ways educators are using collaborative technologies such as instant messaging, blogs and portals, inside and outside of the classroom to inspire students and enhance their educational experience and to facilitate greater interaction with other instructors and administrators.

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>(Silver Spring, MD--July 11)--Discovery Education, the leading provider of broadband educational services for American schools and students, today announced that it is joining forces with Sears for a national retail promotional campaign. This new effort allows Sears' shoppers to enroll in a special free three-month subscription to COSMEO, Discovery Education's new online homework help tool, after making a purchase at any Sears store between July 16 and September 4, 2006.

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