• Having a compelling vision for using technology that is embedded in the culture of the school district.
• Understanding change processes and people.
• Making balanced and strategic investments in infrastructure, systems, and people. (Successful districts don’t neglect any of these three areas, Kimball explained.)
• A willingness to learn from setbacks and failures—both personally and institutionally.
• Making student learning and success the focus of every ed-tech initiative.
New CoSN initiatives
At last year’s CoSN conference, the organization launched a national certification program for school district CTOs. Since then, 62 people have passed the exam to become Certified Education Technology Leaders, Tower said in kicking off this year’s event. More information about this program is available at www.cosn.org/certification.
At its 2013 conference, CoSN unveiled three new resources for ed-tech leaders: (1) a K-12 IT Leadership Survey, which revealed a number of facts about K-12 ed-tech leaders; (2) an Administrator’s Guide to Mobile Learning; and (3) a new initiative called “Designing Education Networks.”
For this latter resource, CoSN is teaming up with Qualcomm to help ed-tech leaders plan and design broadband and wireless networks to support at least one device per student. A website and other deliverables are expected in June.
“School leaders need high-quality, vendor-neutral resources to enable them to make the best choices around digital learning infrastructure,” said Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN. Designing Education Networks “is a much-needed resource that will substantially improve the information available to CIOs/CTOs and other educational leaders.”
Follow eSchool News Editor in Chief Dennis Pierce on Twitter at @eSN_Dennis.
For more coverage of this year’s CoSN conference, see:
Seven facts about K-12 ed-tech leaders
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