Strengthen District Leadership and Communications

Action Steps
for Superintendents and District Leadership Teams

• Reflect on your own use of technology and explore new ways to use technology to improve your knowledge, skills, personal productivity and leadership effectiveness.
• Commit to attending at least one regional, state or national conference focused on technology use in education every year.
• Collaborate as a leadership team to identify and implement technology-based approaches to communicating, interacting and engaging with students, parents and your community. Videoconferencing technologies, for example, are an easy-to-use, effective tool for communications and collaboration.
• Revise annual performance goals to include actions steps for developing technology skills; keeping current with technology; identifying opportunities to test technology systems to strengthen administrative functions or improve student learning; and model uses of hardware, software and compelling learning environments for the school community, including teachers and other staff members, students and parents.
• Understand the value of technology in terms of its costs and benefits.
• Develop and deploy coaches to improve every facet of district technology leadership.

Getting Up to Speed

Horizon Report: 2010 K–12 Edition. New Media Consortium, 2010. 

Davis, M. R. “The Knowledge Gap.” Education Week’s Digital Directions, Jan. 23, 2008.

Honig, M.L., et al., 2010. Central Office Transformation for District-wide Teaching and Learning Improvement. The Wallace Foundation.

Kaestner, R., & Salpeter, J. “Weathering the Storm.” (Executive Summary). CoSN Compendium, 2010.

National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) and Performance Indicators for Administrators, Teachers and Students from the International Society for Technology in Education

Going Deeper

CoSN's Framework of Essential Skills of the K-12 CTO

CoSN’s Value of Investment Leadership Initiative

Bonk, C. J. The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education. Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Hall, D. The Technology Directors Guide to Leadership. International Society for Technology in Education, 2008.

Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. McGraw Hill, 2008.

Jacobs, H.H. Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2010.

National Educational Technology Trends: 2010. Innovation Through State Leadership. State Educational Technology Directors Association, 2010.

Wagner, T. The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can Do About It. Basic Books, 2008.