“Technology is an integral part of how students learn and are assessed, how teachers teach and are evaluated, how parents are kept informed, and how an individual school is integrated into district and state enterprises.”
That statement, made ten years ago on CoSN’s first national survey of EdTech leaders, highlighted how their responsibilities expanded beyond infrastructure management and tech troubleshooting. In the classrooms of 2023, cybersecurity, rapid changes in technology, necessities for off-campus access, dramatic increases in the quantity of digital resources and devices, and the lack of interoperability between systems have expanded the scope and depth of those responsibilities even further.
Many of the changes in the EdTech landscape over the past ten years are reflected in the questions themselves. Because the practice has become commonplace, there’s no longer a need to assess the use of various social media platforms, which on the inaugural survey included the now-defunct Google +. Cybersecurity, a topic that only appeared once on the 2013 survey, accounted for nearly a quarter of the questions in 2023. Similarly, the growth in the importance of professional development is seen in the expansion from an isolated question in 2013 to the creation of a dedicated Professional Learning section on the 2023 survey,
What hasn’t changed over time is the goal of CoSN’s annual survey—to give our community a national perspective on the EdTech landscape, the challenges EdTech Leaders face, and the successes they have had. CoSN also uses the survey results in making resource development decisions.
