Preparation programs
Here’s a not-so-secret tidbit for you… If you think states and school districts are doing a poor job of preparing administrators to lead in this digital century, university educational administration programs are doing even worse.
Few preservice educational administration programs even have a course dedicated to technology leadership issues. When they do, the course is often focused on teaching computer skills to preservice administrators (i.e., PowerPoint, spreadsheets) rather than leadership skills (e.g., how to create an effective and sustainable technology plan; how to facilitate good technology integration by teachers and students). Programs that don’t have a dedicated course sometimes integrate a few technology-related issues into other classes (e.g., staff development, school finance) but the predominant pattern in most programs is to do little if anything. Why? Because most faculty are less proficient with, and less grounded in, digital technologies than K-12 administrators.
A few places across the country are trying to do more when it comes to preparing technology-savvy school leaders:
- Our own School Technology Leadership graduate certificate program here at the University of Minnesota was the nation’s first graduate program based on ISTE’s NETS-A and, as far as we know, is still the only program found (by the American Institutes of Research) to have positive, statistically significant impacts on participants’ technology leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Finally, CoSN and NSBA provide online courses related to technology leadership issues that can be taken for graduate credit.
Anyone know of any others out there?
