NECC 2008 - Refreshing ISTE's NETS-A

Here are my notes from the NETS-A Refresh session…

Dr. Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE, asked me to stand up and describe the innovative work that CASTLE and I have done regarding the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). That was very kind of him to recognize our work. Thank you, Don!

Tim Magner, Director, Office of Educational Technology, United States Department of Education

We know how important leadership is.

We’ve spent over a decade on teachers and students but we’ve neglected our leaders.

Leadership involves change.

The new NETS-T (teacher standards) really emphasize modeling.

With leaders we have to take it up a notch.

The skills for leaders have to emphasize adaptation to a rapidly-changing world.

We need leaders to look beyond today to the next generation of school.

Table activities (responses of my group)

Identify three characteristics of administrators who are effective technology leaders.

The entire room seems to be in favor of calling it NETS-L (leaders), not NETS-A (administrators).

We worked on Standard VI (Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues).

It makes more sense to align the NETS-A with existing leadership standards (e.g., ELPS) than it does to align to NETS-S or NETS-T.