Why do states require educators to be certified? Certification requirements include education in certain specific coursework for each certification area; practicum experience under her supervisor who holds that certification; and in Massachusetts, passing scores on state educator exams. So certification purports to be stamped with expertise – a license to educate. Not totally unlike earning your driver’s license, which also requires you to pass a written exam, and, after hours of driving practice, a driving test. So states have certification to ensure that all educators meet professional criteria and can be considered qualified to teach.

Massachusetts requires certification for superintendents, assistant superintendent, principals, special education administrators, and a wide variety of specialists. Each of these licensures requires mastery of a body of knowledge pertinent to the role, as well as experience in the role, directly or in an apprentice-like experience.

As a district-level technology administrator, I find the absence of a certification or licensure for this role to be a glaring oversight. Like other education professionals, district technology administrators (CIOs, CTOs, Technology Directors) need to master a body of knowledge, understand the educational environment, and have work experience or a practicum experience in educational setting. The body of knowledge has been knowledgeably defined by CoSN in their Framework of Essential Skills for K-12 CTO. CoSN has developed a certification process and exam based on this framework. The first group of CTOs aspiring to certification will sit the exam in the very near future. I am confident the certification program will be successful and CTOs all over the country will want to earn this certification – to show that they too, have the expertise, knowledge, education, and experience that signify that they are a recognized and certified professional. CoSN says that the value of the certification is that it will:

• Validate your knowledge of the education technology field and the evolving role of the CTO
• Distinguish you from your peers
• Demonstrate dedication to advancing your career
• Inspire confidence in your superiors

I agree – all good points. In addition, mastering the entire body of knowledge and taking the time and effort to reflect on that knowledge and sit for the exam, will actually make you better, not just appear better.
But, even beyond the CoSN certification, I believe that state education departments should create Technology Administrator certifications. The role has become a key one in school districts and the body of knowledge required to be truly effective is both broad and deep. School districts would be well served by hiring certified professionals for this role. Districts who do not understand the complexities of filling this role sometimes hire “techies” who understand the wires and boxes but who are not adept at creating a shared vision, applying technologies to core learning goals, leading conversations with many stakeholders, and therefore do not reap the full reward of technology initiatives.

One route towards state certification should be CoSN certification plus experience in the role in that state plus the passing of any general educator exams that may be required by that state. Why certification for CIO/CTO/Technology Director? For all the same reasons we have them for other roles in public education – to ensure a level of knowledge, experience, and the expertise necessary to carry out the duties of the role. Further, I suggest that technology administrators join me in supporting certification (licensure) in their home state – we want to raise the visibility, acknowledge the wide range of skills the position requires, professionalize the role, and join other educational administrators who have professional and recognized standards.

On May 5th we (METAA and CoSN) held our second annual Massachusetts CTO Clinic. It is a professional development day designed for school technology leaders. It was a very successful conference and I heard lots of positive comments about the sessions, the keynote speaker, and even the location. I am sharing my welcome remarks here in my blog because they represent so clearly what I think about the job of the school technology leader. We all manage many systems, data, contracts, relationships, and people. But, more importantly, we lead innovation. These remarks reflect that perspective.

Welcome
Welcome to our School Technology Leadership – CTO Clinic. My name is Jean Tower and I am the president of METAA, the Massachusetts Educational Technology Administrators Association.

Today’s event is hosted jointly by METAA, and CoSN, the Consortium for School Networking. Our theme is cloud computing -

Does Every Cloud have a Silver Lining? An Investigation of Cloud Computing.

A definition of cloud computing always includes storage and virtualization of applications, but for schools, it includes so much more – we also think about web 2.0 tools that live in the cloud and related issues like bandwidth, network infrastructure, wireless, security, and even community support. And since our “bottom line” is always teaching and learning, we focus on cloud computing as it impacts student learning.

Today, we will be inspired and motivated by our keynote speaker; innovative practitioners will share their wisdom and expertise; sponsors and partners will keep us up-to-date about the latest products and services. You will get the most out of the event, if you make sure to take time to network and chat with your colleagues. Sometimes, we remember for years something that a keynote speaker said – but it is often that snippet of conversation in the hall, or the connection you make at lunch, that is the serendipitous take-away that you will help you tomorrow, back at your office.

Now, I would like to recognize the many people who helped to make this event possible.
Please stand as I mention your name and please hold your applause until the end.
Irene Spero, the Chief Operating Officer of CoSN, who flew in from DC to be here for this event.
Theresa Jay and Michael Minihane, co-chairs of the conference committee and of our professional development committee.
Mike is also the board secretary.
Gail Callahan, vice-president
Ted Dubsky, Treasurer
And, fellow board members, all of whom contribute to the organization in many ways, and who all helped to make today possible:
Tom Barnes
Eric Bouvier
Ellen Driscoll
Wendy Haskell
Kathy Martin
Bill Milot
James Panopoulos
Michael Purdy
Annamaria Schrimpf
Kevin Warenda
Thank you to all of these dedicated colleagues.

Technology leaders in schools are known by many titles – Technology Coordinator, Technology Director, CIO, and CTO to name a few. Regardless of your official title, you all do an amazingly important job in your schools and districts. You manage networks and systems; you apply technology to solve operational and educational issues; you report your data to the state and help your staff understand what quality data looks like. You manage the day-to-day crises. You help the first grader who can’t print his butterfly poem and the superintendent whose computer just crashed in the middle of a long evaluation. You lead the way for technology to transform teaching and learning. And more than most school administrators, you nurture innovation and you are agents of change. I am proud to call you colleagues.

In our roles, to simply stay current we have to be constantly learning and growing. If our skills and knowledge stay static, then we fall behind. What I see in the members of METAA, though, is just the opposite. We work to become continuously better in our professions. Working alone, we can each advance our knowledge and skills, but working together, we can do this faster – we get better faster, together, as a community of like-minded professionals, taking from and contributing to the group.

Together, we expand the relevancy and the recognized expertise of technology leaders in education. Today’s event, and others like it that we host throughout the year, are sources of opportunity to connect with others, to learn, to grow, and to contribute to the statewide and nationwide dialog. As individuals, we may be heard by a few. As a group, we magnify the success of others, we increase our potential, and we amplify our voices. As a group, we are heard by many more.

And with that megaphone, what will we say?
We will tell our state and national leaders how important funding for technology is; we will professionalize our roles by insisting on state licensure for technology directors; in times of tight budgets, we will advise our school leaders that the role of the technology director is a critical one and that schools who expect to be viable institutions in the 21st century would be wise to protect this position from cuts. We will educate others that technology is the new utility – when people flip the light switch, they don’t wonder if the lights will work today – they depend on them to work.
Our schools now depend on technology and the networks we maintain, to teach and communicate, to schedule our schools, to run the heat and cooling systems, to create our bus routes, to take attendance, and so much more – all systems converge in technology. We keep the trains running, metaphorically speaking.

But in addition to “managing” – we lead. We lead the way toward change and innovation. As change agents in our schools, one of the things we all do is we narrate a story of change – we describe what is possible. Our association with each other helps us to imagine those possibilities – we use the expertise, wisdom, and experiences of our peers, to increase our speed of growth and expand our vision. Growth and improvement are not optional –nearly 1 million Massachusetts school students are depending on us.

I highly recommend the recently released CoSN Compendium (available only to CoSN members). If you are not a CoSN member yet, talk to your school district and have them join. There are many member benefits that make the cost of membership a good value. The Future of Information Technology (Or, How the Next Ten Years Will Fundamentally Change the Role of the K-12 CTO) was written by Bob Moore, Senior Manager, Business Development, Global Education, Dell, Inc. Prior to working for Dell, Bob spent more than 21 years in educational technology leadership.

Bob was a Keynote Speaker at the Massachusetts CTO Clinic, sponsored by METAA and CoSN last April. You can read the slides from his keynote on the METAA web site. The compendium article expands on the ideas he presented at our conference.

The article briefly chronicles the role of the CTO from the days of the mainframe to today. Moore says, “it’s helpful to look back over several decades of IT evolution and the commensurate evolution of IT leadership.”

His advice for today’s K-12 CTOs include the following:

• Forget about IT as you know it today
• Get ready to outsource
• Let go of control
• Blow the lid off of storage limits

Moore predicts that these changes will enable CTOs to focus more time and energy on educational leadership and transforming the educational experience with innovative technology, and less time on managing the “stuff” of the technology department.

COSN’s Framework of Essential Skills of the K-12 CTO divides the skills into four major areas:

• Leadership & Vision
• Understanding the Educational Environment
• Managing Technology & Support Resources
• Core Values & Skills.

The competencies in the Framework describe the range of knowledge and skills a CTO must have, and the skills definitely go beyond minding the boxes and cables. Bob Moore’s predictions for the future of IT and the impact on the role of the CTO echo the need for the competencies outlined in the framework. If we want teachers and students to use technology in powerful and transformative ways, we have to move away from thinking about technology in a purely technical light, or as a silo. Powerful use of technology requires cross-organizational collaboration, and to do this successfully requires a CTO with cross-disciplinary skills and the leadership and vision to work across the enterprise making this vision a reality.

In the April 20, 2009 issue, Information Week ran an article entitled The Quiet Desperation of Irrelevance .  I find it interesting that, in a large sense, corporate IT surveys reflect the opinions and frustrations I hear from my colleagues in school IT.

Here’s what the article said were the top 4 responses that IT professionals cited as things that would improve their job productivity.

>> Better guidance from business leaders on the most important processes, measures, and metrics

>> A clearer sense of corporate strategy from top executives

>> Better vetting and pilot testing of prospective technologies

>> More support from top execs to implement policies and procedures company-wide

Here is my attempt to translate those four into school world terms.

>> Better guidance from educators and administrators on the most important processes, measures, and metrics. That is, what are the most important things IT can do to improve teaching and learning and productivity, and how should we measure success?

>> A clearer sense of district mission and goals and strategic plan from educators and administrators, especially where IT can be most tightly coupled with these goals

>> Better vetting and pilot testing of prospective technologies

>> More support from all administrators to implement policies and procedures district-wide

I have been operating under a misperception that school leaders were less inclined to make sure they understood how to leverage technology to meet learning goals, implement the district mission and strategic plan – I guess we simply mirror the rest of the world!

C oSN Conference 2009 Session name: CTO Leadership Forum: CoSN’s Framework of Essential Skills: A Certification Pathway for the Future Technology Leaders CoSN has been working for several years creating and disseminating the Framework for Essential Skills for CTOs. In this session, we presented a work in progress – a pathway for a nationally recognized program for CTO certification. I was one of three presenters, along with Bailey Mitchell (Chief Technology and Information Officer, Forsyth County) and Ed Zaiontz (Executive Director Information Services, Round Rock ISD). I have been volunteering on this committee for several months, but Bailey and Ed have been working on this framework since the inception of this work at CoSN. The discussions have been really rich and full of great ideas and the product of some critical and thoughtful reflection. I’ve been privileged to work on the committee and was quite happy to join in presenting at this session. After introducing the framework of the key functional areas and the essential skills within each, participants read through the competencies and provided valuable input into the framework. There were five tables of participants (about fifty people total) and everybody rolled up their sleeves and worked. The input will be incorporated into the next draft. As usual, even though we have worked for many (many) months on this, I heard many really good suggestions for modifying and improving the framework. Another case of all of us being better than any one of us, and the power of crowds. It was gratifying to witness the level of engagement and the high level of thinking about this project.

I attended a breakout session, Building a Visionary IT Organization: Best Practices.
The presenters were Fran McTigrit (Katy, TX) and Curtis Cearley (Fayette County, NC). They addressed competing priorities, and how to balance their time, efforts, and resources. This was a good session.

Ms. McTigrit shared her foundation goals:

• Technology must be cost effective
• Technology must be sustainable
• Technology must be a “value add” in the education of today’s digital learner

In Katy, they believe that engaged end users help guide IT decisions. It enables them to prioritize based on user needs. One thing that helped them to better meet user needs is standardization of processes, changes and releases.

Mr. Cearley said that when he came to work in Fayette County he found the technology department was more reactive than proactive, often responding to the crisis du jour . Their strategy was to tightly couple the work of the IT department to the district strategic plan. This provided an impetus for the technology staff to think more long-term and strategically. They also felt more integral to the strategic plan, which improved morale and increased collaboration. They moved from 30 different islands (30 schools) to an integrated whole. The funniest thing he said was this: “I open my network up to 22,000 hackers every day,” a light-hearted way to open the discussion of network security issues.

CoSN 2009 Conference

G ary Utecht of Lakeville, MN won the CoSN Withrow CTO award. The award is based on five criteria: Leadership, Building Community, Innovation, Impact, and Public and Private Partnerships. In Gary’s brief thank you, he said several things worth noting, a few of which I was fast enough to write down.

OHIO: O nly H andle I nformation O nce

“I believe in the power of consortia.”

“Nobody on the school district has more impact every day on the experience of every student and every teacher than the staff in the technology department.”

CoSN 2009 Conference

Attending the CoSN conference in Austin, I will post a few blog entries about the conference. This is the first of the series.
T he CoSN 2009 conference is titled, leadership, policy & innovation in a collaborative world . The first event of the morning, after the welcome and presentation of awards, was keynote speaker Don Tapscott . The session was called: Plenary Session I: Grown up Digital in a Collaborative World. It was a really good keynote and the audience reacted positively. Dan Tapscott referred to his book, Grown up Digital – How the Net Generation is Changing the World .

Here are a few things I jotted down while he spoke –

He said that it is common to read that the Net Gen are lazy and self-centered and expect immediate gratification, but that this “negative and cynical view is not supported by data.”
“We need a lot more than a generation that can perform well on tests – we need a generation that can learn.”

“A lecture is when the notes of the teacher go to the notes of the student without going through the brains of either.”

The eight Net Gen norms, characteristics of a generation are:  Freedom, customization, scrutiny, integrity, collaboration, entertainment, speed and innovation. Given these norms we have to move from the teacher as “broadcaster.” The broadcast model is a “one-size-fits-all, one-way broadcast learning” where the teacher has the knowledge and delivers it to the students who don’t, and the “grateful students” write down the knowledge and prepare to deliver it back for exams. He gave a new definition of a teacher as one “who customizes the learning experience.” The model of broadcast pedagogy is wrong. It is teacher-focused (rather than student) one-way (rather than multi-way), one-size-fits-all (rather than customized) and student isolated (rather than collaborative).

When there is a new paradigm it is usually the leaders of the old paradigm who have the greatest difficulty embracing the new.

He suggests students learn best through collaboration and discovery and that we should be orchestrating that kind of learning in our schools. He closed with the statement that today’s students “have a right to the technology of their time.”

I attended a small talk after the keynote, where Don spoke of his plans for his next book and of other institutions to which his theories apply. He signed books, and I was happy to get my book signed (see photo) – now I can’t wait to get home to read it!