Keith Kruger CoSN – ICET workshop
Here are my notes from Keith Kruger’s excellent and thought provoking workshop.
Keith is the CEO of CoSN, the US’s premier voice in education tech leadership. click for CoSN site
Outline of the workshop:
- what has been the impact of technology on education around the world?
- What are the skills that ict leaders need?
- Self assessment
Three major conclusions:
- Competitiveness is a global concern/Developing 21st century skills is necessary
- Leadership & vision matters
- Rethinking pedagogy is essential
1. Impact of tech around the world
Impact in asia (UNESCO 2003) = weak.
Europe (‘the ICT impact report’ 2006) = patchy introduction and ‘no profound improvements in learning & teaching’
UK Becta 4 yr study concluded that:
- ‘Personalized learning through technology is key route to educational improvement
- Having a high level of technology will dramatically improve performance, so long as there is the right support and enthusiasm to embrace it.’ http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=33623
Metiri group for Cisco found that tech advocates overpromised what tech could do. But when the vision was appropriate and professional development was there, tech was a “powerful and transformative tool” http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/TechnologyinSchoolsReport.pdf
Students in the US are expressing growing frustration that schools are becoming lame and irrelevant. http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_reports.html
Keith then showed us an interesting slide on which he’d compiled some results from research carried out in Nordic countries. The slide showed a strong correlation between teachers’ beliefs in the positive impact of tech and their ability or proficiency in using it themselves. For example:
- Teachers who believed that tech had no or moderate impact on learning were the ones who made low or moderate use of tech in their classroom practice. They were also not confident in the use of ICT.
- However, teachers who believed that tech had a positive impact on learning were the ones who used it the most and were the ones who felt most confident in using it. Their use of it was ‘project oriented, collaborative and experimental’.
Although clearly important, there is still not enough emphasis on developing teachers’ skills in using tech for learning. The focus should be making educators technologically confident
ss still consumers rather than producers when using ICT not very web 2.0 or maybe use tech for presentation or internet research… most kids hate web cache content filters.
impact of ict in teaching can be measured in pupil engagement differentiation creativity and less waste of time.
2. What are the skills that ict leaders need?
Leadership is fundamental to successful tech in learning. Leaders must be:
- willing to listen and learn
- awareof role and power
- strategically us ict to leverage other initiatives
We need to show the value of investment. Instead of drawing attention to the ‘wow factor’ (over promising) look at the real long term impact and prepare people for that.
Call to action: we need to reframe the policy discussions around tech and education and look at the Value of Investment (VOI) http://www.edtechvoi.org/
..and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). http://www.classroomtco.org/
- vision: powerful tool to accomplish ed goals
- leadership: human element is key to efffectively implementing ed tech
- TCO and VOI: ed tech leaders need to understand both
- community: parent and the business community can be your biggest advocates
- advocacy: become an advocate for ICT in ed.
click for the new cio leader ten prorities and click for more
a. Core values and skills:
- students & instruction
- continual improvement
- managing innovation
- data driven decision making
- flexibility
- results
- creating value
b. CTO Essential Skills:
- Leadership & vision
- Planning and budgeting
- Business Leadership
- Team building and staffing
- Education and Training
- Communication systems
- Systems management
- Information management
- Ethics and policies
Tags: ICT, Learning
