This is an excerpt from a chapter I wrote a few years ago (this is not the version that went into the version). It contains what I believe is a problem preventing much progress in using educational technology effectively. The TL;DR version: School leaders are reluctant to take an active role in technology planning, so education problems are unsolved as technology is deployed.
The curriculum coordinator for the school district led a curriculum and instruction team which included the principals from all of the elementary schools and the assistant principal at the 7-12 school. The committee was responsible for all aspects of teachers’ professional development and often “used data to make decisions about what to focus on for the upcoming year.” All members of that committee indicated an interest in promoting the use of technology in their schools, but all also indicated they felt this was outside of their areas of expertise. One of the principals summarized the position of the group when she stated,
We all know we need to do this well. Technology is in our district and school vision statements and the school board is very supportive, and we try hard, but sometimes we just don’t have the experience we need. I mean, my background is literacy, I can plan professional development to help our teachers help struggling readers, but technology is not my field.
Pointing to another principal, she continued, “he can do the same for science, and I trust his judgement, but who here can we trust when we talk about technology?” The school leaders described their existing professional development efforts with the term ad hoc to capture the lack of consistency and direction in their efforts to support teachers’ learning about technology, but they “needed some good scaffolding, so we can be more systematic and more purposeful than we have been.”
It should be noted as well that the district had previously retained a technology coordinator who was responsible for managing the information technology infrastructure, and he was also involved in organizing and presenting professional development in educational technology. The curriculum coordinator described the failed search to fill that position,
We realized [our best candidate] was really good at technology but had no education background. The search committee couldn’t decide which direction to go, so we left the position open. Right now, we have technicians in each school who keep stuff up and running, set up email accounts, [and manage the network], but they stay away from teaching issues.
The members of the curriculum and instruction team concurred the infrastructure in their schools was robust and reliable, and they had contracts with vendors to provided sufficient support. “After hiring consultants to do some technology workshops, we decided—as educators—we needed to take a more active role leading our work with educational technology,” explained the curriculum coordinator.