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Notes from ISTE 11 session on preparing administrators to be technology leaders.

Minnesota TIES Project - Superintendent Technology Leadership Academy funded by an E2T2 Grant


 * Superintendents worked with their administrative teams of 2-3 people for 11 meetings, 7 with teams and 4 with superintendents only.
 * Used the CoSN program Empowering the 21st Century Superintendent available at cosn.org as a downloadable pdf
 * 5 Themes and Action Steps
 * 1) Strengthen District Leadership and Communication
 * 2) Raise the Bar with 21st Century Skills
 * 3) Transform Pedagogy with Compelling Learning Environments
 * 4) Professional Development
 * 5) Support Balanced Assessments
 * Each team created an action plan for each theme to implement between meetings
 * The Mile Guide from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a rubric for assessing where districts fall in technology integration - downloadable from p21.org
 * Superintendents met as a group in the morning and the teams met as a group in the morning to review previous theme and introduce the new theme with national speakers via videoconferencing. We also did personal skill building and action planning for a new project.
 * Lunch was together
 * During the afternoon teams and superintendents met together to discuss, team build, learn and plan
 * Superintendent sharing sessions were between theme days to discuss a hot topic, best practices, and shared resources
 * We used a Ning to share with each other and carry on beyond the project. All resources used in the program were linked, discussions were held on the Ning, groups had their own group, and superintendents had their own group so they could discuss topics and issues specific to them for their own frank discussions.
 * Personal skills including creating podcasts of their personal vision
 * We've scaled this project up to have a conference within the conference at our state conference; the attendance at our conference has increased to over 100 superintendents and 400 principals after we've started this program. We've found that they need the training, but want the reassurance that they will have the privacy to learn together. We look for keynote speakers who can meet the needs of all our attendees, including the administrators.
 * Obsrvation tools:

Eduphoria iObservation Observation 360 See ISTE presentation by Kip Rogers

Ohio has Innovative schools conference. Build around teams of administrator. 5 days, attend all 5 or just one. Try to appeal to all. Bringing presentations from countries involved in PISA Assessments. Using Race to the Top funding. Stipends for teachers to attend. First week in August. Search for ESC of central Ohio.

digital Institute for Learning, North Carolina conference. Mark Edwards from Mooresville.

Another thing we did at TIES was to to offer iPod touch and then iPad training specifically for them.

Superintendents and principals appreciate the opportunity to learn how products and software work together, not in front of other teachers or their tech staff.

They appreciate the opportunity to network with each in order to be in a position to learn in order to make decisions.

Good idea to