School Technology Leadership: Incidence and Impact

Author: Anderson, R.E., Dexter, S.L.
Publication Date: 2000, December
Publication City: Irvine
Publication State: CA
Full text available online at: http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/findings/report_6/

Abstract (written by WestEd)

The authors create a taxonomy of educational technology leadership decisions, dividing them into six categories: strategic planning and goal setting, budgeting and spending, organization, curriculum, evaluation, and external relations. They provide examples of how each category plays out in terms of technology infrastructure decisions and instructional practice using technology decisions.

Using data from the 1998 national survey of Teaching, Learning, and Computing readers, the authors analyze technology policies by different technology leadership characteristics, investigate whether different school demographic features affect technology leadership, and test whether there is a relationship between technology leadership and technology integration.

The report notes that technology leadership attributes were stronger than infrastructure indicators in predicting technology integration in teaching, network/Internet utilization, and student use of application tools. In other words, school leadership is more important than infrastructe for technology usage to become part of the school culture. The report closes by making recommendations and exhorting school leaders to include key teachers and administrators in developing technology programs and technology leadership.