EdTech leadership, worldwide, is a growing market. The complexity of schools, the challenges of modern learning, the ever-changing nature of technology, and the perpetual need for leaders in education has created an opportunity. However, success in EdTech leadership requires a set of skills and competencies that span more areas than you’ll find in most educational leadership positions and perhaps leadership in other fields as well.
Over a series a posts, I hope to expound on the key tenets of Educational Technology Leadership as a means of helping aspiring leaders identify and fill the buckets of experience and knowledge they need to be success.
In each post, I will go into detail about one element of EdTech Leadership, discussing its key components, real life examples, and ways in which to grow and develop.
These are the Tenets of Educational Technology Leadership:
Leadership – That undefinable state of having presence, communicating, curating talent, and developing shared vision.
Management – Keeping a finger on the systems, plans, and people needed to keep the department and school moving forward.
Information Technology – Competencies in computing, networking, servers/clients, systems, backups, cloud services, etc.
Educational Technology – Being a pedagog, with understanding of where technology crosses over curriculum to enhance teaching and learning at all levels.
Systemic Thinking – Being able to see the whole forest that is a school while keeping knowledge of the trees.
Professional Learner – A commitment and adeptness at learning for individual and organizational growth
Through the explanation of each of these tenets, I hope to show that each is reliant upon the others. Further, though they are specific skillsets all of which an individual may not possess, there are ways to build knowledge or organize an EdTech team to compensate. Very few people have them all at an expert level.
Click here to view the my YouTube series on the Tenets of Educational Technology Leadership.
I work as an Educational Technology consultant at International EdTech committed to helping schools use technology successfully. I frequently present at conferences on Educational Leadership, Learning Technology, IT, and Data Systems. I am also a a published author focusing on Educational Technology, International Education, and Leadership.
Looking forward to this series!