Dive Brief:

• Changes in technology and the needs of teachers and students have forced a shift in the responsibilities of today’s chief technology officers.
• eSchool News reports a panel of CTOs at ISTE described how blended learning requires schools to cater to individual learning styles of students, and open educational resources have presented a challenge in wading through content to find high-quality resources.
• Today’s IT leaders need to build teams that balance out their own skillsets, focus on communication and cooperation, and move away from simple troubleshooting to take on broad tech initiatives connected to educational goals.

Dive Insight:

The technology changes in the last 20 years have been immense, and schools have, in many ways, been at the forefront of tech adoption. Computer labs in schools have long given students without access to such devices at home a way to learn basic programs and explore the internet. It was easy to focus IT support on troubleshooting early on as teachers and students learned new things.

Now, though, educational technology is embedded into lesson plans and everyday learning experiences in a way that requires a broad vision from CTOs. ISTE’s experts recommended outsourcing some of the small tasks or asking teachers and staff members to troubleshoot their own minor problems.