Lessons Learned

Lots, I think. I have always felt that we communicate a great deal about what we do by using a job title that describes at least a portion of our skill set. When I was at UVA studying instructional technology, members of our cohort met several times to discuss how we should title the position a few of us were working towards in K-12 schools. Most members of the group were getting their doctorates to work in higher education but many of them would be teaching pre-service teachers and grad students that would be getting instructional/educational technology degrees. A few members eventually wrote an article about this somewhat new job role with the title of “Technology Integration Specialist”. You can check out the article yourself.

I lead a discussion at the recent Learning 2.0 conference on the role of the technology integration specialist or instructional/educational technologist in our schools. Our task was to develop a job description. It was clear from the over 30 attendees that this person is clearly an educational leader within our schools and in no way a technician. I bring up this point as some schools still use the term “technology coordinator” even when the individual is truly an educational technologist leaving all of the technical concerns of running the network and repairing the hardware to the technicians.

I researched the technology coordinator title while in graduate school where I discovered that schools were making the break from hiring in school technicians who also tried to work with teachers and students when possible. Administrators were realizing that they needed trained teachers working to bridge the gap between classroom instruction and the new technologies coming on the scene. The research showed that these the technology coordinators usually did not hold graduate degrees in instructional/educational technology or instruction/curriculum. They often were individuals who enjoyed working with computers and networks who could step in to help schools especially during the 1990’s when so many funds were going into connecting American public schools to the Internet. Someone needed to manage the networks and expanded computer labs.
I will post more on why this title “technology coordinator” sends the wrong information while also sharing my thinking that we instructional technologists might be better named “learning or instructional specialist”. One thing to think about is how often it is an easy out for teachers to say they are uncomfortable with technology so they hold back from trying new ways of teaching that have nothing to do with technology. More to come…