VITAL

OVERVIEW

Philosophy and Goals
For Virginia's educational leaders to be the effective catalysts for systemic change, the training program must be longitudinal, locally controlled, multimodal, involve local experts, and provide feedback and support mechanisms once the training is complete. A team of experts will deliver and administer school division based programs designed to address specific needs of each school division taking into account competency levels, division priorities, and participant skills and experience. These training groups will be comprised of representatives from higher education, the Department of Education, division financial leaders, school board members, PTAs, superintendents, principals, and curriculum leaders. Multiple program options will be available including one-on-one with superintendents, division-wide workshops, regional workshops, statewide conferences, and online education.

Goals
After participate in the VITAL training, administrators will be able to:

model the effective use of technology

lead and manage the systemic whole school change processes

support effective professional development

attain knowledge of technology and student learning

be better able to integrate technology into instruction to advance student learning

create and maintain technology plans that reflect sound decision making and planning

Built on Principles of Adult Learning
The VITAL project builds all interactions on the principles of adult learning and on encouragement of systems thinking.

Adults learn best when they have input into what they will learn. VITAL provides for pre-training sessions with local school leadership teams participating in the training. Individual teams select critical issues from a menu of options and/or suggest problems of their own to become the focal points around which the training is tailored.

Adults learn best when they have choices that allow them to by-pass concepts and skills they have already mastered. VITAL provides a series of online modules that allow individuals to progress through building a common knowledge-base at their own pace, omitting areas in which they are already proficient and focusing in-depth on areas that are new and/or challenging for them.

Adults learn best when they have a chance to share their expertise in solving real problems of importance to them. School leadership teams each select problem-based scenarios from which action plans can be developed that are meaningful to their district. Facilitators use information obtained during pre-training meetings with the teams to design discussion opportunities that allow individual team members to use their expertise in developing the action plans.

Adults learn best when the material to be learned is useful to them in their day-to-day work and/or deemed significant and meaningful to their personal development. VITAL training focuses on assisting participants in using online and human resources to apply systems solutions to problems determined by the teams themselves.

Addressing the Digital Divide
The Virginia Initiative for Technology and Administrative Leadership will address digital divide in several ways.

Each school division will have access to the same high quality program through face-to-face and online resources.

A division-based needs assessment will help each division focus on developing and implementing a plan that will address their specific technology leadership issues in the division.

The partnership will build a network of technology savvy administrators who will become resources for all divisions throughout the Commonwealth.

Fit with the Virginia Plan for Improving Student Learning
The Web Based Testing, Instruction, and Remediation Initiative instigated by Governor Gilmor provided a direct incentive to all school divisions to maximize technology integration. The Governors Initiative also provides the financial support for the educational change needed to sustain these efforts. It is critical at this time to provide quality flexible training for the State's administrators, as they will be the key people in carrying out the program to benefit all of Virginia's school children. Each administrator has the role of ensuring that every school and system has the capacity to serve all children well, and is closely connected to its community, and communicates openly and regularly to that community about how it is succeeding. The Leadership Initiative itself adds the final dimension by helping every principal and superintendent develop the capacity to understand and implement computer technologies and telecommunications that will bring about the needed educational change.

For principals and superintendents to focus on students, the learning environment, and whole school change, they will need to collect or be exposed to specific illustrations and experiences of what is working well in schools. This training will prepare them to look at the role technology can play in helping all students achieve in a high performance, standards-based system. The training will introduce principals and superintendents to the experiences teachers have had through the SOL Initiative, the training carried out by the summer institutes, and the training by the Governors' Best Practice Centers, (these Centers will also be involved in the delivery of the training in this initiative), and will provide them with some common ground with the teachers. Being part of the teacher training network will connect them to the daily concerns and triumphs that teachers have in their classrooms and with working with computers.

The proposed training will enable school administrators to provide leadership in the development of local training programs for teachers and specialists. High caliber training programs for teachers and specialists will lead to better classroom integration of technology and to our students being able to select and use appropriate technologies to gather, process, analyze data, and to report information related to an investigation.

The Virginia Computer/Technology Standards by the end of grades five and eight identify technology skills for improving student learning through the integration of technology across the curriculum. In the Virginia Computer/Technology Standards (C/T) by the end of grade twelve the students will build on and expand those early level of skills. In C/T12.4, the student will demonstrate skills in the selection and use of appropriate technologies to gather, process, and analyze data, and to report information related to an investigation.

In order to help students meet there goals, a set of technology standards has been adopted for all school personnel in Virginia: TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS FOR INSTRUCTIONAL PERSONNEL Statutory Authority: § 22.1-16 of the Code of Virginia. Two of the components of the standards specifically highlight the need for the proposed training:

School divisions and institutions of higher education shall incorporate the technology standards for instructional personnel into their division-wide technology plans and approved teacher education programs, respectively, by December 1998.

School divisions and institutions of higher education shall develop implementation plans for pre-service and in-service training for instructional personnel. The implementation plan shall provide the requirements for demonstrated proficiency of the technology standards.

To further illustrate the connections between the proposed training and Virginia technology plans, please view the presentation given at the Midde School and High School Principals Conference & Exposition in 1999.

The State of Technology in Virginia
In the recent legislative briefing, the Milken Exchange, NCREL, and SRI reported three key findings that have major implications for educational leaders in Virginia.

Virginia's K-12 students and educators are gaining expertise in basic computer skills, but in general, they are not yet using technology effectively to improve student learning across the core academics.

The Commonwealth lacks many of the essential conditions necessary for effective use of technology in schools; support for proactive visionary leadership, high quality content-based professional development, and access to model content based projects and technical assistance for schools.

The technology focus in Virginia Schools is on skill development rather than on the use of technology to advance student learning across the core Standards of Learning.

Technology use in education in the Commonwealth of Virginia is at the forefront of the field as a result of legislative efforts in the state, as well as through the efforts of local schools and institutions of higher education to initiate efforts to efficiently and effectively apply technology to learning. Hayes Mizell, Director of Programs for Student Achievement at the Clark Foundation, believes that if student performance is going to increase, teacher performance must increase. If students are going to learn at higher levels, teachers must learn at higher levels. Similarly, in order to increase teacher performance, administrative performance must increase. Therefore, if teachers are going to use technology at a higher level, administrators must use technology at higher levels.

As school leaders, administrators are in the unenviable position of being both change agents and the object of change. Administrators must acquire the skills and understanding necessary to use technology in innovative ways, and in turn, affect change in the teachers and students in their school divisions. The Southeast and Islands Regional Technology in Education Consortium (SEIR*TEC) recently released a report titled "Factors Influencing the Effective Use of Technology for Teaching and Learning" that sites the nine major factors influencing effective use of educational technology. The following quote comes from that document:

Our experiences in working with the intensive sites confirms what the research literature says, that leadership is the single most important factor affecting the successful integration of technology. This is true at all levels state, district, and school. For example the states with the most successful technology programs are those that have had visionary governors, legislators, and department of education staff

Today's administrators must have a knowledge and understanding of information sources, data collection, data analysis, effective communications, applied learning theories, administrators of effective instruction, the role of technology in promoting student learning and professional growth, current technologies that support management functions, marketing strategies and community relations, ethics and legal issues, and models and strategies for change. Administrators must value and be committed to a school vision of high technology standards, continuous school improvement, and professional development is an integral part of school improvement.