Technology Leaders Wanted:
Acknowledging the Leadership Role of a
Technology Coordinator
By William Sugar and Harold Holloman
Presentation by Doug Strahler
GDIT 708: Technology Management and Leadership

Overview
Technology
Coordinator’s
Responsibilities
Focus on Leadership
Initial Investigation & Results
Implications of the results

Technology Coordinator’s
Responsibilities
“Multi-hat”
“…responsible
for promoting technology
integration within a school or school
district” (p. 66).
Leading teachers in developing an
effective K-12 environment

Four Main Responsibilities
Responsibility
Task
Instruction
Model best practices; staff
development; effective
technology integration
Technical expertise
Technology Purchases and
recommendations; technical
and networking support
Planning and assessment
Technology plans and policies;
assessment
Leadership
Supervision; vision; collaboration

A shared responsibility?
Within
a school district, who is
responsible for providing technology
leadership?
Should this leadership responsibility rest
on one person or should it be shared?
Is it the school administrator or the
technology coordinator?
Which school leader or leaders should
provide the oversight?

“Technology staff need more
leadership training and leaders
need more technology training.”

Nine Leadership Characteristics
Corporate
vision
Development of
Others
Facilitating
Servant Leadership
Problem Solving
Resource
Management
School
Communications
Student
Centeredness
Systems Thinking

An initial investigation
Full-time
technology coordinator for a
middle school with 37 teachers
Mixed-method approach
◦ Observations & surveys
Trained
observer ‘shadowed’ for nine
three-hour sessions and recorded each
action
Assigned one of the nine characteristics
to each recorded action

Observation Results
The
technology coordinator did exhibit
characteristics of a leader
Problem-solving & Facilitating were the
top two characteristics observed of this
technology coordinator

Survey Results

Implications
Curricular
revisions for training
◦ School improvement planning
 Corporate vision, Systems Thinking, & Resource
management
◦ School’s needs analysis
 Student Centeredness & School Communications
◦ In-box tasks
 Problem-solving and Facilitating
◦ Leadership development self-assessment
 Servant Leadership and Development of Others

Resources
Sugar, W., & Holloman, H. (2009).
Technology Leaders Wanted:
Acknowledging the Leadership Role of a
Technology Coordinator. TechTrends,
53(6), 66-75.