If I were the district technology leader, I would ____

I am currently in a educational leadership course and we were all asked to respond to the following question,

"If I were the district technology leader, I would ___."

This question really made me think a little deeper into my peer's responses because everyone in the course are classroom teachers. Teachers don't often have a place to provide candid and private feedback about how they would change someone in their administration.

Here are the answers that stuck out to me the most:

• Hone in on a few tools, not the flavor of the week.  
• Provide more staff development around implementing tools, not simply . 
• Equitable access to technology for teachers and classrooms, even teachers who come off as apprehensive to technology. 
• Only supporting the high-flying technology teachers isn't helpful for student learning in the other classrooms. 
• Get rid of all the "blocks" on the internet. Trust your teachers and students more. 
• At some point, a decision needs to be made. More devices and learning management systems will come out, but we have a need to fill today. 
• Give more opportunities to teachers to extend themselves through technology.

While this could have been a chance for teachers to talk down their district's technology, all the teachers had meaningful and helpful feedback for how a technology team could better support teaching and learning. Reading through their responses a second time, a few of the ideas are realistic changes that could have a huge impact on instruction. With that, it reinforces the idea that as a district leader you have a lot of constituents. Talk to your teachers more often, in real life. Find out what they are excited about and frustrated with. What are their goals? If you can, talk to them on a level playing field.   

How would you respond to the question,  If I were the district technology leader, I would ___ ?

Comment below.