EdTech Leaders must be split!

As the "Director of Technology" in a smaller sized public school district in Connecticut, I wear many hats. Most of these hats could be categorized under two headings, "IT" and "Educational Technology". My days are filled with purchasing hardware and software, answering user questions, trouble shooting network problems, administering student information systems, reading edtech journals, reading edtech blogs, coaching administrators through tech projects, creating and executing budgets, planning for the future, etc, etc.

Many districts are moving to a split in my current position. Instead of one person covering all of the duties mentioned previously, schools are changing to have a Direcor of IT (who may or may not know much about public education) who handles the purely technical aspect of running the IT infrastructure of a medium sized business or what ammounts to a large business with satellite offices (schools). And in addition, schools will then also have a Director of Educational Technology (who is typically an educator) who works with staff and administration to design and implement experiences with integrated information and comminication technolgoies. This person will often oversee and evaluate library/media staff.

With the events of recent days…