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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A lot has changed since 2010; especially in education technology and networking.
On Wednesday, 14 new candidates will examine those changes and embrace the opportunity to kick-off the fifth cohort of the Certified Educational Chief Technology Officer (CeCTO) program at UNC Chapel Hill.
Offered through a partnership between the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, UNC School of Government’s Center for Public Technology and MCNC, the CeCTO program is one of the nation’s first technology-centered certification programs specifically for educational technology leaders.
The program features two components – one designed for superintendents and the other for technology directors. Superintendents participate in the “Leaders for the 21st Century” track – a 20-hour instructional course supplemented with required collaborative sessions with CeCTO candidates. Technology directors participate in 240 hours of instruction.
Approximately 104 CeCTOs and Leaders for the 21st Century have been added in North Carolina schools since 2010.
Terry Bledsoe, one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers for 2011, will present at the initial class. In 2007, he graduated from the Certified Government Chief Information Officers (CGCIO) program at UNC and has more than 35 years of technology experience including work at IBM where he helped deploy one the largest student information systems as well as the largest IBM K-12 education project in the world.
Bledsoe retired as the CIO of Catawba County in 2013, where during his tenure he oversaw technology for both local government and for the schools. He is also the past president of the North Carolina Local Government Information Systems Association, or NCLGISA.
He told WRAL TechWire that his presentation this week for the new CeCTO class will be about trends, but not in the normal sense of what is currently happening in technology but rather explore the possibilities and challenges new technologies present for school districts and local government.
“I will challenge the group to think about the possibilities,” he said. “How can they take a technology that seems unrelated to what they are responsible for and turn it into an asset?”
This is the first year CeCTO has started in August – all previous courses ran February through November. The scheduling change was made so participants could share common content and build more collaboration between CeCTO and the candidates in the CGCIO program.
This level of integration between K-12 and local government is paramount to success for communities and was a natural evolution to the program, according to Maurice Ferrell, instructor at the UNC Center for Public Technology.
“Over the years we discovered many commonalities in K-12 and local government, and we thought this was an opportunity to bring folks together in a collaborative environment and have those conversations,” said Ferrell. “We have reduced the number of students this time for more hands-on and close training so we can really focus on leadership and how to best leverage tax payer dollars when it comes to technology.”
Ferrell expects some healthy debate and discussion on purchasing and contract law, hardware vs. strategy, partnership opportunities and economic development, broadband connectivity and Wi-Fi, and how to bridge the divide between curriculum and technology. Added Ferrell, “we are hoping to bring it all together with this class.”
Instruction for CeCTO provides invaluable education and training for superintendents and technology directors to effectively use and manage technology in schools today. The 10-month program helps establish the core competencies IT leaders need in today’s education environment.
Today’s superintendents and educational technology directors face increasing challenges to manage the constantly expanding role of IT in schools. This program was designed to help educators turn those challenges into opportunities.
