Executive Summary

SETDA was formed to provide national leadership in educational technology and to provide opportunities for states to collaborate and network through partnerships and professional development opportunities.

In October 2005, SETDA hosted the National Leadership Summit where state participants, education organizations, corporate partners, and U.S. Department of Education staff had the opportunity to hear from and learn from one another.

The Leadership Summit provided a powerful forum for states to share specific strategies and projects that are demonstrating results within their states, including those within North Carolina, Iowa, West Virginia, and Missouri to name a few. Concurrent sessions offered state leaders an opportunity to share and learn to support efforts to replicate quality projects across the country.

SETDA also joined with corporate partners to convene work groups at the Leadership Summit during three-hour in-depth sessions to focus on tool development and provide direction on each of the following issues:

• Showing Evidence of Educational Technology’s Effectiveness with Intel Innovation in Education
  
  
• Using Data for School Reform with ETS
  
  
• Technology’s Role in Math Curriculum with Texas Instruments
  
  
• Standards and Curriculum Alignment with JES & Co.

These sessions launched a longer-term process in which tool groups communicated consistently through monthly conference calls, Web collaboration, and email. The results of the work of these groups as shared in this toolkit will strengthen states’ abilities to effectively utilize strategies, implement successful projects and communicate their efforts in these areas of teaching and learning.

In this toolkit you will find practical checklists, matrices, survey instruments, sample letters, and other tangible components that can help educational technology leaders at all levels in the policy and practice decision-making needed to build or support robust educational programs.

Whether it be a set of talking points to use when meeting with stakeholder groups or a Making the Case Fact Sheet for Funding, state and community leaders have come together to develop this Toolkit because they believe in implementing educational programs effectively and want to draw on their shared knowledge and collective expertise to benefits teachers and students.

SETDA’s purpose for organizing the Leadership Summit and reporting the outcomes through this toolkit is to inform public policy at national, state and local levels as well as provide useable and relevant information for all stakeholders and constituents.

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Executive Summary
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