SETDA's Initiatives

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) offers state educational technology directors and their staff a forum to discuss, learn about and collaborate on issues related to the effective use of technology in enhancing teaching and learning.

SETDA believes that bringing technology directors from different states together – allowing them to share ideas and resources and to collaborate with their peers on ways to overcome challenges they each face – is an essential component of assisting these technology directors in more effectively meeting the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 as well as the goals set forth by their individual states.

SETDA provides many opportunities for communication among state directors including conference calls, subsidized meetings, events at national conferences, and informal discussions with peers during committee meetings and on project task forces.

Some formal initiatives include:

State Profile Survey and National Trends Report

Each fall, SETDA conducts an extensive survey of its state technology directors to collect data on the federal Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program. The survey identifies how much funding a state receives through EETT, how it is administered in the states, how the goals and objectives of the state are achieved and model programs from each state.

The 2005 SETDA National Trends Report outlines the national survey on the second year of implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Title II, Part D, Enhancing Education through Technology program. The role of NCLB, Title II, Part D funding in advancing the effective use of technology in student learning is critical.

Profiling Educational Technology Integration (PETI)

In today's era of high stakes accountability and with the recent economic downturn, educators across the country are expected to demonstrate a "return" on technology investments. That translates into a need for an educational technology strategy that gets results - in the form of higher student performance.

Profiling Educational Technology Integration, or PETI, includes a framework aligned to No Child Left Behind, Title II D (NCLB IID), as well as a suite of tools designed to assist states, districts, schools, and researchers in profiling their progress with technology over time, documenting both readiness and effective use.

PETI offers valid, reliable data collection instruments and methodologies that answer the questions in the SETDA framework. Used over time, these tools can provide valuable baseline and trend data for accountability purposes.

SETDA Connects (www.setdaconnets.org)

SETDA Connects is an online, searchable database, which is available at no charge, to any educator at any time. SETDA Connects disseminates best practices in educational technology, highlights successful programs, fosters a collaborative learning community and creates a national knowledge base to foster communication and cross-fertilization among educational leaders and policy makers as related to educational technology.

The SETDA Connects database is searchable by name, state, or keyword. In addition, keyword searches result in a list of relevant resources including sample documents, RFPs, letters, Power Points, speeches, templates, and case studies. This critical service allows educators to easily find and retrieve information that can help them plan and execute technology-related instruction.

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Emerging Technologies Forum

The SETDA Emerging Technologies (ET) Forum is a one-day, multi vendor event where corporations and education technology leaders learn together and build partnerships that allow effective learning to take place across the nation’s classrooms and learning environments.

The ET Forum includes in-depth topic discussions where SETDA annual sponsors and ET Forum vendors engage in high-level discussion around topics such as Teacher Quality & Retention, Closing the Achievement Gap, Accountability & Data Systems, High School Reform, and Curriculum Management & Differentiated Instruction.

Following the topic discussions, invited corporations with new technologies host focus group sessions to present their products to 5-10 state level educators for feedback. More than 80 state leaders participated in the 2004 ET Forum.

SETDA Leading in Technology (LIT) Course

In an effort to provide professional development and build partnerships, SETDA in cooperation with the Education Development Center (EDC), developed the Leading in Technology Course (LiT).

The Leading in Technology Course involves in-person and online components and works to create a community of learners. The LiT course has two main goals:

to help develop individual leadership skills and
to continue building an ongoing professional learning community so as to improve the learning of all students through educational technology.

Technical Assistance Partnership Program (TAPP)

The SETDA TAPP program was designed to support federal Evaluating State Educational Technology Programs (ESETPP grantees by providing networking and collaboration tools for the grantees as well as disseminating interim information, success stories and progress reports to the broader education community regarding best practices in the area of scientifically based research.

SETDA has developed a website (www.setdatapp.org) to help in the dissemination efforts and will also provide a Handbook at the end of the grant period outlining the TAPP projects.