Changing My Title

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Background information:

For the past two years I have worked as an Instructional Technologist in the Curriculum and Instruction Department of a very large school district. There have been as many as six of us at one time, funded by a federal grant and our foci split between elementary, middle and high school grade levels. The initial intentions by those who hired us was for the six Instructional Technologists to sit in our respective offices and work on populating a Curriculum Management tool that our district designed and maintains. We could also collaborate or assist the Curriculum Specialists for each content area as they hired and managed writers to populate the management tool. As you can imagine very little collaboration took place; we were more of an add-on in a time when public educational institutions were shifting pedagogical practices from the 20th Century standard of stand and deliver to the 21st Century active engagement and inquiry learning model.  Our title, in my opinion, contributed to the many misconceptions held by a wide array of people working in the curriculum department of our school system.


Our saving grace: 

We piloted the Information and Technology Essential Standards in five of our district's more than 165 schools during the 2010-2011 school year and actually implemented them during the 2011-2012 school year. The Instructional Technology team joined the conversation late for many reasons, including that no one at the decision-making level felt it necessary to include any of us as stakeholders. Without going into great detail, I will just say that chance, timing, and luck played a huge roll in allowing one of us, me, to join the team that works with the state to unpack the Common Core and Essential Standards to be implemented during the upcoming 2012-2013 school year. Since the Information and Technology Essential Standards are part of this current school year's expectations, the (now four person) instructional technology team has had a voice in planning professional development, writing curriculum, and providing in-depth training.

Why I am changing my title:

When my colleagues hear or say "Instructional Technology," they often only hear "Technology" and assume I am a gadget geek. Don't get me wrong; I love technology gadgets and my iOS devices. Unfortunately, my colleagues often assume I know how to use any piece of equipment that plugs in or has a battery -- to the level where I can instruct others how to use it. I have been introduced as the "technology guru" and "gadget geek" to a room filled with educators. I have actually had to access the presenter's projected computer to show teachers that I support the Information and Technology Essential Standards, with an emphasis on Information! I usually pull up the matrix I have created, displaying the ITES vertically aligned K-12. As a former English Language Arts teacher, I prefer to focus my attention on the verbs used to describe our teaching standards!  This is why I am changing my title. I am calling myself a Digital Learning Specialist to try to steer the focus away from the nouns, the technology equipment and to steer the attention toward to verbs, the learning and the way students access the online resources.