Learning and Leading

How Advocacy Helped Save the ITRT Program

New initiatives such as Virginia’s ITRT program—and new direction in any organization or institution, for that matter— tend to happen only after much debate and discussion. The naysayers and critics

also always seem to hang around for a while, so advocacy is important not only at the beginning of an effort, but well into its life cycle.

Although Virginia’s ed tech supporters celebrated a great success when the ITRT program came into existence, their struggle didn’t end there. Critics attempted to eliminate the funding by introducing a House bill in January 2007.

Without missing a beat, the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE), an ISTE affiliate, stepped up to the plate in its advocacy role to lobby the Virginia General Assembly to save the ITRT positions. Members of the House Committee on Education commented that they had been overwhelmed by VSTE’s e-mail campaign. As a result, the vote to eliminate the ITRT positions never got out of the committee and never became an issue before the full assembly, thanks to the VSTE effort.

—George F. Washington,

Franklin County Public Schools

Of the recommendations that researchers made for the ITRT program’s continued success, perhaps the most compelling was the idea that administrators should become more involved in the program so that they can recognize effective technology use and support their teachers’ integration efforts. A Technology Resource Teacher Coaching Academy in Stafford County, Virginia, echoed this sentiment. It found variable levels of administrative involvement in the county. Some ITRTs indicated that their administrators provided ample support and encouragement, and this was both necessary and beneficial. But many ITRTs felt a lack of support from their principals and other administrators for their job role and their goal of helping teachers integrate technology into the classroom, and this made their job duties more difficult.

Luckily, this obstacle is surmountable, as long as school administrators

take more active roles in learning about the responsibilities that ITRTs play in their schools. Some school divisions have hired technology administrators dedicated to managing the ITRT program and providing ed tech leadership within their school divisions. Stafford County Public Schools, for example, employs a chief technology officer to offer executive-level support to the ITRTs and technology support staff.

Most ITRTs and technology support staff report to school principals or other administrators, however. For these schools, a solution may be professional learning communities or teams of key stakeholders—including administrators at the school, community, and central-office levels—that meet on a regular basis for the purposes of learning, joint lesson planning, and problem solving.

Virginia’s ITRT program has made significant progress in helping school divisions throughout the state integrate

technology into their instructional programs. ITRTs and support staff remain focused on engaging and motivating teachers by providing guidance for instructional improvement with technology integration, as they believe their partnerships with teachers translate into better teaching, which in turn results in increased student learning and, ultimately, the creation of true

21 -century citizens of the world. st

Resources

“An analysis of the instructional technology resource teacher (ITRT) program in Virginia” by the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Education (2007): www. doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Technology/OET/ info_brief_itrt.pdf

“A study of instructional technology resource teachers in Virginia’s public school divisions: Who are they and what do they do?” by K.M. Hooker (2006). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, East Tennessee State University.

“Evaluation of instructional technology resource teachers (ITRT) program of the Commonwealth of Virginia” by the Office of Educational Research and Outreach, Virginia Tech. Unpublished study.

“Understanding instructional technology resource teachers: Ways of knowing, ways of doing” by J.S. Streich (2007). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, George Mason University.

Teresa Coffman is an associate professor at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, where she teaches graduate courses in education and instructional technology. She has published articles on technology