December 2004 — Features
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A Vision for a Summit
CELT Recently Brought Together School Districts, Vendors and Professional Organizations for a National Summit on ‘Leadership, Learning and Technology for the 21st Century’
What began as a lunchtime discussion among CELT (Center for Education Leadership and Technology) Corp. staff about how to positively impact the 2004 presidential campaign quickly evolved into a vision for bringing together top executive-level practitioners in education for a national summit on “Leadership, Learning and Technology for the 21st Century.” The hope was that this summit would create a structured yet free-flowing forum to explore and debate timely issues, as well as to open up provocative and, at times, intense differences of opinion. At the same time, the hope was also to influence the national agenda during the recent political season.
Planning a dynamic summit meant devising an approach that would be unlike traditional conferences. CELT had a vision for using experiences and challenges from participating school districts of various sizes from different parts of the country as the foundation for planning all aspects of the summit. This unique approach was based upon the following beliefs:
The importance of district teams. CELT wanted to invite district teams at no cost. They also wanted to welcome district teams representing all levels of the district to attend the event so that real-time team learning, exploration and collaboration could take place both within and among the teams.
The importance of participatory planning. CELT wanted to create the summit around the needs of the attendees by involving them in the planning via Web-survey technology, using their input to shape both the overall program and specific sessions.
The importance of collaboration among all stakeholders. CELT wanted to invite and involve professional organizations and vendors to participate as partners, providing input to all discussions, serving on panels with educators as experts on technology applications, as well as sitting alongside district attendees during meals and social activities.
The importance of aligning technology and education reform. CELT wanted not only to focus the content of the discussion on the effective implementation of technology for student achievement, but also to focus it on using technology as a planning and collaboration tool.
Implementing the Beliefs
After discussions with prospective attendees and vendors, CELT used four strands to craft and distribute a Web-based survey for prospective attendees, as well as to propose and prioritize topics for discussion and presentation. Those four general strands were:
- Decision support and accountability
- Learning environments and school facilities
- Curriculum, assessment and technology integration
- Human resources management and organization development.
Once the Web survey was issued, respondents selected their top priorities and suggested new ones. Responses were used to tailor the summit’s program agenda, panelists and speakers. From the attendee list, summit planners selected participants to serve on panels as moderators, panelists and as leaders of small-group discussions.
