Future Ready Learning

challenges for schools; and, finally, too many school systems report a lack of competition
for broadband services in many parts of the United States, particularly in rural areas. 4
Leaders are responsible for meeting these challenges and ensuring ubiquitous access
among administrators, teachers, and students to connectivity and devices and for supporting
personnel to ensure equipment is well maintained. Future Ready leaders take direct
responsibility to ensure infrastructure remains up-to-date (both in terms of security and
relevant software, apps, and tools) and open to appropriate Web content and social media
tools to enable collaborative learning. Leaders also recognize the importance of building
capacity among those responsible for creating and maintaining the technology infrastructure.
Future Ready leaders support all of these efforts through careful planning and
financial stewardship focused on long-term sustainability.
Personalized Professional Learning
• Leaders ensure the availability of ongoing, job-embedded, and relevant professional learning
designed and led by teachers with support from other experts. Leaders develop clear
outcomes for professional learning aligned with a vision for student learning.
• In Future Ready schools, teachers and leaders engage in collaborative inquiry to build
the capacity of both the participating staff and the school as a whole through face-to-face,
online, and blended professional learning communities and networks. Leaders ensure
that professional learning planning is participatory and ongoing. Leaders learn alongside
teachers and staff members, ensuring that professional learning activities are supported by
technology resources and tools, time for collaboration, and appropriate incentives.
To support the unique needs of superintendents and district leaders, the U.S. Department of
Education identified and then filmed eight Future Ready districts that exemplified these four
Future Ready focus areas. The resulting collection of 47 research-based, short videos break
down specific actions taken by these district leaders to transform teaching and learning.
Superintendents can take a short survey that results in a personalized, on-demand video playlist
of Future Ready leadership in action. For more information about the Future Ready Leaders
project and access to the survey and videos, visit the U.S. Department of Education Future Ready
Leaders website at http://tech.ed.gov/leaders.
Implementation is Key
Although vision is critical to transforming teaching and learning, a strategic implementation plan
is key to success. In some states, districts or schools will develop their own technology implementation
plans; in others, state education leaders take the lead and districts follow. The Future
Ready website includes free online assessment tools to be completed by district teams. The
resulting reports are designed to help district teams create a comprehensive implementation plan
that accounts for the four Future Ready focus areas and support strategies.
In addition to working with teams within educational organizations to create an implementation
plan, leaders also should solicit input and feedback from a broad range of influencers: administrators,
teacher-leaders experienced in using technology to support learning, professional
organizations, boards of education, knowledgeable members of the community, business leaders,
cultural institutions, colleagues in other districts, and parents. 5
OFFICE OF Educational Technology
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