GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD

SCOTT MCLEOD
Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN
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Dr. Scott McLeod is the nation's leading academic expert on K-12 school technology leadership issues. In 2002, McLeod and his colleague, Dr. Joan Hughes, received funding from the United States Department of Education to create the first graduate program in the country designed to prepare technology-savvy school leaders. As a result of that work, McLeod and Hughes were named co-directors of the nation's only university center dedicated to school technology leadership issues, the University Council for Educational Administration Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE). CASTLE helps school administrators become technology leaders through its nationally-recognized curricula, its various partnerships, and its creation of free, high-quality resources. McLeod and Hughes have worked with dozens of corporate and organizational partners to provide numerous technology-related publications and resources for school administrators.

CASTLE's innovative School Technology Leadership certificate was the first academic program in the nation based on the International Society for Technology in Education's National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). The certificate is designed to ground students in the NETS-A both broadly and deeply. CASTLE's groundbreaking curriculum has been shared freely with 15 other universities that have since used the materials to revamp existing classes, create new courses, and even develop new graduate programs. The network now reaches educators all across the country. CASTLE and McLeod are doing their part to help the 125,000 public and private schools develop leaders who "get it" when it comes to technology. As McLeod notes, "When leaders don't get it, it doesn't happen."

"I'm on a mission. We need more administrators who are leaders in the area of technology. While schools are making marginal, incremental improvements, the world around them is changing both quickly and dramatically. We have a moral obligation to prepare students for their technology-suffused, globally-interconnected future." Scott McLeod