One of the nation’s leading experts on P-12 school technology leadership issues seeks input on his technology integration discussion protocol, which he has dubbed “trudacot.”
“Like ‘apricot,’ only sweeter,” says Scott McLeod, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Colorado Denver. Spelled out, the acronym stands for “Technology-Rich Unit Design And Classroom Observation Template.” McLeod says trudacot is intended to help facilitate educator conversations about deeper learning, student agency and technology integration.
Technology integration should be purposeful. That simple statement is at the heart of the trudacot template. “We continually ask the question, 'Technology for the purpose of what?’” says McLeod. “With that in mind, we set out to create a template of questions that would allow educators to think critically - and purposefully - about their technology integration.”
School leaders need to ask different questions if they want technology to, say, increase student agency, in contrast to other objectives, such as facilitate students' deeper thinking or creativity. McLeod says trudacot tries to identify concrete “look-for” characteristics that can help educators think about what they might change. Trudacot is both a way of sharing and gathering information.
Sample Trudacot Question
McLeod has devoted decades to writing and teaching about education leadership, innovation, student empowerment, digital technologies and schools relevant for our children and society through an array of books and articles, speaking engagements and his blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. He also created Digital Leadership Daily, which provides one digital school leadership reading or resource per day, tweeted, texted and posted to Facebook. It provides support to administrators during the complex transformations of ushering in digital learning tools and environments.
