Technology Use in Independent Schools

Approved by the NAIS board in 2006.

Technology provides increasingly powerful tools and offers a variety of educational opportunities that can improve teaching and learning. The principles below offer crucial guidelines for administrators, teachers, and technology staff in planning and managing the role of technology in independent schools.

Leadership

1. The school regularly evaluates its use of technology to support its mission, goals, and program.
2. School heads, curriculum leaders, and professional development leaders are actively involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of technology integration goals.
3. School leadership articulates the rationale for educational use of technology and builds widespread consensus for its adoption.
4. School leadership incorporates technology considerations into strategic planning and creates a sustainable financial model for school technology commitments.
5. The staff member responsible for the technology program contributes leadership to the school’s administrative team.
6. The school provides faculty, staff, and students with equitable access to technology.
7. The school recognizes that advancing technology integration often requires significant support for risk taking, time for faculty planning, and adjustment in the allocation of instructional time.

Teaching and Learning

1. Educators research, evaluate, and employ technology to support curricular goals and to meet the range of learning styles, abilities, and life experiences of their students.
2. Educators appreciate and recognize that technology can create learning opportunities for students that would not otherwise be possible, fundamentally transforming the nature of the relationship between teacher and learner.
3. Educators embrace technologies that promote project-based, student-centered learning, the acquisition of problem-solving skills, and the development of media and information literacy.
4. The school educates students, teachers, and parents about the safe, healthy, ethical, legal, and appropriate use of technology resources.

Professional Development

1. The school recognizes that the single most important factor in technology integration is the teacher.
2. Educators seek out opportunities to learn technology and implement research-based best practices for technology use within their discipline. 
3. The school includes technology integration as an essential component of its professional development, provides the necessary time and resources for it, and ensures that educators acquire and demonstrate essential technology skills and proficiencies.

Infrastructure and Administrative Operations

1. The school uses technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative operations.
2. The school has adequate technology staffing and infrastructure appropriate for its size and operations.
3. The school maintains and protects its data, network, and hardware.
4. The school provides timely support for computers and the people who use them.

Critical Questions for School Leaders  is a companion piece to the NAIS Principles of Good Practice for Technology Use in Independent Schools. This monograph addresses school leadership and educational technology and is designed to help school teams discuss, plan, and evaluate technology use in independent schools.

The NAIS Principles of Good Practice for member schools define high standards and ethical behavior in key areas of school operations to guide schools in becoming the best education communities they can be. Accordingly, membership in NAIS is contingent upon agreement to abide by "the spirit" of the PGPs. Principles are precepts grounded in an ethic and ethos of “doing the right thing.” Practices are common activities. 

NAIS member schools can download individual Principles of Good Practice from this section of the NAIS website for distribution within the school community. Printed booklets (printed once each year) are also available for sale through the bookstore -- but the website is always the most up-to-date collection of the PGPs. It is our hope that the increased visibility of and easy access to the principles will go a long way in helping schools fulfill their missions.