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Technology Mission Statement for Schools
• What patterns do you see in the statements? • What do you like or dislike in the statements? • Are the statements easy to understand? • Are the statements too vague, or are they specific enough? • Are they too long? Too short? • Do the statements express an idea or a hope for the future? • Are they too unambitious? Too “pie in the sky”? • Do they contain adjectives or goals that are more appropriate for a mission statement? • Do they clarify a direction for the school and for its improvement efforts?
Other actions include: • Make sure that you copies of your school’s current vision to compare it to the examples. • Discuss the current and example statements. • Discuss the bulleted questions and the pertinent articles that you may wish to share. • Urge team members to explain to the faculty how the vision is a reflection of the school’s values and hopes.
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While a school vision statement describes what a schools wants to achieve over a period of time, a mission statement is used to define the aim and the purpose of the school in a shorter period of time. Technology mission statement for schools should be broad enough and diverse enough to cover the educational priorities in and ICT-dominated era.
The first thing which you need to do is to isolate the objectives in the school’s technology plan. You then need to determine specific school objectives as they relate to technological innovation.
An example given by Hughes and Burke (2014, p. 17) demonstrates the type of statement which you need for a primary school:
teaching and learning fosters motivation and engagement, and prepares students to navigate the 21st century world. Our students will be proficient at using technology for specific-purposes, critically analysing online information and producing a wide variety of digital texts.
The key criteria which this statements addresses includes:
1. That technology use in teaching and learning is important for students in today’s digital world; 2. Identifies what the students will be able to do.
WHAT DOES IT NOT ADDRESS? The statement fails to take note of how students will be able to become more engaged, critical and proficient with their use of technology.
It focuses on technology as a connector for community building and it stresses the importance of the digital skills the students will gain.
Drafting the Technology Mission Statement for Schools
The mission statement typically accompanies the schools vision statement and like it, should be revised accordingly. This is important because “give educators stronger motivation and provide parents with a clearer picture of what the school values. … A clear vision and a common mission that identify the kind of learning to be achieved can help keep the school and the efforts of its staff and students on target” (Peterson, 1995, as cited in Gabriel & Farmer, 2020).
The process of drafting mission statement for schools is the same for your school vision statement. It is ideal to share examples of other mission statements from schools and discuss the good and the bad points. This should not be done individually, but as a leadership team. Questions such as the following will help lead the discussion:
• What patterns do you see in the statements? • Are the statements specific enough?
