Consortium for School Networking
Founded in 1992, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) is a professional association for school district technology leaders and interested partner organizations like the National Writing Project. CoSN is committed to providing the leadership, community and advocacy tools essential for the success of these leaders, through implementation of initiatives that hope to empower K-12 school district technology leaders to use technology strategically to improve teaching and learning.
CoSN provides information for technology specialists to locate and have access to a network of colleagues that can help further their practice and schools through participation in programs and initiatives started by local chapters and the national organizations.
CoSN has a number of communities for members, which offer different services based on your preferred method of communiciation or your specific needs, such as social networking, online discussion forums, and a project-management portal used to coordinate projects between members.
CoSN’s Framework of Essentail Skills of the K-12 Chief Technology Officer represents the attributes and knowledge a school or district Chief Technology Officer will need in order for student acquisition of 21st century skills.
CoSN has partnered with the New Media Consortium to produce the Horizon Report and Toolkit, which provides research and discussion about new media technologies that can improve performance in K-12 schools. Due to a key development in education that learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom anymore, some of the technologies they identify as being beneficial in the future are those that take advantage of the possibility to communicate and learn across computer networks and those that utilize transitory usage, like mobile devices and handheld games.
Additionally, they have started a number of initiative projects, aimed at providing leadership training to technology leaders in education and will help them answer questions and make choices about addressing schools’ technology needs in the future.Open 2010-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf
