Learning leaders have important roles in facilitating and supporting the effective and innovative integration of technology in schools. Many leaders who are charged with the task of technology integration have not received professional development to support a leadership role. Many teachers who assume the role of technology leaders develop into this role organically over time based on their recognized performance. School administrators may not have the skills to make decisions for technology integration for learning. Effective ICT learning leaders exhibit the ability to create a shared vision, remain pedagogically focused, and seek and contribute to ongoing professional development. Recognizing characteristics of learning leaders who are innovators in technology integration is an important step in the overall improvement of education systems. This paper focuses on the role learning leaders have in the effective use of technology in the learning environment and the types of professional development that best support learning for these leaders. The paper also addresses the important role of 2 assessment, in order to continue the quest to determine what technology-enhanced interventions and innovations work for whom, in what contexts, and under what conditions.

Recent developments in educational innovation and new technologies have made tensions between old and new models of schooling more apparent, creating new demands upon teachers as agents of change. Looking back at the last 20 years, it is clear that important steps in development have tried to find a good balance between technology-and pedagogy-driven changes. In the first part of this article, we present some strategic models that summarize these developments. The second part of the article addresses new challenges on the horizon that point towards possible future developments. However, from the position of teachers in schools today, this might create an ambivalence between old and new models of teaching and learning that use new technologies. These models are discussed as ways of preparing teachers to innovate, adopt, and implement new ways of teaching and learning in the digital age.