About CASTLE

The UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) is a program center of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) hosted by the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Directed by Drs. Scott McLeod and Joan Hughes, CASTLE is the nation's leading authority on the technology needs of K-12 school leaders.

Formerly known as the School Technology Leadership Initiative (STLI), CASTLE offers a multitude of resources for school administrators and the university programs that prepare them. CASTLE's School Technology Leadership graduate certificate program is the only academic curriculum in the country that comprehensively covers ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). The graduate certificate program has been found by the American Institutes for Research to have positive, statistically significant impacts on participants' school technology leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities and has been widely acclaimed for its innovative incorporation of technology into its coursework.

CASTLE administers the School Technology Leadership blog, which is rapidly becoming the premier source of information for school technology leaders. CASTLE also works through its Postsecondary Partnership Program (P3) to enhance the technology-related preparation practices of other university educational leadership programs. Fifteeen universities across the nation currently are involved in P3.

In addition to this web site and the aforementioned activities, CASTLE staff are working on a number of other resources for K-12 school technology leaders, including the nation’s first performance assessment for school leaders based on the NETS-A; purchasing guides for administrative and organizational software systems; online learning modules to help school leaders effectively facilitate classroom technology integration; and a school web site evaluation rubric. CASTLE staff also have a number of technology leadership-related publications, including two recent Microsoft white papers on data-driven decision-making. CASTLE is deeply indebted to its corporate and organizational partners, without whom none of its activities would be possible.

Please contact us if you would like more information about CASTLE's curriculum, activities, or resources, or if you are interested in CASTLE providing your school organization with customized school technology leadership training.