Global Collaborations Program

The “I” in ISTE stands for international. It’s more than part of an acronym. It represents an ongoing, long-term focus on working with people, creating mutual, beneficial international relationships, building international networks, establishing international affiliate organizations and importantly, learning with our friends from around the world.

How does ISTE succeed in global education? We energetically reach out to engage with potential collaborators: multinational organizations, education-focused companies, ministries of education and technology, nonprofit government organizations, school systems, individual schools and international teachers and leaders. Then together we build programs, pilots or processes to deepen engagement for the benefit of all.

Over time, these relationships mature, grow and become vibrant, worthwhile and exciting. From an ISTE perspective they are all based on components fundamental to ISTE’s mission, including:

• Creating a passionate professional learning community
• Linking educators and collaborators
• Leveraging knowledge and expertise
• Advocating for strategic policies
• Continually improving learning and teaching

In support of our mission to create a world where all learners thrive, we’ve created the ISTE International Advisory Group to provide advice and guidance to ISTE leadership and staff in the following areas:

• To communicate and amplify ISTE's priorities and initiatives within their respective networks.
• To increase ISTE’s mission outreach internationally and the diversification of our community of educators.
• To ensure the context in which ISTE’s initiatives are presented in appropriate and educationally sound to the realities and needs educators worldwide.
• To internally support ISTE in bringing a new awareness of the essential preconditions for successful change programs in education to the CEO and Leadership Team.
• To provide support in sharing local experiences across other countries in building broadly based Communities of Practice, and through various Best Practice Forums and activities.
• To assist with presentations and representations at ISTE events, both for internal and external purposes.

MDEC

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) and Malaysia’s Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) signed a memorandum of understanding signaling their shared commitment to collaborating to advance excellence in learning and teaching through innovative and effective use of technology. MDeC was formed in 1996 to provide Malaysia’s government with counsel and advice on legislation and policies for the digital age.

In spring, 2016, ISTE and MDEC began a collaboration with the goal of increasing digital age skills for school principals and their trainers, faculty from Institut Aminuddin Baki (IAB). The program – the ISTE Coaching Certificate Program – utilizes a blended model of instructional support to train coaches from IAB to reach out to school principals in order to evolve instruction at local schools through integration of the ISTE Standards and the ISTE Computational Thinking framework. The program began with three onsite trainings … in May 2016 and concluded in November 2016 with two online courses.

Collaborations

ISTE currently collaborates with the following organizations to connect learners in our connected world: