Ed-Tech Credential Push Starting with Online Teachers

Initiative aims to set national certification for school professionals

An initiative that aims to establish national education technology certifications for administrators, classroom instructors, librarians, and professional-development specialists will begin by offering a credential to online teachers.

The Leading Edge Certification program for online teaching, launched last week by founding chairman Mike Lawrence, the executive director of Computer-Using Educators, a statewide advocacy group for educational technology in California, based in Walnut Creek, will be offered by nearly two dozen partners. They include the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE, and the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or iNACOL.

Leading Edge appears to be the first such national effort, though a few states have waded into certifying online teachers, and the Washington-based Consortium for School Networking is developing an accreditation program...