Comments on: Tech Plan Part 3- Support

By: Learning Spiral 2.0 » Blog Archive » IT Plans

Learning Spiral 2.0 » Blog Archive » IT Plans — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:33:05 +0000

[...] Essential Read – (Informational/Infrastructure Technologists) IT vs Educational Technologists (ET) – Support: Part 3 [...]

By: Evan Scherr

Evan Scherr — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:35:24 +0000

My district has a position that they created around 7 years ago called the Educational Computer Strategist (ECS). Their duties were to include going into classrooms and working with both teachers and students with ways they could use all of the technology our district has.

A prof of mine, Neal Strudler, conducted research to see if the ECS’ were being used correctly and how they felt about their job.
Each year since the position started ECS’ have reported less and less job satisfaction as they move further and further away from teaching and training in instructional technology to fixing computers, and responding to help desk type issues.

I have heard that my district may end the ECS’ program, leaving our school not only without IT support, but instructional support as well. A shame all around if you think about it as one person is required to wear two hats for four heads.

I like your plan a lot and believe that districts are going to have to ask themselves where they want to be 5 years from now. With guys like Larry Cuban out there telling all that will listen that all of this technology is not making any differnece, districts are going to have to step up and find ways to make it work. The world is not becoming any less technological.

By: Steve Sokoloski

Steve Sokoloski — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:05:16 +0000

Jeff – thanks for this. Since July we have transforming our district IT support (an educator now heads all IT for Town, and Schools). Concurrently we have a building project on the drawing board where we will “rennovate to new” 3 PK-4 schools (energy, security, program space). We will add formal LMC’s w/ attached computer labs (we use converted classrooms now). While the senior admin is shy about putting staffing discussions on the table publically, for fear of making the project look too pricey, we (the ET/IT folks) want to have that discussion at a “staff” level. We have a chance to step back and ask, “Where do we want to be 4 years from now?” Your diagram allows our senior admin to see a model of how it all fits together, and will be a way to help start the conversation. We do much of this already but perhaps the circles overlap differently. Thanks

By: Kyle Brumbaugh

Kyle Brumbaugh — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:00:14 +0000

The missing link identified and defined… The problem is that we need to get school administrators understand that having someone in these roles is as important as having lights and electricity. Until that happens, it will be very difficult to make real substantive change in education. I am the Technology Coordinator for a school district and we started work on our new tech plan this week… Your diagrams and role descriptions will definitely move us forward in our journey.

By: Doug johnson

Doug johnson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:13:18 +0000

Hi Jeff,

Excellent diagram. I deeply appreciate the overlapping roles of the ET and LMS. As schools continue to use technology with kids in its most powerful form – as a problem-solving and communication tool – I see these roles merging.

Such wisdom from one so young!

And have fun at the EARCOS admin conference. I had a great time last year in Bangkok at it. It’s smart to combine admin and tech conference.

All the best,

Doug

By: Rick Biche

Rick Biche — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:30:46 +0000

Jeff, Next week as our district meets for the first collaborative look at technology your posts will be useful in guiding discussion. The message on this post in particular needs to be heard within our district. We have just made some major infrastructure purchases and upgrades. Because my focus is on learning, the question that I see is how can our district ensure that this new equipment is used effectively? Support, support, support…
Thanks so much for posting this series.

By: David Gran

David Gran — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:31:48 +0000

Jeff- informative and insightful as always.
However, I do have one small point of contention:

The Literacy/Media specialist must understand that the Dewey Decimal system is being replaced by tags, categories, and Boolean searches.

This is something that we talk about a great deal (since as you know I share an office with our librarian/literacy-media specialist). One thing that we’re in agreement on is that while it is critical for the traditional library to embrace new forms of research and broaden its definition of ‘literacy’ , this does not diminish the importance of learning how to research by finding and opening a ‘real’ book as well.

In other words, this small adjustment to your statement would make your message much more relevent to me:

The Literacy/Media specialist must understand that the Dewey Decimal system is being supplimented by tags, categories, and Boolean searches.

By: Cheryl Oakes

Cheryl Oakes — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:46:42 +0000

Jeff, Thanks for your concise report about how you see all the technology support working in schools. I will be sharing this next week with my District Technology Group.Our schools are in a great space in terms of people, but we need to work on the communication piece not only amongst ourselves but in getting the message out to all staff and students. Thanks again.
Cheryl Oakes

By: Tom Hoffman

Tom Hoffman — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:46:08 +0000

We had ET *before* we had IT. We had more innovative uses of technology in schools *before* we started rolling in corporate IT people and Windows.