Submitted by J. D. Wilson Jr (not verified) on April 22, 2008 - 08:53.
I think at our school educators that use technology have a different mission from the tech staff. The tech staff's first concern seems to be that the networks and the various technological components (grading systems, software, hardware, etc.) are working properly and are kept as up to date as our budgets can afford. They have a second mission which involves gatekeeping and firewalls. The tech staff's greatest concern in this regard is the nature of the materials that students can access online inside the building. This results in students not being able to do research on writers (I am an English teacher) like Emily Dickinson and Charles Dickens because of certain letters in their names when isolated from the context of their names. The tech staff has been willing to unblock some of these sites, but it seems that each year the exercise has to be repeated and that there is no permanent solution to the problem. I understand what the tech staff is trying to do but this often interferes with what I am trying to do as an educator. This is also ironic in light of the fact that the tech people are usually the first to tell me that the students know how to get around most things. It is my impression that there is frustration on both sides of the equation. On the part of teachers over how the work they are trying to do is made a bit more difficult and on the part of the tech staff over how they have to run interference between a number of different constituencies with missions that are often at odds with one another.
Tech Staff and Teachers
Submitted by J. D. Wilson Jr (not verified) on April 22, 2008 - 08:53.
I think at our school educators that use technology have a different mission from the tech staff. The tech staff's first concern seems to be that the networks and the various technological components (grading systems, software, hardware, etc.) are working properly and are kept as up to date as our budgets can afford. They have a second mission which involves gatekeeping and firewalls. The tech staff's greatest concern in this regard is the nature of the materials that students can access online inside the building. This results in students not being able to do research on writers (I am an English teacher) like Emily Dickinson and Charles Dickens because of certain letters in their names when isolated from the context of their names. The tech staff has been willing to unblock some of these sites, but it seems that each year the exercise has to be repeated and that there is no permanent solution to the problem. I understand what the tech staff is trying to do but this often interferes with what I am trying to do as an educator. This is also ironic in light of the fact that the tech people are usually the first to tell me that the students know how to get around most things. It is my impression that there is frustration on both sides of the equation. On the part of teachers over how the work they are trying to do is made a bit more difficult and on the part of the tech staff over how they have to run interference between a number of different constituencies with missions that are often at odds with one another.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.