Submitted by Lisa (not verified) on May 9, 2008 - 16:10.
Our tech. department has undergone changes in the last year. Before this school year it was a running joke that to enter the office it was best to have someone tag along because of "safety in numbers." One person retired and another moved and now the office is manageable for us as teachers. The men and women in there are always bogged down with fixing the teacher laptops or the libraries computers and as soon as something is fixed, something else is usually broken. They work very hard and I give them a lot of credit because, quite frankly, it's a job I wouldn't want.
That being said, none of them have worked in a classroom. We can't even utilize sites like puzzlemaker.com to create review activities. Lots of sites are blocked but the students still get around them. We recently had a student suspended for hacking into the system and accessing both teacher and student accounts. It really makes me wonder why sites are blocked that students still can access? Shouldn't we worry more about security so that incidents like the one with my student don't happen again? I am probably just naive about this and there is probably more behind the scences than what I know but a lot of this doesn't make sense. I just recently started my master's program and my speciality will be technology in the classroom but I am afraid that I won't be able to do the activities I want to do if I don't have the technology to back it up.
Friend, or Foe?: Tech Staff and Teachers Don't Always Get Along
Submitted by Lisa (not verified) on May 9, 2008 - 16:10.
Our tech. department has undergone changes in the last year. Before this school year it was a running joke that to enter the office it was best to have someone tag along because of "safety in numbers." One person retired and another moved and now the office is manageable for us as teachers. The men and women in there are always bogged down with fixing the teacher laptops or the libraries computers and as soon as something is fixed, something else is usually broken. They work very hard and I give them a lot of credit because, quite frankly, it's a job I wouldn't want.
That being said, none of them have worked in a classroom. We can't even utilize sites like puzzlemaker.com to create review activities. Lots of sites are blocked but the students still get around them. We recently had a student suspended for hacking into the system and accessing both teacher and student accounts. It really makes me wonder why sites are blocked that students still can access? Shouldn't we worry more about security so that incidents like the one with my student don't happen again? I am probably just naive about this and there is probably more behind the scences than what I know but a lot of this doesn't make sense. I just recently started my master's program and my speciality will be technology in the classroom but I am afraid that I won't be able to do the activities I want to do if I don't have the technology to back it up.