When I was developing my questions for our school's Director of Technology I was thinking about the various changes that we have gone through over the past 2 years. While I have been at our school for the past 15 years working in the computer science area, teaching classes and offering tech support for faculty and staff our Director of Technology was hired 2 years ago.
Jim H. came to our school from another independent school in Pennsylvania where he had worked as the Assistant Director of Technology. When he was hired he quickly realized that there were many areas that needed his immediate attention in order to resolve many of the 'customer' complaints. The students complained about the slow wifi connection and since our school is a boarding school and many of our boarders come from outside of the US having a solid Internet connection is very important. With the advance of technology and more and more users becoming involved in purchasing their own devices to allow them Internet access, Jim knew that this was a problem that needed to be resolved very quickly.
Our technology team was somewhat disjointed and not meeting the support needs of our school either, we were spread very thin and had too many complaints for our small staff to handle so Jim quickly put a plan in motion to change our computer platform from PC to Mac. We switched our email from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail and when our division heads wanted to move our students to iPads Jim made the decision to have the students purchase them and have the parents be responsible for their repairs. His other important improvement was to hire a consultant to evaluate our wifi network and move quickly to add additional access points throughout campus. During this time we also introduced Schoology, a learning management system, to improve communication between students, teachers and parents. This is an online system that works and looks similar to Facebook.
These changes improved our service on campus tremendously because now email worked, wifi is now stable and our computers don't have virus problems as they had in the past. Jim is a manager who understands the challenges of working with technology in an educational environment and what good technical support looks like.
The Hall textbook speaks to a Technology Directors measurements of success and how using technology can improve teaching and learning. Teachers and students need to have technology that works first then they have to learn to use it properly. Under the guidance of our Director of Technology, our school is certainly on the right track.
References
Hall, D. (2008). The Technology Director’s Guide to Leadership . Eugene: ISTE.
Picciano, A. (2011). Educational Leadership and Planning for Technology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.
Well it sounds like your Director of Technology knows what he is doing and is confident in his ability to perform his job. I think it would have been very easy for someone to come into a similar position and continue to have things at status quo. 2 years is an extremely short amount of time to make some very big changes even before financial considerations get factored into the mix. I think that technology is something that relies on good maintenance and upkeep to function at an efficient level more than other things we use daily. From personal experience, I can tell you there is nothing more frustrating than having a computer that hasn’t been well maintained and is slow because of it. Computers and technology are wonderful things but dealing with slow internet or a computer that is bogged down with programs and viruses is so aggravating. It is important that as a Technology Director to understand that and to make sure that the items that you are responsible for are well maintained so that they can be used and used efficiently. I think when you work with someone like your Technology Director it is such a blessing. Not only do they make performing your job easier but you get to see someone perform their job at a high level. This can inspire you to also raise your performance but there is so much to learn from individuals who know and love their job. I think that people like that make coming to work exciting.
ReplyDeleteThank you Megan. You certainly have given me a positive way of looking at my current IT Director. There are times when our system drives me crazy but I am sure that I would not be able to cope if I had to step back in time and work for a school with little or no technology and no on campus tech support. That certainly is not a plan to is idea either in our textbook nor in real life. Thanks for reading my post.
ReplyDeleteLeRhonda