Techlearning blog

I mention this rather obvious fact because I was recently informed of a school in which the management of its ICT can only be said to be in a state of meltdown. The technical support team are doing a good job, but the senior management has abrogated all responsibility for it, taking the customary view that, as it's to do with computer system maintenance, it has nothing to do with them.

They are wrong, of course, so before continuing with this particular example, let's examine why they are wrong.

Firstly, a school has a duty to ensure that students and staff have access to the best computing facilities the school can afford, not least because there is plenty of research which says that technology can benefit the learning process, and in any case we need to prepare students for the world in which they will be working. If the equipment isn't working, it isn't accessible. It's as simple as that, and it's a management issue: someone needs to be asking why it isn't working, and making sure that plans are in place to prevent, or at least minimise the risk of, its happening again.

Secondly, if the school has spent thousands of dollars on computer systems that could have been spent on other things, it has a duty to ensure that all stakeholders are getting the best value for money possible. If the equipment is so unreliable that nobody feels confident enough to use it, then the school isn't getting any value for money.

Thirdly, ICT costs a lot -- not simply the initial outlay, but the replacement and other costs, known collectively as the total cost of ownership (TCO). The senior management team is in charge of overall financial planning, so it needs to financially plan for ICT. NOw, you may think that has nothing to do with technical support, but at least one school I know of has taken a strategic decision to purchase only the very best equipment, on the grounds that it will reduce maintenance costs three years hence.

Back to the example. Firstly, the equipment is in a constant state of disrepair because staff allow students to have unsupervised access to the computer suites, and some students regard this as an opportunity to take the computers apart.

That's a discipline issue, and possibly even a health and safety issue. It is, therefore, ultimately a management issue.

Another reason that the computers are in a state of disrepair is that few of the staff know how to use them properly or treat the facilities with respect. They cannot, therefore, act as good role models to the students in this respect. That has come about because there is no ICT induction program for new staff, and that is partly a result of their being no Head of ICT (she left). That's a staff professional development issue, and therefore within the province of the management team.

Yet another reason for the state of disrepair is that, as fewer and fewer monitors work, and as fewer and fewer mice work because of students removing the balls, staff allow, even encourage, students to swap monitors and leads in their lessons. That's a health and safety issue, and therefore the responsibility of the senior management team.

How about internet access? Nobody on the senior management team has authorised the implementation of a filtering system. In all fairness, that is partly because nobody has informed them what is going on, which I will relate in a second. Nevertheless, unless they have been stranded on a desert island for quite some time, the senior management ought to know a little about the potential dangers of the web, and should, therefore, have proactively asked for a filtering system to be put into place.

What is happening at the school is that some students are taking advantage of the lack of controls to download pornography. That is a child-protection issue. The school is dealing with it, but the lack of controls means that they are merely running from one breach in the dyke to the next.I

It isn't just about controls, of course. There is a moral dimension to all this, and again it is the responsibility of the senior management team to put the question: what kind of school are we? Once they work that one out, they need to ensure that every single member of the school society contributes to the attainment of that ideal.

Much of this is exacerbated by the attitude of long-standing staff (yes, the ones who have overseen the breakdown in discipline), who see it as their right to do what they like in their own classroom and to have fully-functioning ICT equipment all the time. They need to wake up and smell the coffee -- and, yes, such waking up is also one of the functions of senior management, because they set the parameters and limits for staff as well as students. At least they should do.

The situation at the school is in a kind of meltdown: organisational systems are intertwined, and when one is not working properly it is not long before others start to go awry. Nevertheless, the situation is not beyond repair -- situations rarely are --, though I would be interested to hear your views and solutions before proffering my own.

To return to the theme suggested at the start of this article: is the school ready for the Web 2.0 revolution in education? I think not.

Note: I have written more exensively about managing ICT technical support here.