What we expect from one another is less important than the strength of
the professional relationships we build with the people we serve. Some
people are more interested than others in becoming better together
than we can be on our own. These are the people in whom you should
invest the majority of your time and energy.
One of the challenges of working in school technology is that we are
accountable in all kinds of ways to people who are not particularly
accountable to us. We can continue to bemoan that fact and rail about
what is instead of what should be (I still get on this soapbox
sometimes and should know better by now). Ultimately, this approach
squanders valuable time and emotional capital. Better to get busy
seizing opportunities we find and investing ourselves in those who
want to meet us half way or better. As for the rest, be professional,
work to earn and keep their trust, meet what needs they have with all
due diligence, stay alert for signs that they are ready to up the ante
for moving forward, and welcome it when it happens.
When decisions need to be made and no consensus can be found, do your
homework, make the call, and own the consequences, good and bad (this
is why we get the big dollars in school technology). You can invite
people to take part in helping make these decisions, and when they are
eager to do so in a constructive way, it's great. More often, though,
folks would rather not deal with the complexity that is part and
parcel of what we do every day; even those with good intentions find
they don't have the stomach for it, so we move ahead on our own
comfortably because, by and large, we know more about how the school
actually runs than almost anyone else in it and have made it our
business to keep climbing the steep learning curve that comes with
this territory.
My two cents.
Curt Lieneck
Director of Information Technology
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
1362 E. 59th St.
Chicago IL 60637
V: 773.834.1863
F: 773.702.8480
On Jun 19, 2009, at 9:56 AM, Fred Austin wrote:
> Hi Guys
>
> Question:
> What are your expectations for teachers taking initiative to make
> sure they understand and use technology systems beyond their
> training and professional development? Realizing that there are
> different methods of uptake and retention on an individual basis, we
> are primarily talking about things like Moodle/Blackboard, SIS
> software, teacher web pages, and eTextbooks. Web 2.0 tools such as
> NING, Twitter, Podcasting, etc still being left up to the more
> motivated individual by choice.
> At what point does "hand-holding" taper off to wean the individual?
> Do you have instances of a few that just don't get it?
>
> Thanks for your feedback.
>
> Fred Austin
> Technology Director
> The Oakwood School
> Greenville, NC
>
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