I Like More Beer at My Parties!

So, today it's been suggested that we form a Working Party to work out how to implement this 1-device-per-student program.

The thought has been that we target Year 10 as a starting point for this program. If we figure that we've got 6 grades (7-12) then the computers we buy will be best run as two 3 year cycles (they can hardly last 6 years), the second will start in Year 10.  This means getting the students in Year 11 and 12 with machines in their hands sooner, there's a difinite need there.

So, it looks like our Working Party will be small.  Featuring myself, our e-Learning Coordinator, a member of the Board, and our English Faculty Head (a keen technology user, and teacher of year 10's).  That's fine by me, a smaller group should be much more nimble and decisive.

UPDATE - Our Working Party is now 5, we welcome our Librarian onboard.  This will be handy when we come to looking at e-texts.

A funny thing happened...

I've recently been asked to attend meetings of the College Building Committee / Master Planning Committee.  The idea is that the current building projects we're working toward need some guidance from I.T.  That's great, I couldn't be happier, as there have been a number of things that haven't exactly been ideal in previous construction projects (the comms racks that were too small for the servers, the expensive A/V systems that noone can use to name two examples).  So now hopefully we'll have less problems in our new buildings, or at least avoid repeating the same mistakes.

So anyway, what does this have to do with this blog?  Well my first one of these meetings took us off on a bit of a tangent.  We got very heavily into the future of I.T. at the College and how that affects new teaching spaces.  Take for example the four computer labs we currently maintain.  Should they be allowed for in a new construction project?  I couldn't imagine that would be a good idea, the use of desktops is going to receed in the coming years and these spaces with them.  But it's not simply good enough just to leave them out or remove the labs, you need a coherent plan for the future.  That's the road this meeting started to go down.

The meeting ended up with the Principal suggesting that the conversation is best continued at a Board level.  So apparently that means I'm about to see what happens at Board Meetings.  I hope I can remember the secret handshake! ;)

Sowing the seed.

It's been an interesting year so far.

The uncertainty about the College's next principal (which I have my suspicions about) has allowed time to ponder some things.  Particularly about future directions and trends in I.T.  With a change in leadership possible, it's not been the right time to try making any big changes, so we've been doing something different with our ICT Committee this year.  We've been running what I call 'New Technology Sessions".  Instead of meeting and going through the usual administrivia of budgets, apllications and policies we've been delving into some concepts that I felt a committee of ICT decision makers should be aware of.  From simple things like Web 2.0 and Cloud, to some of the programs that are going on in other schools, and even more confusing concepts like BYOD.  So far it's been received well by the group, who actually seem far more interested in these sessions than the regular meetings which I know from experience that some loathe.

This year is intended to be the I.T. Department's "break" year, with the DER rollouts finished and less College PC's to be renewed than in years to come, we'd figured this to be a good time to consolidate, to look at getting caught up on some infrastructure upgrades and generally not have to push all year.  That fits in well with the idea of New Technology Sessions, the Committee is also out of the DER rollout phase so they should sit back and take stock too.  Work out what the priorities are for using what is certainly more technology than the school has ever had.  Those thoughts might even be able to guide our infrastructure upgrades somewhat.