Response to Posed Statements
Ann Adjutant (adjutant@polar.bowdoin.edu)
Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:55:01 -0500
"Any technology plan with user involvement and buy-in will be obsolete by
the time it's completed."
**I agree with this statement. The trick is to stay flexible and hire staff
who keep up on the changes so that those changes can be integrated along the
way. It would be foolhardy to have a static technology plan. The other
piece to this is communication. It is very important to have regular
meetings with the staff who is technically maintaining and updating the
network, so that they are able to ask questions and play off one another's
strengths as things change. Other groups that need to be kept informed are:
the people responsible for the financial support and the users. The staff
development needs to keep current with the changes so that the users are
able to stay current.**
"The only way to fund educational networks is to integrate them completely
with administrative networks."
**Our particular network is called: The Community of Learners. Our network
is more than a school-to-school network. We are currently in the process of
finding ways to have community members involved. We have been engaging in
conversations with a variety of community groups to see what kinds of
services the network could provide. From that information we are building a
business plan so that the cost of running the network becomes
community-based and not strictly school-based.**
"There will never be adequate technical support for schools, so teachers
must learn to support themselves with the help of their students."
**The Community of Learners has had a very agressive staff development
program. We have two and three hour training sessions on various aspects -
basic e-mail, HTML, advanced Eudora, for example. In addition one of the
staff developers spent time in each school last fall acting as a resource
when teachers could find time to meet with him. Because the state of Maine
has money from a rate case with the telephone company, a plan was devised to
train 2 people in each school building in some basic skills to help teachers
in their building with telecommunications. We have been able to reduce our
need to be in the individual school building by using these people trained
by the state program. By shifting that piece to the schools we have put our
efforts into working with teams of teachers (2-3) in each building. Each
team of teachers is working on a project to integrate the technology with a
piece of current classroom curriculum.
The administrators have recognized the importance of staff development in
the process of building a telecommunications network and see the need to
support a person in that capacity after the grant is gone. How did we get
the administration on board??? We had training sessions designed just for
school board members and administrators.
In some ways, I feel I am not addressing this question because of the word
"technical" in your statement. We have a number of technical levels being
addressed by various staff people. Low technical help is delivered by the 2
people trained by the state and the Community of Learners staff developer.
The next level is the technology person(s) in the school district or school
building. And at the top we have a person we call the network system
integrator who runs the whole network and handles all of the difficult
technical issues. This network of people has enabled us to deliver a
high-quality online service since we went up in July. (We have had only one
break since that time.)**
"You can't change anything unless the teachers are all on-board."
**I agree with your statement. The enthusiasm in these three school
districts has been phenomenal. It is like catching the edge of the wave.
We seem to have hit this project at an opportune moment in humankind's
history. Does that mean that every single person is operating at the
optimum??? No. But the momentum in the schools is such that it is hard not
to participate in the network. The most difficult piece is having at least
one computer online in each classroom. One school district has almost
accomplished this. This is the key to having all teachers on-board. The
students and community are driving this project along with the cutting-edge
teachers.**
"Teachers will never change, so reform begins at the top."
**Reform in schools is a community project. It is also a greater community
project - the state and the nation. One teacher in one classroom doesn't
make reform happen - but two teachers in a building is a beginning. By
working with teams of teachers in school buildings and community members,
reform is possible.**
Ann Adjutant
Science Facilitator/Project Director, COL
Brunswick/SAD 75 Beacon Center
adjutant@polar.bowdoin.edu
207-725-3108 fax: 207-725-1700