August 18, 2008

The New Tech Coordinator's Job

If you are a Tech Integration Consultant, a Tech Specialist, a Tech Coordinator, whatever the job title, and you are in charge of making sure students can use curricular materials related to technology, I would guess your job has changed in the past few years.
Gone are the days of huge student data base software programs. When I started in this position 8 years ago, I would begin each year by loading student information into various software programs. The teachers would be notified when they could begin using the software programs with the students and then, voila! The server would slow down to a snail's pace because everyone in the school started using the software-based programs at what seemed like the exact same moment. Like terrorists in action thrillers, they would synchronize watches so that the school would crash at exactly 0900 hours.
Gone are the days when the tech department would call the secretary a minimum of a dozen times a day to make the announcement over the intercom that, "All students need to log out of (insert program name here) until further notice."
Today's curriculum is delivered via the internet on beefed up, high-speed networks, if your district is lucky enough to be able to afford it. The only difference to students is that they can access the curriculum at home, if they desire. The only difference to the tech coordinator is that they upload the student data to a website instead of the server. The biggest difference is that the secretaries can now get more work done because they no longer have to jump up every 30 minutes to make the dreaded announcements. Hooray for technology!

No comments:

Post a Comment