Curiosty i suppose but what is the primary role of an ict co-ordinator. Considering the extra pay involved.
Curiosty i suppose but what is the primary role of an ict co-ordinator. Considering the extra pay involved.
Do they have to be teachers???? If not, it's money for asking the Network Manager or Technician what to do and asking for their development plan and not passing the salary on.
TEACHERS!!!
The best thing is they dont know b####r all about ict!!!
we end up sorting out the mess and problems that they have caused.
for more than a couple of G's on top of salary!!!!!
Forgot to mention! Blowing the IT budget on things they've seen at demos and then not using them when what we realy need is a new Domain Controller and some PC's that arn't 7 years old.
The role of our ICT co-ordiantor is to be part of the ICT strategy group and to work with staff to see how ICT can be embedded into the school wide curriculum. E.g they will come along and say x wants to achieve this. Is it possible, what are the resource implications etc, is there a better way.
Discussions are had and then software/hardware/technologies specified and approved by me are purchased/implemented. In our school they certainly don't just go off and buy stuff.

I think that to answer the OP, the role of 'ICT Coordinator' is a hang over from the days before schools had network managers. The role should be to ensure that the school's ICT development is in line with the school's curriculum development plan. Nowadays, this role is mainly performed by the network manager liaising with SLT.
The problems highlighted above are generally where a teacher who held the title many moons ago is hanging on to it for dear life to keep their pay bumped up and to feel like they have some sort of power.

This is how it is in one of my schools. The ICT co-ordinator has told me that he doesnt want to be involved in the actual physical network/computer side of things, although he has quite a lot of knowledge about it, but he does a great job of standing between me and SMT! He will back me up if I need to buy things or implement some changes, or he might suggest something new to look at such as a helpdesk or whatever. We are looking into the VLE question together and as far as I am concerned, he is wonderful.
At the other school, I am ignored and left out of all major decisions. I have avoided giving the IT co-ordinator the admin password as I don't trust him (I am part time so someone has to have it to do the simple stuff if I am not there). New stuff appears all over the place and I never get asked if it is suitable or not
Same for me in the two schools I worked at. One was good one was bad. Now its just the onethank god!
I like the Roman one. The kids discovered horse p** and created their stories basedon that.
On a more serios note at my last school there wasa stearing group and we worked together on new technologie.
At my current they just sent out a wish list and got a load of stuff that they havn't used.![]()
The head of science is ultimately responsible for science teaching in a school. The head of ICT should do the same for ICT teaching. The trouble is the divide between ICT teaching (which happens at a departmental level and across the curriculum) and the need to have strategic development and management of the ICT hardware (I'm including admin machines in this category).
In an ideal world these posts are distinct from each other. As Ric says, some schools haven't split these two roles and still have people who don't understand the technology in enough detail making purchasing details. It would be interesting to see which schools are still stuck in the past.
TeacherNet, School Coordinators
The Standards Site: The ICT coordinator's responsibilities
The head of ICT should certainly have input, but they should not be in charge of anything not directly related to teaching, such as admin computers or school wide servers.
I may be wide of the mark but does GCSE & A-Level ICT not simply require each pupil to have a working windows PC, with the right software and a working network connection. With that they should be able to teach the whole curriculum. The ins and outs of what servers to use, which networking infrastructure, security provisions etc. should all be handled by IT professionals, such as the Network Manager.
It is the job of the IT teaching department to teach IT, it is the job of the ICT service to facilitate that. SMT, teaching departments and IT staff should work together to make sure this happens.

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)