The new GCSE - mass unemployement for School IT Staff?

[psydii]

Since there is no controlled assessment anymore, exams are replacing almost all coursework, and remain handwritten... why spend any money at all on technology. Just throw a few Raspberry PI's at the brighter students and that's our job done.

 

Seriously though, the work of every single person I know is more like coursework than it is a 2hr Public Examinations. The only people who do anything like examinations are Doctors, Lawyers taking their, erm, Exams before they gain their professional qualification. Everything else looks like coursework, or burger flipping.

 

And on the matter of eliminating modules/retakes... it would be much more revealing to allow them, but the final grade should include the number of times the module was taken.

 

Meh. I need to stop now, before I wander off into an incoherent rant. #toolate.

[FN-GM]

I doubt it would lead to unemployment here. The work we do for the ICT department is a very small proportion.

[clareq]

i don't particularly care how exams/coursework are given, as long as the student does all the work and only the top 5% get the top grade. The idea that a student who gets 100% in an exam, and one who gets 70% both get an A is insulting, and doesn't give Universities/employers anything to differentiate these students. The failure of the exam system in recent years is the reason more and more universities are setting entrance exams. My daughter is studying for her PHD and supports in tutorials. She says students enter University now unable to think for themselves.

[Edu-IT]

What about support for administration?

[psydii]

Give me 15K for training, and I'd eliminate every single support request from the 'admin' team in the last 12 months... except for queries that required 3rd party support - which didn't actually require local tech intervention anyway.

 

If there is no coursework or controlled assessment, a substantial chunk of the justification for having IT outside of the ICT teaching rooms is gone.

[Edu-IT]

Give me 15K for training, and I'd eliminate every single support request from the 'admin' team in the last 12 months... except for queries that required 3rd party support - which didn't actually require local tech intervention anyway.

 

If there is no coursework or controlled assessment, a substantial chunk of the justification for having IT outside of the ICT teaching rooms is gone.

Probably true. But could you train them to deal with every single tech issue they'll come across? Who's going to make sure the network is running. No matter how good your network is it'll still need some management to keep it running.

[psydii]

That's another £15K. Shove the rest into the cloud.

[Roberto]

Not sure what the problem is here. Computers are, or certainly should be these days, far more than electronic typewriters for producing coursework.

[broc]

I doubt it will make a huge difference. I would expect computers continue to be used in subjects such as Art, Photography, Media Studies, & Technology, plus many students use the Internet for research and run subject specific applications right across the curriculum.

 

I would imagine student printing costs might go down.

[Quackers]

But who would clean the projector filters, replace lamps?, fix the printers when they jam, manage the internet filter and firewall, backup the servers, install and configure new telephone lines (VoIP), replace faulty switches, maintain all the staff laptops, IT Suite machines and Admin stations? To name but a few tasks IT Staff do in schools.

[sted]

i don't particularly care how exams/coursework are given, as long as the student does all the work and only the top 5% get the top grade. The idea that a student who gets 100% in an exam, and one who gets 70% both get an A is insulting, and doesn't give Universities/employers anything to differentiate these students. The failure of the exam system in recent years is the reason more and more universities are setting entrance exams. My daughter is studying for her PHD and supports in tutorials. She says students enter University now unable to think for themselves.

 

maybe grading itself is part of the problem give them a percentage instead (where appropriate granted this is probably easy for maths/science damned hard for english/history that are more essay absed and subjective)

[psydii]

Filters £500 per year.

Printers: Just taken a quick look in the help desk 2 reported jams this year. Well maintained (service contract/new) printers and that isn't a problem. The entire print fleet costs less than the cost of a tech for one year.

Manage the internet filter. This is under change control.. an dead easy, so the SLT who signs of the change could just as easiliy make it.

 

Backup the servers: Cloud. Finance and Data Manager have ultimate responsibility to look after their data. (We just do a better job)

 

New telephone lines: just as easily premisies/managed service.

 

Replace faulty switches: Managed service.

 

Maintain staff laptops: BYOD - not our problem.

 

IT Suite etc: Lock'em down, and hand them over to a managed service.

 

 

Cheaper than running a local team.

[synaesthesia]

"Mass Unemployment for School IT Staff"

 

Do you read the Daily Mail?

[Earthling]

"Mass Unemployment for School IT Staff" ?

 

Oh, I wish.

 

Every morning I wake up hoping the Redundancy Fairy has been to visit.

[broc]

We will still be needed to support the new army of 'coders' that the Prime Minister wants schools to produce

 

PM Cameron calls for modern, programmable computers! (We think) ? The Register

[Modey]

I've sent my two tech's home since reading this news. Have also turned off our servers, seriously struggling with something to do now!

 

Where's that knitting pattern gone ...

[mthomas08]

I doubt it would lead to unemployment here. The work we do for the ICT department is a very small proportion.

 

+1

 

Every room here has interactive whiteboards, registers are all done on PCs, we have CCTV, biometric cashless catering/printing and a ton of software for other departments not just for ICT. We also have a netbook scheme where all year 7s and 8s have a netbook and they access several free pieces of software including a few purchased. They also use the VLE/SLG and a few other facilities on wireless/internet which then 95% of them can access at home (because only about 5% don't have internet access at home).

 

I my self have been down to design and technology this week sorting out their out dated PCs, Media (DT, Music and few other depts.) have about 7 classrooms with several PCs in them. I can honestly say ICT has only been about 10% max of all our weekly work load.

 

IT it self is pushed for every department.

 

This school also went through a phase of having out sourced IT and it just simply didn't work well and too costly for the support they were getting. So I don't currently see our jobs under threat for now, I my self am newly employed and so is our techy (team of 3).

Edited June 12, 2013 by mthomas08

[sparkeh]

Mass unemployment is a bit of an over reaction and managed services haven't exactly has a great press of late.

No I think we are safe for now (until Micheal Gove reintroduces the stone tablet and chisel into schools).

[Linfit]

They'll still need someone to:

 

Glue the tablets back together when the kids break em

Order new chisels and sharpen them when they lose them.

 

and we can assume that in that situation Apple will produce a tablet (sorry!) which will not be compatable with the standard chisels and will require extra support.

[psydii]

It's a straw man arguement.

 

Those saying what about the technology in classrooms, or student laptops are missing my point... which is there is little justification in the expense once you have removed the support these tools give for creating superb coursework. 'prepared for the workplace' is not measured by the exam system or ofsted. Therefore (I argue) the justification for the expense is weak. Value for Money.

 

Art, Photography, Media, Technology - these are not subjects that matter in the new system, why invest in them?

 

And as for the managed service sales pitch vs reality, you may be inclined cast aspersions , but I may only quote Urquhart.

[Flatpackhamster]

It's a straw man arguement.

 

Those saying what about the technology in classrooms, or student laptops are missing my point... which is there is little justification in the expense once you have removed the support these tools give for creating superb coursework. 'prepared for the workplace' is not measured by the exam system or ofsted. Therefore (I argue) the justification for the expense is weak. Value for Money.

 

Art, Photography, Media, Technology - these are not subjects that matter in the new system, why invest in them?

 

And as for the managed service sales pitch vs reality, you may be inclined cast aspersions , but I may only quote Urquhart.

 

Oh, please. Less of the melodrama.

 

We were already doing ourselves out of a job. Instead of, 10 years ago, needing one tech per 30 machines, you now need one for 500. Remote management, remote this, more efficient the other, automated that - makes it all far more efficient but needs fewer boots on the ground. That's progress, that's how it's been since the first ape-man carved the first silicon chip in 14 million BC.

[sparkeh]

It's a straw man arguement.

Um.. without wishing to get caught up in semantics, actually your statement is the straw man here: "No more controlled assessment" -> "Mass unemployment" = Straw Man