Going underground

[Dos_Box]

I was called into my bosses office today. I like my boss, both of them in fact (I have two), they are intelligent, generous, encouraging and generally let me have a free reign on my time to use it as I wish.

He came straight to the point. I have been found out at a high level. That high level questioned a school who told them about EduGeek and my input to it. They then started to Google like mad to find out all they could and what they found made them unhappy.

They are unhappy with several points, but what it comes down to is that I

 

a. Cannot mention my employer in any way shape or form.

b. Use my real name (or possibly even this one) without running the risk of being accused of using the internet inappropriately at work, even though we view it as a resource.

c. Be critical of my employer by name.

 

To make this easy I have to ask you several things until the heat dies down.

 

a. Please do not use my real name when replying to posts or referring to me.

b If you are from a school in my area of work you may want to keep your school name low key. By all means state the town you work in, but hide your school name. We are now being watched by people who could make your life very hard indeed.

c. Appreciate that I will be watching during the day rather than taking part.

d. Do not e-mail me at work about EduGeek.

 

We must be doing something right to warrent this kind of attention!!

[MkII]

It is a difficult balance.

 

This is such a valuable resource for us all. Without others able or willing to share problems we become less effective in our roles. The payback is time spent helping others. I can see it in future job descriptions: 'spend time contributing to edugeek community'.

 

I even had it agreed with my managers that as I have no other means of accessing technical knowledge to do my job, I would rely on local colleagues by way of an email list AND an online forum of uk school techs.. It's either that or shell out £700 a day for an external support company to come in and fix the problems.

[GrumbleDook]

I have it written in my job description "to take part in local, regional and national support groups to aid and share best practice between schools or other relevant parties."

 

I have written into the job description of the rest of the team, "to forge links with other organisations that will result in the sharing of technical information."

 

It is a must in this day and age, and schools / LEAs / etc should be thankful that there are people willing to do set up sites like this free of charge.

 

Still ... a difficult balance, and since some LEAs are privatising their support teams now, this sort of service to other schools outside the LEA could end up a chargeable resource. Not saying it would in the case of the LEA of our illustrious demigod, but I am sure we could all see someone giving it a try.

[Dos_Box]

My bosses understand this. It is my employer (the county council) who do not want their name, in any way shape or for, being associated with this forum or my connection with them, including my job.

[Dos_Box]

I have even have to ask Becta to remove my EduGeek mailing list post from their site as it has my works email address and employers name on there. I will be contacting them this morning.

[GrumbleDook]

Ask them to change it to my details if you still want to keep it on there. My boss and people at County know what I get up to and just shrug their shoulders now ...

[tarquel]

This is a sad state of affairs indeed

 

When used properly, this is the best resource for everyone involved with IT techie stuff in education for three good reasons:

 

1) Its free - music to a county or school's ears I would have thought

2) Its run by people doing the educational techie work and input is given by a same class of people also - what could be more appropriate?

3) Time isnt spent sitting around looking at gag/joke/funny vid sites hehe

....um....

We all help each other for the benefit of IT in education throughout the UK [and possibly the world eventually] - what could be a better reason?

 

Just my 2p that is

Nath

[webman]

They're probably worried we'll show the teachers up at how useless some of them are when it comes to IT.

[kevinmcaleer]

Here come the men in black...

 

I wondered how long it would be before this kind of thing would happen. I suggest the charter should clearly state that no school is identifiable from the users profile or otherwise. There are lots of legal questions that can be raised if we're not careful, especialy when people are critical. I try to be as independent and neutral as possible.

 

Its just part of Edugeeks growing up process.

 

-Kev

[Dos_Box]

I have it written in my job description "to take part in local, regional and national support groups to aid and share best practice between schools or other relevant parties."

 

I have written into the job description of the rest of the team, "to forge links with other organisations that will result in the sharing of technical information."

 

It is a must in this day and age, and schools / LEAs / etc should be thankful that there are people willing to do set up sites like this free of charge.

 

Still ... a difficult balance, and since some LEAs are privatising their support teams now, this sort of service to other schools outside the LEA could end up a chargeable resource. Not saying it would in the case of the LEA of our illustrious demigod, but I am sure we could all see someone giving it a try.

 

I think I may have to get my job spec changed to state the same.