School IT Policy

MathsNerd

Hi,

I have been made responsible for developing an IT Policy for a private secondary school. I would be interested to hear from anyone with experience of IT in secondary schools. What has worked and what hasn't worked? What are the up and coming technologies? Who are the best suppliers to go with. Any advice would be gratefully received.

ntlbell

My advice to you and your school is to hire a consultant that knows what they're doing...handing off something like this to I assume you're a teacher is a bit like investment bankers asking the cleaners in the office to be fund managers.

spurious

I would imagine a lot of it will be concerned with covering the school's backside should any darling use their facilities to do naughty things.

MathsNerd

ntlbell,

Thank you for your condascending reply. I will take it on board. Of course we will be using the services of an IT consultant. However, I think your assumption of teachers being unqualified to assess the IT needs of a school is a little premature given that you know nothing about this particular teacher's qualifications. I would be interested to hear from teachers who have used various IT based educational aids. Nobody is more qualified than those using IT in the classroom to give informed advice on how a particular technology works in the classroom. An IT consultant will, no doubt, have an abundance of technical knowledge. However, dealing with teenagers does bring a certain amount of unpredictability and what works in theory may not be quite so effective in the classroom.

Thanks.

ntlbell

MathsNerd wrote: »

ntlbell,

Thank you for your condascending reply. I will take it on board. Of course we will be using the services of an IT consultant. However, I think your assumption of teachers being unqualified to assess the IT needs of a school is a little premature given that you know nothing about this particular teacher's qualifications. I would be interested to hear from teachers who have used various IT based educational aids. Nobody is more qualified than those using IT in the classroom to give informed advice on how a particular technology works in the classroom. An IT consultant will, no doubt, have an abundance of technical knowledge. However, dealing with teenagers does bring a certain amount of unpredictability and what works in theory may not be quite so effective in the classroom.

Thanks.

The intention was not be condesending I was merley attempting to bring some reaility to the situation. (failing miserabley obviously).

If you go into some more detail of what you actually want to acheive, what services the students need, the current IT situation e.g is there a current network? Broadband access? etc etc

Then I can point you in the right direction

Enright

the ncte have an advice section on ict policies etc

I have written th eone for our school, its pretty standard stuff, with possibly two exceptions:
1. When each machine boots up, the student is remined about the AUP (acceptabel user policy) and they can only proceed by clicking their acceptance of it!, its written in school journals what the policy is etc
2. Each of the 3 labs have Internet access only when a key is inserted, the teacher who inserted it has a duty of care to oversee what is being acccessed,

hope this helps

kittex

Monitoring is vital.
I used software called Net Support when I taught in an ICT room.

It meant I could monitor pupils as they worked, send them messages, ban certain sites specifically for that lesson (for eg if they were doing a test and try to Wiki answers), load files onto their user drive for them to open and work on, and take over their screens to show good examples of work or show them my screen. I could also lock down the whole network with a single click - very useful if trying to get the class's attention after their time is up.

I'm ICT savvy but the reason I recommend that program is as it has nice big picture based buttons which the typical non-ICT savvy teacher could easily use.

I recommend SMART boards over Promeathean. Used both and while Promeathean are technically superior, SMART boards are easier to use and have more ready made resources for teachers to use.