[Year 12 IT Apps] RE: Google docs issue

[ken price]

I agree, the analysis of how IT meets organisational needs is valid as it is
part of the course.

I'll tell a short tale of  a very skilled IT technical manager at a school
where I taught. He had spent several years working for large national
organisations as IT manager. He was (and still is) very keen to make IT work
for the school in the best possible way. He is a very valuable school IT
manager.

After a few months working at the school he made an interesting observation
about schools vs his past employer which might be relevant here.

He noticed that in the large organisations, there was strong governance over
ICT decisions and investment. Decisions were made/endorsed by senior
management based on needs and suggestions put forward by all staff
(including IT support). It was thus very clear what the organisation wanted
in terms of ICT. However in schools this was not always the case -
individual teachers and other staff seemed to believe that their individual
views represented that of the entire school, and IT staff were pulled in all
directions, often contradictory, After unblocking one website for one staff
member, they'd get another complaining that their kids could now waste time
on that same website. After installing some piece of software based on one
request, theyd have someone else asking him why staff were being confused
with multiple offerings. You can probably see his dilemma.

His view that he was paid by the school to meet the school's needs - but the
school's needs were not always clearly defined. He felt that if staff in
most large organisations directly approached their IT support unit demanding
their own way, they'd be referred very quickly to the IT decision-making
committee. If they did it more than once, things would get serious for them.
Similarly, he saw that if his IT support staff ignored the priorities set by
the organisation and did whatever they thought was a good idea or
interesting, their job would be in jeopardy.

He commented that in some schools the IT support people ended up taking the
lead because there seemed to be nobody else willing to manage a process that
reached a school-level view on priority and strategy. He thought this was a
dangerous situation. It relates directly to Anne's quote from the Unit3
syllabus.

So perhaps there is another issue here - the nature of schools and how they
reach decisions on how they want to use IT,innovate, etc, and how these
decisions are informed by educational and technical issues?

The IT manager was unsure if schools are inherently different to other large
organisations, or if there is something else here. I haven't spoken to him
for some time, so I'll get in touch and see what his views are now,

Perhaps we can get some examples of how schools manage this school-level
decision making and how it translates into the work that "techies" do?
Perhaps they would be useful as case studies for students?

Ken Price DoE Tasmania
President, TASITE www.tasite.edu.au
On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 8:10 AM, <murch at tpg.com.au> wrote:

> This discussion may have gone on long enough but I would like to argue that
> it is not inappropriate to
> this list or OT as it embraces the very nature of the ITA course. From the
> summary of the VCAA course
> design.
> "Unit 3 focuses on how individuals or organisations use ICT to solve
> information problems. This unit
> focuses on how ICT is used by organisations to solve ongoing information
> problems and in the
> strategies to protect the integrity of data and security of information."
> I think that this is a realistic problem that teachers and technicians on
> the list are looking at and are
> discussing. It is one that will be used for my students next year as they
> will see the relevance of such a
> problem as it pertains to their education. It has been interesting to hear
> the opinions of the various
> people involved in organisations - technicians, educationalists etc And
> best of all, here is a virtual team
> in action trying to solve the problem.
> So thank you to everyone, and I in no way meant to be an egotistical
> contributor, simply someone
> seeking a solution.
> Anne Mirtschin
> Hawkesdale P12 College
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