Return to the January 1996 Table of ContentsBy Kevin Bushweller
Kevin Bushweller is an associate editor of Electronic School.
They're called techno geeks and computer dudes. Nerds and wizards. Automatons and gurus. Some might even know them by a more formal title--something resembling "school technology coordinator." Whatever the identification or stereotype, this hodgepodge of individuals is united by a common goal: to make technology an integral part of school life.
What does not unite them, though, is their academic backgrounds and professional experiences. Those backgrounds and experiences are as diverse as much of the education software hitting the market these days.
Some technology coordinators have emerged from the business world sporting MBAs and impressive technical experience, but they have no formal education credentials. Others are veteran teachers with graduate degrees in education and strong interest in technology, but little or no formal technical training. Still others never attended or finished college, yet their technical skills and common sense have made them a less-expensive option for cash-strapped schools.
Should school districts consider one background preferable to another? Does a perfect profile of a school technology coordinator exist? Or is it a job that must be divided between two or more people?
"That is a hot topic here right now," says Craig Lyndes, the "computer dude" at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg, Vt. "I've seen several models. Which is best? It varies from school to school."
Lyndes is neither a certified teacher nor a college graduate. He developed his communication and technical skills informally, he says, and now uses those skills to keep 340 computers running for 900 students.
Yet his informal, nonteaching background has imposed limitations on what he can do. For instance, the local teacher union filed a complaint against Lyndes because he was going into classrooms to teach students how to use new software, and during some of his visits, a teacher was not present. The union said it was illegal for someone who is not a certified teacher to help students without a teacher on hand. Now, Lyndes cannot go into classrooms to teach students unless a teacher is there, too.
"It's a weird thing," he says.
Jesse Rodriguez, information technologies director for the Tucson Unified Schools in Arizona, says the mentality displayed by the teacher union in Lyndes' district is short-sighted, narrow-minded, and counterproductive. He says schools need to become more flexible in ways that allow them to get the most out of people such as Lyndes. Creating artificial boundaries based on teacher-certification credentials--barriers that could prevent students from learning as much as possible--is a mistake, Rodriguez says.
"All too often we use our professional degrees as a way of blocking potential," Rodriguez says. "A teaching degree is not necessarily an end-all to everything. I've seen people who are certified to teach who shouldn't be teaching. And I've seen people who only made it through high school who are great teachers.
"People like [Lyndes] are hard to find," says Rodriguez, after being told Lyndes' story. "Schools should embrace them."
It isn't surprising Rodriguez holds these views. Although he has a bachelor's degree in English and an MBA, he does not have formal credentials from a school of education. Yet he believes his academic background--primarily his English studies--helped him develop the thinking skills it takes to analyze new technologies and determine if they are good for schools.
The ideal person to serve as school technology coordinator, however, might well be a hybrid of educator and technician.
"Schools that are most successful are those that have people who have a foot in both worlds," says Andrée Duggan, an education technology consultant in Maryland. "One person can do it, but it has to be a special kind of person."
One of those special sorts, Duggan says, is Paul Reese, a fourth-grade teacher-turned-technology-coordinator who works at New York City's Ralph Bunche School in central Harlem. The school was one of the first in the nation to have a local area network and a gopher information server on the Internet.
Reese says the debate about what kind of person makes the ideal technology coordinator depends on the individual's personality as well as his or her technical and educational expertise.
He says he once visited a school that had all the latest educational technology. The school also had a full-time technology coordinator who was a proficient technician. Reese says it was obvious the coordinator did an excellent job keeping the equipment running, but the man existed like a hermit within school walls.
"He never talked or worked with any of his users," Reese says. "He didn't understand the school culture or the social organization of the school, and so he was missing many, many opportunities. It was tragic in my opinion."
The opposite and equally problematic scenario--which Reese and others say is common--is when a school hires a people-oriented person (in many cases, a teacher) who is interested in technology, but has limited technical knowledge or experience. "They'll set up a user-friendly system that is failing all the time," Reese says.
Even so, he says the teacher-turned-technology-coordinator is "the common path." And it is the path he followed. A fourth-grade teacher for 15 years, Reese became a "self-taught" technology specialist by dabbling with hardware and software at home as well as in school. He says he's taken some technology courses, but he does not have any technology-related certificates or degrees.
The trouble is, he says, he's become sort of a technology king at Bunche. Nobody else knows how the overall system works at Bunche, and they definitely don't understand the complex links between the technical needs of the machines and education needs of students and teachers. With about 60 networked computers, Internet routers, and World Wide Web and e-mail servers to manage, Reese confidently says that when he retires, they'll have to hire two people to replace him. (His salary is currently based on the salary schedule for teachers.)
Unfortunately, people like Reese (who exist comfortably in both worlds) are rare, according to Russell Smith, education-technology consultant for the Region 14 Education Service Center in Texas, which offers technology assistance to 141 schools in the state.
"Usually, schools look within their ranks and find the person who knows the most about computers," Smith says. "What kills them when they do that is these people make bad purchases. They'll commit the district to buying $800,000 worth of junk."
Not making intelligent decisions about who should be coordinating technology programs is especially damaging at the central-office level, he says, where major purchasing decisions are made. He says there are "all kinds of job titles" for the people making decisions concerning technology, but he is always suspicious when the school or district "business manager" is calling the shots.
Often, these people know and care more about how money flows, and how to save money, than about how educational technology works and what equipment will work best in the schools, Smith says.
As a result, they frequently purchase cheap but obsolete technology that ends up costing the district more in the long run. "It's a bad thing," Smith says. "A lot of the time, they don't even know what they've got. The [number] of obsolete computers out there in schools is just tremendous."
Of the 43 districts Smith helps, fewer than 25 percent have districtwide technology coordinators. "The bigger districts are taking care of business better than the smaller ones," Smith says. For example, the schools of Abilene, Texas--with 18,000 students--have two network technicians and a full-time technology coordinator. "A district with 2,500 to 3,000 students needs a technician and a technology coordinator, but [such districts] don't get them," he says.
Gwen Solomon, senior associate in the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, says money is a large part of the problem. "We've heard there isn't much money out there" to pay technology coordinators, she says.
Sharon Cron, a fifth-grade teacher at Jere Baxter Middle School in Nashville, Tenn., says that's precisely the problem for her school. Each classroom at Baxter has eight Macintosh computers. She says her principal is the resident technological "visionary," and by default becomes the troubleshooter whenever there is a problem with software or hardware.
Teachers have become better at maintaining the machines. Yet Cron says it's still nearly impossible for the principal to keep up with technological glitches. (The school has 94 computers and 41 more have been purchased, Cron says.)
"There is some problem that arises all the time," she says. "We need a technology person. Perhaps what we really need is just someone to keep our equipment functioning and running. How to pay for it is our problem too."
Ferdi Serim, a computer teacher and coordinator for the Princeton (N.J.) Regional Schools, says districts will set themselves up for failure if they don't find at least enough money to hire a full-time technology coordinator. Without at least one person serving as a sort of clutch for the engine of technology reform, the schools will be at the mercy of companies and consultants. "Some districts have seven people doing the job," Serim says.
"What we've got here is a perfect marriage," says Serim, a certified music teacher who serves as the curriculum guru of the technology program while Peter Thompson oversees its technical aspects. "I'm more of the dreamer of the two of us. Peter is the doer." (They also have a person on staff who serves as a software troubleshooter.)
Thompson is not a certified teacher. He studied economics in college. But Serim says Thompson has the kind of personality characterized by a "desire to get with the details [on a new piece of equipment] and find out what the sucker will do. There hasn't been a perceived need in education for this kind of person."
Now, he says technology is creating that need. Even something as simple as putting cables in school buildings begs for a person like Thompson on staff, Serim says. He says Thompson wrote detailed specifications for a contractor to follow when wiring school buildings in Princeton. The specifications included, for example, details on how to avoid blockages in walls.
Serim says the contractor was a bit irritated by the detailed instructions. But when the contractor said the schools had to pay more because workers were having difficulties, Thompson checked what they were doing and found they weren't following his instructions. He used the instructions, which were part of the contract, to invoke penalties against the company. "Basically, he saved the district hundreds of thousands of dollars," Serim says.
Yet money is not the only worry for school-technology coordinators embarking on technology reform. Often, the attitudes of teachers toward technology are apathetic, and even hostile, in some circumstances.
As a result, teachers sometimes feel threatened by people coming into schools to run technology programs, especially if those folks are not teachers, Serim says. "There's a lot of apprehension among teachers in some places that noncertified people will come into their classes and do their jobs for less money. People have to get over that to make these partnerships succeed."
Martie Smith, a sixth-grade teacher at Paideia Magnet School in Nashville, Tenn., believes that a technology coordinator will be best received by teachers if the person emerges from within their ranks. She had been a third-grade teacher before moving to Nashville and attending a technical institute to be trained in technology.
Then she landed a job at Paideia as a technology teacher. She says there was "bitter resistance by teachers" to technology. And, "because they had not known me as a classroom teacher, they regarded me only as the technology person, but not as a real teacher. I finally decided that the only way to really integrate technology into the classroom was to take all that I knew about technology and go back into the classroom, which I have done this year.
"It is better when [technology coordinators] are teachers," Smith says. "As colleges and universities begin to offer a concentration in educational technology, then more and more teachers will have the technical expertise necessary," she adds. "But I also know there are many gifted technicians who could go in and get the job done and that they do need to be regarded [as an equal of] the teacher, because the best technicians actually teach."
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