In my school, we have organized as a “Tech Team” comprising of:
– Tech Support
– EdTech
We defined our role very simply:
– Tech Support:
The IT Manager:
- focuses on the technical aspects of technology
- coordinates the IT Support team
- is in charge of the IT infrastructure (Internet and any IT equipment in the school)
The IT Engineer – Tech Support Expert:
- fixes internet and wifi problems
- fixes network problems
- interacts with vendors
- handles purchase paperwork
- manages backups
- fixes desktop/mobile devices issues
- fixes classroom IT equipment
- fixes printer issues
- manages user access control
– EdTech – Innovation & Learning:
- focuses on the use of technology for learning (and productivity)
- coaches teachers: help teachers prepare classes using technology, co-teaches, help teachers work on their tech goal
- train teachers, students, parents, admin, leadership with the use of technology for learning and for productivity
We all work together on a Tech Plan (based on the ISTE Essential conditions and our school goals).
We do not have a director or coordinator of both teams in my school, we collaborate a lot and make it work 🙂
For example, things we do:
– 10 min briefing every week: tech support has 5 min, edtech has 5 min (format: share what is in the pipeline and what challenge you are facing)
– Quarterly tech plan review
– EdTech meets every week about innovation and learning
– Asynchronous collaboration on policy documents (we are building a digital school policy with everything)
Organization tips:
Google Drive – have a “work in progress” folder
Team Drive – this helped us to organize as a team
Templates – we have meeting minutes templates to save time
Calendar – we put our deadlines in here as well as reminders and planning time in advance so we don’t have to work with too much pressure
Charts: we have a chart with (not) important/ (not) urgent and post its places in the different categories (when an action is done, we keep the post it in a box ad we celebrate our achievements monthly)
Chart of weekly tasks: My colleague and I have a chart with weekly tasks (when done, those post-its also go in the “done” box)
Protocols: we use protocols to have effective meetings, we follow a lot of the Adaptive school strategies , norms etc and now looking into U Lab – leading from the emerging future (online course).
We have an event sheet to plan our events with the headers:
Events | When | Where | Why | What | Who | How | Resources & Ideas |