Ten years ago, the guy in charge of IT had a relatively non-collaborative and straightforward job. Broadly we were responsible for the traditional management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Specifically we oversaw the procurement, installation and repair of hardware and software, the network and servers. We seldom interfaced with faculty and staff other than to take direction, respond to service requests or request funding. Given the hundreds of tasks involved in successfully performing those functions, we were busy and, if we were lucky enough to have them, our staffs were busy.
The truth has changed. What we do less of and what we do more of, more or less cancels each other out. We still are very, very busy. In most institutions, we are well beyond integrating technology into our classrooms (provisioning with operable computers and interactive whiteboards). A major change, the main goal of the modern IT director/manager, is to facilitate (read "manage") the successful integration of technology into the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities. The ideal approach is through coaching/mentoring, professional development and learning communities. A great discussion about these approaches is at the Center for Public Education website. I couldn't say it better but I will emphasize that we're not talking about traditional workshop-based professional development, which as been shown by numerous studies to be ineffective. Please read the article.
Other affective truths are the changes (I hesitate to use "advancements"--I'll wait for validated results) in educational technology, the students, and pedagogies including: the shift toward mobile technologies; cloud computing (SaaS -software as a service; PaaS-platform as a service; and IaaS-infrastructure as a service); all students are now "digital natives", many being technologically sophisticated; open source software; the need to ensure that students remain familiar with technologies that they might be using after school; learning management systems (LMS) (e.g. Moodle); online courses (MOOC); staying ahead of the available apps and software to support each content area; one-on-one computing in the classroom; bring your own device (BYOD); the flipped classroom; blended learning; learning partnerships; game enhanced learning; project-based learning; peer teaching; brain-based learning; differentiated instruction; just-in-time teaching; deep learning (whatever that is); etc.
Educational technology changes are accompanied by fear and operational and resource problems: privacy, security, safety, available band width, available funding, qualified technicians, committed administrators and board members, and push back to name a few. The technology manager/director must become an expert in change management and an integral part of the change planning and execution team. As technology becomes more infused into administrative and management functions, the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities, the more involved the educational technologist should be.
Showing posts with label director. Show all posts
Showing posts with label director. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Didn't Get the Job
What made the difference? I was afraid to ask. Was I afraid of the answer? Of the two finalists for a K8 school district technology director position, I was the one notified today that the other candidate was selected. "It was an extremely difficult decision to make, as both candidates possess..." blah, blah, blah. Never able to accept rejection well, I didn't hear anything after "possess."
Having been laid off as of the end of last July from a director of information technology position (eight years) for a upscale independent school, I wasn't just looking forward to employment, I was getting (am) desperate. I need the money! Why was I laid off? A department reorganization and job description redesign left me in philosophical opposition to the reigning administration. Really though, I was being asked to accept more responsibility for less money.
So, again, why wasn't I the chosen one? Age? Possibly. The demands of the online application make it impossible to avoid indirectly admitting age. I'm 67 now and that, coupled with my 20+ years of technology executive and manager experience, would surely have given the search team reason to expect that I would accept the position only if compensated at the upper end of the range or beyond. Should I have made it clear during the interviews that I would be satisfied at the mid-range?
Could it be because I am white? Maybe, but probably not. Although, the district is 60% Hispanic and 25% African American with the rest being white and a small percentage of Asians, the four members of the search team were white so.... I wonder if the other candidate was Hispanic. I would feel better if he/she were.
Ah ha, it was because I am a male. Right? After all, three of the four members of the search team were female. Could be but I don't know that other candidate was female.
I would like to think that any of the aforementioned reasons, or combinations thereof, would be beneath the search team members. So, I've come to the elevated conclusion that I was overqualified for the position. My resume cover letter reads, in part, "I believe that the key to enhancing student achievement lies in the confluence of curricular content, construtivist pedagogies, and technology integration--that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning, encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education, and consequently prepare them for success in the 21st Century." Was that too much education jargon for a technology director? Yea, I'm competent in the technical aspects of being a managing technologist, but, as most of us have come to realize over the past two decades, infrastructure, hardware and software, no matter how abundant, will do little to promote enhanced anything, much less, learning. And during the interviews I repeatedly emphasized my interest in technology integration, developing new and supporting curricular content, technology professional development, advanced pedagogies, eLearning, acceptance and promotion of Web 2.0 and the need for schools to revisit post-industrial place, space and time constraints to teacher and student collaboration and communication. Could I have gone so far as to suggest that students might be allowed to use certain personal collaboration tools--in school? I suspect that I should not have strayed so far from my technology roots. Hell, I even mentioned multi-discipline, vertical and horizontal co-learning, co-teaching, mentoring and broader external community learning environments.
Of course, this last may not have been the reason I wasn't selected, but I don't want to hear it. I do not want to believe that the other candidate was simply more qualified than I or even that she/he was a "better fit." Don't you love that phrase--don't rock the boat!
I'm changing my cover letter and my resume and if I ever get another interview opportunity I will stick to topologies, servers, help desks, database management, E-rate, hardware and software installations and troubleshooting/fixing, telephony, operating systems, web design/development, and other stuff like that.
Having been laid off as of the end of last July from a director of information technology position (eight years) for a upscale independent school, I wasn't just looking forward to employment, I was getting (am) desperate. I need the money! Why was I laid off? A department reorganization and job description redesign left me in philosophical opposition to the reigning administration. Really though, I was being asked to accept more responsibility for less money.
So, again, why wasn't I the chosen one? Age? Possibly. The demands of the online application make it impossible to avoid indirectly admitting age. I'm 67 now and that, coupled with my 20+ years of technology executive and manager experience, would surely have given the search team reason to expect that I would accept the position only if compensated at the upper end of the range or beyond. Should I have made it clear during the interviews that I would be satisfied at the mid-range?
Could it be because I am white? Maybe, but probably not. Although, the district is 60% Hispanic and 25% African American with the rest being white and a small percentage of Asians, the four members of the search team were white so.... I wonder if the other candidate was Hispanic. I would feel better if he/she were.
Ah ha, it was because I am a male. Right? After all, three of the four members of the search team were female. Could be but I don't know that other candidate was female.
I would like to think that any of the aforementioned reasons, or combinations thereof, would be beneath the search team members. So, I've come to the elevated conclusion that I was overqualified for the position. My resume cover letter reads, in part, "I believe that the key to enhancing student achievement lies in the confluence of curricular content, construtivist pedagogies, and technology integration--that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning, encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education, and consequently prepare them for success in the 21st Century." Was that too much education jargon for a technology director? Yea, I'm competent in the technical aspects of being a managing technologist, but, as most of us have come to realize over the past two decades, infrastructure, hardware and software, no matter how abundant, will do little to promote enhanced anything, much less, learning. And during the interviews I repeatedly emphasized my interest in technology integration, developing new and supporting curricular content, technology professional development, advanced pedagogies, eLearning, acceptance and promotion of Web 2.0 and the need for schools to revisit post-industrial place, space and time constraints to teacher and student collaboration and communication. Could I have gone so far as to suggest that students might be allowed to use certain personal collaboration tools--in school? I suspect that I should not have strayed so far from my technology roots. Hell, I even mentioned multi-discipline, vertical and horizontal co-learning, co-teaching, mentoring and broader external community learning environments.
Of course, this last may not have been the reason I wasn't selected, but I don't want to hear it. I do not want to believe that the other candidate was simply more qualified than I or even that she/he was a "better fit." Don't you love that phrase--don't rock the boat!
I'm changing my cover letter and my resume and if I ever get another interview opportunity I will stick to topologies, servers, help desks, database management, E-rate, hardware and software installations and troubleshooting/fixing, telephony, operating systems, web design/development, and other stuff like that.
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