Who's Responsibility Is It?

As I contemplate and discuss the Agreements that guide our schools in the selection, implementation, maintenance and support of technology, the question arises, "Who's responsibility is it to make everything work?". In our district we have a distributed system of decision making but we don't always have a distributed sense of responsibility to purchase and support sustainable technology. Staff members are given the money to choose the technology they want to implement in their building. In the past, they provided a significant share of the support in the building as well. But as the demands have grown, we have hired district staff to increase tech support. Some schools continue to provide a fair amount of support by building staff. This gives them some internal support when something goes wrong and gives them a set of eyes within their staff for looking ahead. More and more schools are abandoning this, devoting their FTEs (staff hours basically) to other instructional purposes; direct instruction of technology for the most part.

There has been a see-saw debate in our district as to who should choose the hardware and software, who should pay for tech support and who should provide the support. Alongside this debate is the idea that schools are in the best position to decide and spend money to implement technology. Despite the fact everyone feels very constrained with the small budget they have, some schools have done an excellent job of providing access to their students and teachers.

My concern with this mix of responsibility is that we aren't clear about who insures that everything is implemented and working effectively. More important, we aren't clear that everything that is implemented is sustainable, not only from a building to building perspective but from a district perspective. If I purchase something that is unusual or unique, should I be responsible to make it work? or If I purchase it, can I assume that someone will rush in and figure out how it works, show me how to use it, and keep it running? If my school chooses to adopt some software that no one else is using, should our staff have the expectation of support? Is this sustainable in the big picture? Some schools have this expectation - some schools do not. Most important:

• teachers want technology for their students,
• they want it to work in their instruction,
• they want support when it breaks.

To reach this goal we all need to take some responsibility for the technology we are using. While it would be ideal if someone was on hand to provide instruction and solve problems when the need arises, we don't have the resources to meet this desire. I understand and agree that teachers should not be expected to do this on their own. They deserve training and support. There is a limit to the amount of support that can be given when there is an infinite number of software and devices to learn and fix. The following would move us in the right direction.

• Support a limited the number of applications and hardware.
• Empower building, community and district support staff to say no to support on unsupported hardware and software.
• Prioritize training on applications that we want to support.
• Provide training on supported applications and hardware.
• Encourage teachers to help one another with day to day fixes.
• Prioritize the response for support to instructional applications - as we have done for business applications.

Working out Agreements - what works for everyone?

Yesterday, the Technology Leadership Team met to discuss the Agreements (rules of the road) for Technology. This was a lively conversation, one that involved many side trips. It is evidence that everything is related - purchasing is related to hardware and software is related to training is related to time is related to focus is related to vision. While the main thing is student achievement, the 'stuff' that brings this to life has to work, be compatible, be understood and within our means to maintain. The fact that there are these relationships means, not that we get off the subject, but that we get diverted by another - related - subject.

As we move from subject to subject, issue to issue, I begin to wonder what the guiding forces are in the mix. This isn't a static project. We are doing the equivalent of repairing and guiding a airplane that is in the air. Sometimes I wonder if we have agreed on the destination :-) And to that point, it would make sense (as we said in our meeting) to get more clear about our goal and vision. And very wisely, we stopped and discussed that vision for a time.

The question is, to what extent do we all have the same goal. We are all in agreement that student achievement and success is the main goal. But, in our day to day operations, what do we focus our time and energy on? Do we keep student achievement and success in mind? What is the Action Plan behind our vision. Is it aimed at integrating technology into the curriculum or providing administrative tools for classroom reporting and management? Have we got the specifics of our vision nailed down or are we simply flailing away at the day to day challenges that arise.

In the meeting I made the observation that this is a somewhat uncomfortable conversation for all of us. I said that this conversation impacts the level of control that we have or don't have. In making agreements, we are choosing to limit ourselves in some way and abide by some rules or procedures. Making these agreements takes control away even as it gives us control (predictability) and is therefore threatening to our individual desires.

I didn't feel like I got much agreement on this point - I didn't see many nods. Even so, I know this is true for me. I need some assurance that people will abide by some rules of the road. If they don't, my staff will suffer under the disorganization. They will get drown in working on poorly organized and disjointed systems. They will be pulled one way and another by teachers with very important but unrelated projects. This is a control issue for me. My guess is that everyone, from every school, has a related concern. They want us to support them on their most important initiatives. They need us to keep the computer and software engines running so they can do their work. They have special projects that require support, software configuration, hardware reliability. They may want us to stay away from meddling in certain areas. They probably have concerns about our over-involvement in certain areas as well, though I may be wrong. So, while we all would welcome the additional control and predictability that the agreements would afford, the agreements limit our freedom as well.

I wonder if other school districts are having these conversations. I don't think we are unique in our search for technology that works for students and teachers. But I wonder if other districts spend so much time discussing the policies and procedures for purchasing and managing systems. Do they allow every school to decide how they will spend money on computers and software or do they dictate these things? I think the latter.

We have been engaged in this process of collective bargaining for about 8 years. I think we have learned a lot from one another through that time. We have very dedicated building technology staff who think very seriously about how to help students and teachers. Our conversations are generally positive and respectful of differences in role and responsibility. But I can't help wondering if we aren't losing time and money by allowing each building to set their own course.

The course we have chosen is a challenging one. In our system, each school has the right to set their own agenda for technology, spend their own money, and expect that we will keep up. While they are expected to stay within the general vision of the district (and the agreements) and have very limited money to spend, they are free to do what they choose. The agreements are our attempt to put some parameters around their activities so that we can keep pace with the various issues and initiatives. And true, the schools have accepted (I don't know how willingly) some of the decisions that the district has made for network infrastructure (servers, email, physical networks, firewall, etc). It is an interesting mix of freedom and control.

Framing the Agreements - The carrot and the stick

It is 2:30 am and I'm thinking about our agreement meeting that we are having tomorrow. Here's my dark night diatribe

People deserve to know why we have rules. Write the agreements from the ground up. Start with the rationale for having agreements at all. People have a hard time with being constrained in their choices. We need to explain the rationale behind the rules. There are specific reasons we have the specific rules. The overall reasons are:

• A network is a public place, fraught with the same benefits and precautions of any public place. We share the road with many other people. The rules of the road are are the speed limits, stop signs, vehicle inspections, etc. You get the idea.
• Limited funding for technology. We have to live within a budget. This budget limits the number of computers we can make available and the services we can provide. We have to be proactive in what we choose because we can't afford all the choices. A computer, on a network, that serves many people, has many costs. All of these costs have to be considered.
• Limited time to provide support. We are trying to provide a set of services that can be maintained by a limited number of staff. The more skilled we become as a whole, the more services we will be able to provide.
• Limited time for training. The more time we take for training, the more self-sufficient teachers can be, the more time available to provide additional services. Until we make a commitment to train teachers to some basic level of competence, we are going to be busy helping them along and fixing some basic problems.
• Limited understanding of the network and the common good. It is ironic but until and unless people understand the implications of their behavior on the overall systems (stated above), we need rules to guide them. I was not given the passwords to critical computer systems until I understood the implications of making changes in those systems. Before we can drive the streets on our own, we have to learn the rules of the road and demonstrate competence. It would be irresponsible to give someone the right to drive without the requisite skills.

A Reality. A building administrator made the point that these constraints will be denied and the rules will always be challenged. In his words, "That's the nature of teachers. They want to work independently, autonomously and without the limits that serve the bigger picture. They aren't concerned about the problems their behavior will cause others but how they will deliver tomorrow's lesson."

With this reality in mind... we should be prepared for people to try and go around the expectations. We need to explain and correct them when they stray from the expectations. People deserve to know why we have these rules. I would like them to accept the rules. I would like them to acknowledge the reasons we have the rules. But this may be too much to expect for some - perhaps most. First they don't understand how all the pieces affect one another - how management of one computer at a time is inefficient. Second, just as that administrator said, some simply don't want to look at issues from the big picture. They are focused on how the limits affect them and their classroom only.

The many carrots of technology. Let's remember, there are still many choices available to people. The agreements are created to constraint behavior in some key areas. But within those constraints, there is plenty of room to move. In fact the constraints are in place to afford us the ability to operate and continue to provide a working system to use. We need to help teachers see the ways in which they do have choice. We need to let them know of some of the resources available to them? How can we help them connect to these resources? We certainly can't progress on limits only. We need to provide equal time to pointing them in the direction of opportunities.