I must be getting old, but the other day I found myself wondering, just when did every classroom become an ICT suite?
ICT used to be boxed away so neatly. There was that room with all the cables and the stuff with the flashing lights on it where the Network Manager lives, and there were a few ICT suites carefully equipped with highly configured and secured PCs.
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But suddenly every Tom, Dick and Harry (or at least pupil, staff member and visitor) is turning up with their own laptops, tablets and phones and seems to be creating an on-the-fly ICT suite in every room. Throughout the land, Network Managers are ashen-faced and on occasion, dare I say it, a little huffy, at the thought of a random array of unapproved and uncontrolled personal devices being connected to "their" network. And as always, the Bursar is left to pick up the pieces.
At one school I visit, there is a lively debate going on between the Head of English and the Head of ICT as to whether the new school library should contain books or just electronic readers. Libraries without books? What is the world coming to?
Then there's the Cloud. Should we even have an in-house ICT system at all? Or could we do away with all this costly equipment and the people to manage it, and the hassle of trying to fix it when it goes wrong and constantly battling to keep it up to date! The Cloud sounds like the panacea to all our ICT woes. But wait, I hear you say, we can't even get a reliable high speed connection to the Internet from the stunning rural location of our Independent School.… So how's that ever going to work?!
There is no doubt that the arrival of the digital era has created enormous challenges for Independent Schools, with cyber security and safeguarding children being two of the key issues. But with the Internet now considered a “basic human right” in the digital world in which we live, the need for pupils to learn how to use it safely and effectively is paramount. And with an ever increasing reliance on technology in the classroom, making school systems bullet proof has also become a necessity, because there is nothing worse for a teacher than to stand in front of a room of eager (or not!) pupils, finding he is unable to deliver his lesson as planned because the internet has gone down. Of course a good teacher will always get by, but that's not the point, he should be able to rely on his technology to deliver the lesson in the most appealing and engaging way for his pupils. And of course there's the unenviable task of trying to find budget to fund new ICT initiatives and the appropriate safeguards that are needed to go with them.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Many Independent Schools are finding their way through the challenges and embracing the technology. They've found ways to flip their ICT budgets and use the current pot of money in a very different way to create a powerful learning platform that serves to teach children more effectively and equip them for life in the digital era. A system that is safe and secure, reliable and fast. A system that not only serves the educational needs of the school, but helps to balance the books commercially too, ensuring that their school's technology is keeping pace with, if not surpassing, that of other local schools, and is serving to attract new pupils to the school. And there are other ways these schools are leveraging their new technology commercially, perhaps to attract more events to the school, or bring in more summer school bookings. In some cases they are leveraging their new technology to help them fulfil their charitable status obligations too, by using some of that technology for the good of the local community for example. What great PR for the school too!
So actually, perhaps the relentless march of technology is not so bad after all. In fact, on reflection, I think I can safely say, bring it on!
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