Last May, my school board approved an allocation to purchase a wireless laptop cart/mobile computer lab for our school. This was exciting, because we were, at the time, working on a small package of professional development around incorporating technology into our instruction. Teachers who were excited to experiment with technology couldn’t always make it into the computer lab. This mobile lab was supposed to make it possible for those teachers and the more experienced teachers in our school to have access to technology at the same time for a variety of purposes.
We don’t have a school library, and the district has some handy online research resources that we can use, when we’re on computers. Adding technology was exciting because we were going to be using it in some pretty meaningful ways. I had intended to begin blogging in several of my courses with students. I was excited that we would be able to write online together several times a week, if not every day. The additional access to computers was really a big piece of what I thought I needed to be successful, as I felt and still feel that the best way to create a community of writers is to find ways to publish with them regularly.
Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for those computers. The staff’s excitement is long gone. Promises made by district technology personnel were broken repeatedly. My administrators went to bat for us again and again — and their requests were met with deaf ears. Our technology staff is overworked and understaffed.
The long and short of it? The $30,000 worth of laptop computers that I ordered in December and that arrived in the district in January are sitting somewhere offsite gathering dust. A laptop cart with space for 24 computers sits in my classroom, and we stack books on it. The SMARTBoard that was purchased for my classroom sits in the hallway outside my classroom, still in the box, where it will most likely sit until summer. A box containing a ceiling mount projector is sitting next to the trashcan in my classroom. At least we can put trash in the trashcan. The box is just in the way.
This angers me somewhat. I considered naming names in this post, and just railing and fuming about all of my frustrations. but frankly, while that would feel good for all of five minutes, it wouldn’t fix anything. We’d still be missing computers and there would really be no reason for anyone to hurry up and get them to us. And, I’ve found, it’s always easier to blame and point and jump up and down than it is to get going on a project in spite of an extra obstacle or two (or twenty). Of course, it’s taken me most of a year to get to that realization in this particular circumstance.
I’m done waiting.
On Monday, I’ll begin my speech class. I haven’t taught speech in a while. We’ll be blogging as a major component of this course, despite the lack of access. It might fail miserably (and not just because of technology accessibility). Then again, it might not. Perhaps I was using the lack of tech as an excuse or a mask for my fears about taking blogging to the next step in my classes. My students regularly post their thoughts to Moodle. Now, they’ll be going public.
If we can get into the computer lab, of course.
Limitations?
9 thoughts on “Limitations?”
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It is at times like these when I am always amazed at the speed that education moves. I believe there is no other “industry” that can justify the glacial pace of getting things done. I have been there many times waiting for orders to come in (or even get ordered after the forms have been turned in) for approval for something to happen, or other obstacles to be cleared. I need to end here with a good quote of some kind….. Something like, “damn the torpedoes,” of “I have not yet begun to fight,” but somedays, it takes it must take it all out of you to walk past that whiteboard sitting in your hallway. Good luck.
I can really relate to these problems that you have had getting your equipment. On the bright side, though – there is equipment out there that will someday be installed. That’s more than a lot of people can say.
I don’t think of you as being a fearful kind of guy, but I think we all have a tendency to let stumbling blocks keep us from doing things we are conflicted about – while not letting anything stand between us and something we really believe in and are ready to do.
Good luck with the speech class. I am looking forward to following the blogging!
If it makes you feel any better, the pace is similar in higher ed. I’ve been waiting just to be approved for putting laptops in our computer lab (and replace the desktops) for 3 years!! Every time I get told there’s no money. This summer, it’s absolutely supposed to happen, but we’ll see. And don’t even get me started on the glacial pace of other changes. Even worse.
I appreciate everyone’s support — and it’s good to hear that I’m not the only one frustrated by these setbacks — but it’s also downright awful to hear that I am not the only one in this situation.
Why do we settle/tolerate this?
I am still in the school of education at the College of William and Mary. I must say I was very disturbed by the setbacks you experienced, and check out what I had to say on my blog http://rfprev.blogspot.com/
As a beginning teacher, I must say I admire your persistence and willingness to continue integrating technology into the classroom despite numerous dead ends.
I admire your restraint from publishing names and lashing out Bud. It’s for the best really, considering how publically known your blog is. You’re right, it would be more productive to focus on how to fix the problem, so I suggest a slightly radical approach to show the tech department that the technology is needed and tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment might be better spent in students’ hands rather than in boxes.
Let the tech staff know you’re going to start setting stuff up yourself. I was in the same situation as you several times and nothing got the tech staff motivated to work on my requests(despite how swamped they claimed to be) like leaving an e-mail or voicemail in someone’s inbox saying that I had started to setup the projector, scanner, or digital camera myself. You have more than enough skill to setup the projector and SMARTboard. You could even go so far as to find the location of the laptops and get one of them up and running and connected to the SMARTboard. Will the tech staff have to reconfigure all of the computers and install the district software? Yes, but they will have even more work to do if you start to set up everything yourself and don’t follow their protocols, which should hopefully be enough motivation for them to get the equipment ready before you can make good on your message of getting things set up yourself.
A few days late.
I’m not surprised to hear about this going on, honestly. School officials never seem to be the speediest about getting things done for their classrooms. I actually am seeing something similar with my college–the administration is dragging its feet to upgrade classrooms. The computer labs are simply wonderful, but most of the classrooms lack basic multimedia capabilities. Not a very good idea in a school of liberal arts that trains “working artists”–that is, people who work in music, advertising, film, and other media that require computers and projectors and the like.
I hope things will work out for you.
PS: I’m coming to visit for Michael’s graduation. See you then!
I can understand your frustraition. I don’t know how many tech staff your school has, but at the school my husband works for, he is “it”. And he also teaches a full load of classes daily. So it isn’t always the tech staff’s fault. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day. (or weekend, or holiday) Doing the parts that you can do, and learning how to help the tech person might get you much farther than threatening to do it all yourself and messing up the network for the whole school. The tech staff isn’t necessarily the bad guy.
I appreciate everyone’s support — and it’s good to hear that I’m not the only one frustrated by these setbacks — but it’s also downright awful to hear that I am not the only one in this situation.
Why do we settle/tolerate this?