Re: The "Digital" Shortcut
That's the real point. Middle managers with ambition, but usually little knowledge in their own jobs ( whatever these happen to be, it doesn't have to be "arts graduates" ) jump on to the latest new thing and promote themselves (both senses of the word) It's kind of like the employment version of playing Mario.*
Each new buzzword, fad, invention or whatever it is that has appeared over the horizon has to be jumped on to help them move further and higher. The new fad has to be grasped.
By the time to poor sods who have been landed with making the current pile of manure work have reached the point of despair those b******ds have moved on to a new title, a new power base and of course a newest, bestest fad.
* The only thing worse than being in education or IT for this kind cr*p is working with education IT.
Teachers are told they have to use the latest digital whatever it is. Tons of hardware bought, with no planning before, or training after purchase. Purchase being of course made on their behalf by someone who has no idea how it needs to be used, being neither a teacher nor a field tecchie.
The teachers are left floundering trying to make the stuff work educationally and the IT support is worked into the ground trying to sort out all the issues when it goes wrong for an almost unlimited range of poor practice.
Favourite example? Interactive White Board.
Teachers end up using it as a hitech blackboard with Powerpoint, because no one has paid for training, so they don't know what software is even on the system, let alone how to use it.. Tecchies end up sorting out such things as problems with calibration because the remote control vanished months ago and each time the physical "on" button on the badly sited projector is pressed the dratted thing moves slightly, as well as error messages about projector maintenance ( such as "the filter needs cleaning") that seem to appear randomly., or sound mysteriously not working because no one knew what the annoying wire that keeps falling out is meant for. Though even the poor teacher has worked out that the bit that goes on to the computer has screws to hold it in place, but the place it goes in to hasn't got any holes for the screws.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
