In our system of Catholic Schools, we have found a solution to the problem of providing on-site technical support to schools.  The Catholic Education Office set itself up several years ago now to provide IT traineeships to young adults at the end of Year 12.  In addition to centralised training sessions, they are allocated to schools to provide technical support.  Our trainees have been an invaluable asset to our school, and our second trainee is now at the end of his two-year term.

This week, a new cohort of trainees begins shadowing the existing team in preparation for their start next year.  Being at a fairly nearby school today, our current trainee, Nathan brought the new trainee who’s shadowing him around to meet everyone.

So Nathan walks him into my classroom - meet the learning technology coordinator.  By absolute fluke, here were thirteen computers in my room, with pairs of students at each one, completing their slide shows to communicate their knowledge of simple machines.  Every computer was functioning.  Every student was working.  Our new trainee (at least for the rest of the year) got a very quick idea of how we like to put the system he’ll maintain and manage into action.

And they say that first impressions…?