Pillar 3

Pillar 3: Every school should have, and actively encourage, a core of teacher-computerists

A teacher-computerist is a person who is committed to using computer-based educational technology and who has been given the opportunity to gain a sufficiently high level of expertise to qualify them to act as role models, advisors, trainers, and trouble shooters in matters to do with computer-based educational technology. In every school there should be one or more teacher-computerists, the number depending on the size of the school and, of course, on the school's commitment to educational computing.

A teacher-computerist is not a technical support person as such. Pillar #4 deals with this important responsibility. Teacher-computerists are the right people to mediate between teachers and technical support because they understand both the technical and pedagogical aspects to the problems the teachers face and can accurately describe them to the tech support personnel.

Thus, teacher-computerists should be given adequate release time to fulfill the following roles and tasks:

to work with other teachers, as individuals or in groups, introducing them to new systems, arranging product demonstrations and helping them with any technical or pedagogical problems that may arise;
to work with administration, planning short- and long-range computing strategies and mediating on behalf of teachers to help ensure that their needs are addressed;
to work with vendors (suppliers of hardware and software), organizing product demonstrations, making sure that products are delivered as ordered and that warranties are negotiated and fulfilled.

Teachers are the ideal people to work with other teachers because they understand their needs. Teachers who are also computerists will be further suited to help their colleagues learn about computers because they are trained as teachers, and have experience working with computing novices. They are therefore less likely to frighten off other teachers who may be timid about getting into the technology.

A model in India, which to some degree exemplifies this approach, is that of the Government Inter College, a government-run secondary school at New Tehri, in Moldhar State. The Shiksa Project, sponsored by Microsoft Corporation (Partners in Learning, 2006), depended on the accelerated training program attended by two teachers, who then went on to help coordinate technology training for the rest of the staff.

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