Once again I find confusion reigns over the certification question. Like
most of the others weighing in on this issue (I'm so cynical!), it's
self-interest that causes me to take pen in hand. (Who remembers when we
actually did take pen in hand?) I'm trying to have things arranged so
people will leave me alone and let me keep doing the damage I've always
done.  So here it comes: the definitive clarification:

The IT/Education World According to Vince

Short, to-the-point version: I don't teach; I don't need ed. dept.
certification.

Long-winded, boring version (because it is too cold right now to go
outside and do something useful):

At the outset, let me attempt to gain credibility on this subject by
mentioning that I hold a bachelor's degree in English and held, but let
lapse, certification both as an English teacher and as a school media
specialist.  I also have a Master of Science in Library and Information
Science.  My point is that I do not take my position on this topic out
of fear that I would be unable to qualify for some kind of ed-tech
certification. To be honest though, I'll admit that I do fear the
courses I might be required to take. I'm sure I'll offend a great number
of people when I say this (don't I always?), but I've found few things
in my life as useless as college courses in education.  Your mileage may
have varied.

About teachers:
Here's what really makes good teachers. You begin with reasonably
bright, reasonably well-educated people who have genuine positive regard
for kids, a desire to help them learn, and a capacity for huge amounts
of work (and huger amounts of BS).  Those are the only prerequisites.
Then you start their real teacher education by putting them in
classrooms as interns with good, experienced teachers as mentors.  You
continue that mentoring by veteran teachers after the intern is licensed
and on the job as a new teacher.  Then you wait a few years until
they've disabused themselves completely of any notions provided by
whatever education courses they were subjected to in college and you've
finally got effective professional educators.  THEN, to make technology
teachers (or "integrators" or whatever),  you take experienced educators
and train them in technology -- not vice-versa.  God spare classroom
teachers from some kid out of an ed school with all the answers about
technology integration!

On to the MIS department:
That's me.  I'll make a deal with you: I won't try to tell you how to
teach kids if you don't try to tell me how to run a network. (O. K., I
DID just tell you how to teach kids -- but I'll take it all back.) Tell
me what you need, tell me what you're missing, but don't tell me how to
get it to you.  That's my job to figure out.  And, though I hate to
disagree with Tom Walz (one of the saner voices in this business), I
don't think it is necessarily the case that MIS directors in widget
factories need to understand widgets; digits maybe, but not widgets.  At
least not any more than a perceptive person can glean from periodic
meetings with the engineers and maybe the sales staff.  Much of IT is
the same whether it is in a widget factory or a law firm.  Or an
educational institution.

I have a network that has, in one corner, kids looking up the latest
sports news and, in another, a business office cranking out payroll.
I've got teachers using student records software that, from a techie's
standpoint, is no different than a personnel department human resources
database.  I've got a router that doesn't care whether the packets it is
passing add up to a passage from Shakespeare, a 3-D image of a fetal pig
or an adjustment of the boiler temperature at the high school. The
educational uses of my network are only part of its function; if we took
technology completely out of the curriculum, I'd still be needed to keep
administrative services functioning, to keep teacher's computers
running, to make  decisions, budgetary as well as technical, regarding
network maintenance and development, etc.

One thing that clouds the distinction between teacher and techie here
in Vermont with its tiny schools is that many folks are doing both jobs
at once.  But they are still two different jobs.  If you have a person
teaching both French and math, it is fruitless to argue whether he is a
math teacher or a French teacher; he's both, with different skills
necessary for each. Even more to the point, if the person who runs your
cafeteria also teaches a course in home ec., he needs ed. dept.
certification for the latter, but not the former.  We wouldn't decide
that all food service directors need ed credentials because one of them,
somewhere in Vermont, is also teaching.

Last year, I convinced the superintendent of schools to take my
technology coordinator title (please!) and give it to the educator whom
he had tapped to head up the academic technology committees.  I then
gave myself the somewhat self-aggrandizing appellation of "information
technology director".  What I was trying to tell the world, other than
to point out what an important kind of guy I really am, was that I don't
do pedagogy. Neither does the business manager.  Nor the buildings and
grounds director. They don't need ed. dept. certification and neither do
I.

Thank you for allowing me to repeat myself.  Again and again.  As you
can tell, I love to hear myself write.

Vince





Vince Rossano
Information Technology Director
Montpelier Public Schools
58 Barre Street
Montpelier, VT 05602

Voice: (802) 229-5355
Fax: (802) 223-6146
Email: [log in to unmask]