Tomorrow (well, in the morning actually) will see my last day at work at Northants County Council. It has been an interesting few years, with a number of interesting project and a chance to work with old friends and make plenty of new ones.
There has been good and bad along the way, and I am grateful for the opportunities I have had there, but with the direction things are taking it is only right that I move on (to bigger and better) and enjoy the future with my wife and our daughter as we move down south.
I only got involved with the LA because the school I was working at as Director of IT was a pretty vocal school. We had moved over the RBC for our internet connection as a political move to be closer to the inner workings of the LA to allow us to continue to bid for new buildings. We still ran most of our own services, we decided that the Standard Network Build was not a limiting bar but a platform to go well past (which we did on pretty much all occasions) and that we were happy to listen to the LA and RBC, but they had to listen to us too … and they did. Eventually we were told to put up or shut up … get involved with the changes or get what we were given. A working party for the procurement of the new RBC contract followed by similar for a Learning Platform, then a secondment for a day a week to help roll things out, then some extra days, then a year … and then a permanent post.
I was allowed a fair bit of freedom to continue to get involved in other groups and work with different communities so I got the best of all worlds.
We pump-primed many projects into schools and educational settings. The new RBC framework was designed to give flexibility and choice, and we helped schools by working with them on a decision-support toolkit … and whilst many moved away from the RBC they did so more informed … and they will make better decisions for it … and for some that will mean moving back to the RBC now they have realised what they had to start with and now they feel there is no political pressure about doing what the LA says. Some won’t but that is fine by me as long as they do what is in the best interests of their learners and other learners in the county.
We worked to roll-out a county-wide learning platform … and many schools have come to realise that a blog is a blog, a wiki is a wiki, a discussion is a discussion and a document repository is just that. It is how you join it together, support the use in the classroom and collaborate within the school and between schools that makes the difference. Working with people that can do this makes all the difference.
That is why I still look on with wonder at the work for Tom Rees and Peter Ford … their able recruits … because the work of NorthantsBLT is integral to this ethos and has improved so much of what goes on in our schools. The Mobile Tech Toolkit was an interesting way of getting schools sharing ideas and resources.
However, working with the technical folk across the county has been my biggest pleasure. I am a geek at heart … even if I have gone to the dark side and become manglement … and then onto project management. Seeing schools getting staff trained in FITS, helping schools appoint new Network Managers, seeing the profile of support staff in schools grow so that they are recognised as valuable contributors to the school … that has been a pleasure. Working with them on Security Analysis of their systems, seeing the local NetworkNorthants community be taken over by the schools themselves … wonderful.
Being able to ring a few up and point out that they have made stupid change requests is also fun, and I promise not to mention anyone by name when doing any after-dinner speaking later on in life. Most of you know who you are and have also laughed when I have told you the silly things I used to do when working in a school too. Thank you for your patience when dealing with someone who *isn’t* a hands-on techie anymore.
I leave a team at the LA which is slowly going. LAs restructure all the time and they have to do so to reflect the needs of customers, the direction for central Govt and the available funds, no matter where they come from. I am sad to see such a thriving hive of ideas and expertise diminish … and have enjoyed working with pretty much everyone at the LA.
Good luck to those still in LAs, who work closely with LAs and those who still rely on the essential services many LAs can (and do) give.
I will be working for LearningPossibilities as of 1st April (no … don’t laugh), primarily on the Hwb project in Wales. It is another exciting project and the work I have done on it so far fills me with hope that people still see the benefit of collaboration, planning, thinking of others and actually considering tech as a tool to plan for, make use of and not as a magic bullet, getting all starry-eyed about the shiny!!!
My blogging has been slow recently anyway and that is unlikely to change in the future. I will still talk about things that fill me with passion, and hopefully people will still read with equal interest.
