Archive for the ‘it’ Category

• School ICT ownership model

  Date: 2009.07.14 | Category: ICT, it, model, ownership, Primary School, school, technology | Response: 0

  I am in the process of writing an article on how schools can adopt and approach an ownership model which means parents/pupils contribute towards the cost of the ICT used inside of the school.

  The principle idea is that the parent/child then owns the device and can be used in the future outside of the school.
  Various schools have offered to contribute already to this paper but if you know of any school that has adopted this model and wants to talk about the advantages, disadvantages and the learning curve experienced throughout their deployment then please get on touch VIA twitter, email, a comment on this thread or facebook.
  I am hoping to have this article completed by the end of the summer holidays 2009 and as always I will post for free on my blog.

• Growth in a non growth market

  Date: 2009.02.11 | Category: business, ICT, it, mclear, Primary School, primary technology | Response: 0

  
  We currently employ 20 people who work purely in the public sector, specifically education. So, good times right? Well I guess so but there are some things I want to touch on.

  Firstly, we don’t have a pick of good quality ICT technicians, that’s just not the case, the non public sector companies who have to make redundancies tend to get rid of the less skilled, less employable people. I would like to be able to say I could employ some and train them up however the company quality of service policy doesn’t allow any room for any unskilled engineers.

  To be able to function effectively we would need a healthy financial backing that is safe, IE my personal cash flow to be safe.

  So, bearing in mind I’m now 26, about to buy my first house which is going to put me into a whole world of debt I don’t think now is the time to be taking risks on my company business model. This is reflected by the fact we are already losing money on new products/services (i.e. primary email) which have international scope but a lack of drive in the international market to adopt new technologies.

  So what’s our plan? It’s a pickle. We want to grow, we want the confidence in the market but it simply isn’t there.

  Thankfully, Sparky would say “Insha’Allah”, we are in a reasonably safe place with enough money being available to help Primary Technology’s core services grow, the question we are asking now is how much more time can we bleed money from non profit making services that are seen as “new technology” before cutting our losses and consolidating?

  I hope Gordon has the answers…