| "The Aalborg Way" IT Advisors - The Missing Link! |
| Aalborg - the 4th largest town in Denmark - is the leading area in Denmark when it comes to successful implementation of IT in educational institutions. After the presentation the audience knew that this success was due to a well-organized co-operation between several players: teachers, headmasters, schools, The Municipality, the Ministry of Education, the local department of education, and the students have all played an important role. But to get this puzzle to work well, a piece was still missing: The IT Advisors! The IT Advisors are all graduated teachers and all of them teach conventional lessons besides their job as IT Advisors. This special combination makes them aware of the real and concrete problems and opportunities existing within the educational area. Their job is to offer permanent IT assistance to the teachers. Morever, they make concrete action plans, i.e., IT ethics and rules (chat is only allowed during the breaks). They also point out the objectives for every age group at their school. These IT Advisors have been taught in teams and they work in teams. This makes it easier to avoid "burnt-out" syndromes. If the teachers had to work by themselves, they would not be able to do the same influential job. At the same time the co-operation ensures constant inspiration and development among the advisers. All the IT advisors in the Aalborg area have access to a First-Class system providing them with a mailbox and access to conferences in which they develop ideas, discuss problems and solutions and in which they encourage each other. The efforts in Aalborg mean that there are many schools where LAN is being used. Furthermore, all classes have one or more web pages on which they write their stores and publish their pictures telling about their experiences. The teachers share a First-Class conference in which the parents are also invited to share their ideas and problems. Finally electronic logbooks are being used frequently and schools and classes around the world are contacted in order to discuss ideas and experiences globally. All in all, Aalborg seems happy and eager to continue their development! |
| Excerpts from the WCCE2001 Daily News |