[Year 12 IPM] Audacity

[Michael Walker]

>>> Sam Denniston<samdenniston at iprimus.com.au> 02/22/06 07:31pm >>>

>No Audacity on your network, yet I'm sure you have Internet Explorer.  No points for guessing which is the higher security risk.

>A blanket 'no' to shareware and freeware - yet another case that demonstrates the questionable priorities of school IT departments.

Before I start I might add that I work full time as a school tech, as well as studying part time a Bach. Ed. I like to think I have a foot in both camps...8^)

As there appear to be few if any techies here to defend this guy, let me start. Let me also suggest that I'm not questioning Audacity or it's curriculum credentials, I have heard lots of good things about it here and elsewhere.

However, in relation to IT departments playing God, there was an interesting article I read recently (possibly as a result of a post from here) where it gave an insight into IT techs. The reality of an IT department generally speaking, as well as specifically in education, is that there are no rewards for a computer infrastructure (software, hardware, network) that is innovative. There are lots of punishments, both extrinsic and intrinsic, for an infrastructure that fails. In schools they don't tend to be directly financial apart from the fact few schools seem to pay overtime for you to hang around until 10pm trying to get the network happening again for the next day.

A school is a relatively unique environment where you often have a significant number of unique equipment to support, in some schools significantly older equipment and operating systems to support, in some schools a mixed MAC / PC environment, older software designed for DOS and older Windows operating syatems (eg 3.1/3.11/95) that has never been updated and never will but is educationally desirable, and other oddities and quirks.

In addition there may be a technician funded by DEET for as little as a morning and somebody else part or full time depending on the size of the school. Looking at the jobs advertised in Education Times, they mostly seemed to be a smattering of SSO1s with a rare SSO2 and the odd SSO3. Being rather honest, for the rate of pay for an SSO1, you may well end up with someone highly experienced, competant and flexible and able to support a wide range of equipment and software of various ages. At least for a few weeks until they find a job that pays something more closely resembling their experience. To compare there was a full time position advertised recently for a local university law school where the starting pay was $39000 up to $44000 a year. I didn't look in detail at the requirements, but they didn't seem much different to what I do here, and the pay is somewhat higher than I currently get. The previous tech here got a similar job at another uni so I doubt the requirements are much different.

Taking the problem of low pay for computer techs compared to other organisations, a budget you all can make your own observations on (there seems to be a quantity of small business grade equipment being used on school networks the size of which would be regarded as somewhat larger than small business in other environments, based on techtalk technician postings) and a complex operating environment - something has to give somewhere.

In this case the technician has obviously gone down the risk averse environment where he wishes to keep everything as standard as possible with any software having a fallback option, in this case commercial vendor support. I'm not saying Audacity has no support, but it would be fair to say that a common perception is that support for open source and freeware varies between non-existant and web communities who have no responsibility to you to get you up and running, merely a desire to help. There is no phone number you can ring for help NOW when the teacher who wanted the software wants to use it in class now and some feature isn't working as advertised, or worst case it has appeared to have affected unrelated software or the OS in some way. Of course if Con wishes to leave his mobile phone number on this list for technical support, maybe that perception might change...;)

Other things technicians do to try and resolve the conflicts in the system that may annoy staff is to have a standard operating environment locked down as much as possible, put people off mixed environments (ie Apple and PC), encourage them to stop using old DOS software from 1992 and refuse to work long hours overtime for free researching whether the software some staff member "installed on their computer at home in 2 minutes with help from the kids" will cause any conflict on their SOE...

It doesn't help when staff members assume that everything takes minutes to install school wide, and expects you to know the intimacies of a program because "that's what you're paid to do, right?" when they've just given you the CD. Too many times I've been asked to put something on the network, then be expected to instantly know the innermost workings of the program when the person teaching it can't be bothered learning the basics because they're "too busy".

I'm not saying people on this list are like that, but I can assure the honourable listees that there are plenty of them around who don't understand or care about why they can't have the CD installed for their class period 5 today.

I'm in a fortunate position here in that there is enough time and staff to do things, to take on new projects and research what new software might do / bugshoot. I'm also aware that not every school in the state is in the same position from both others anecdotes and from seeing other schools during teaching rounds where I aim to check out their IT as well as teach!

Assuming the IT tech is genuinely professional (and apart from other people's assumptions I've seen no evidence to suggest otherwise) and may well be trying to do what he/she sees as best for the school (a reliable network that is useable by having high up time) compared to what someone else sees as best for the school (installing software to produce/enhance learning in an interesting and relevant way), maybe it's worth sitting down over a coffee / beer and asking why they have the policy, and what would be needed to produce an exception. If nothing else you have something to refute against if you need to escalate it, and maybe you can both come to a compromise where the software can go on if you agree to be responsible for it.

Now donning the flameproof suit...

Michael Walker
CGSC IT technician.