I withdrew from an interview today for a Subject Leader in History position. The specifics are not important and I’m certainly not going to name the school, but the underlying trend is very important. That’s what I want to address in what follows.

As regular readers of this blog will know, my current school’s network is, shall we say, ‘flaky’. But at least as professionals we are trusted enough to be able to install programs we deem necessary and/or useful for teaching and learning. Upon arrival at interview this morning I asked if I could use my own laptop (a Macbook). They said no. ‘Fair enough’, I thought, ‘it might be a security risk’. I then mentioned something to do with using my USB flash drive to which the response was that anything from there would have to be pre-loaded by the network technicians to the guest user area. :o

I’d planned to use a clip from YouTube downloaded in FLV format via videodl.org. This can be played using the installable VLC or standalone program Wimpy FLV Player. Of course, they deemed executable files to pose too much of a security risk, so I was unable to use these. As the class were at the door waiting to come in I didn’t really have time for a workaround!

During the lesson one student asked if I had a picture of a gun used during WWI for the storyboard activity they were completing. Usually, I’d fire up Google Images and locate a suitable picture; but on this occasion it was blocked. I thought this might be due to entering ‘gun’ in the search field. Nope: the students informed me that was the school policy – Google Images is inaccessible through the school network.

To top it all off, my plenary was going to be a Flash-based game – either Save the Simpsons or Simpsons Snakes & Ladders (both available here). I was unable to use this as Internet Explorer (aaargh!) did not have the Flash plugin installed and I had no way of installing it. My lesson had been completely scuppered.

Fair enough, I should always have a back up plan. As it was, I thought on my feet and the lesson didn’t go too badly; I certainly had the chance to demonstrate behaviour management techniques… Unfortunately, the ICT woes at the school didn’t stop there! The internal candidate told me that any videos/DVDs/digital video clips have to be vetted before being shown to classes. Can you imagine this level of bureaucracy? Does all this encourage a culture of innovation regarding ICT use? :s

If I’d visited an unusual school today then I could understand it and count it as a one-off, a blip. But I didn’t. It was a middle-of-the-road comprehensive that, from its website and the literature it produces, actually looks quite forward-thinking when it comes to ICT. No wonder it feels like we in the edublogosphere are spitting in the wind… :(