I think there needs to be some mediator between the SPOCs and requirements put forth by DIIT or the city. A committee would be great. With DIIT, things get put through the pipeline that just have to be done and we have absolutely no input on it. A teacher can push back to protect their time because they have rules and guidelines in their contract but a SPOC really doesn’t. DIIT doesn't consult with us or give us any input on the changes they make or new requirements they put in place.
Sometimes we get access to opportunities for training but there's no pay offered at all. The SPOC meetings during school hours are difficult to attend. Last year I remember I kept getting blasted with emails to complete these courses, it was over 14 hours of work with no pay offered. I completely ignored it.
We need a chance for an outside the classroom position of a full time SPOC. Some large schools even have 2 full time SPOCs.
Computer Based Testing is a monster that continues to get more and more complicated. As tests go computer based it's more important than ever that we have support and time to prepare. If the city wants schools to meet these requirements they need to allocate money to make tech coordinators paid positions in every single school.
We should have more internal control of our devices so we can make decisions that work for our schools. Instead of having all decisions be made by DIIT. For example, taking off ipad locks off in a heart beat I have over 100 iPads that need to be unlocked and it takes over an hour for each using configurator. I wish I could make the call to remove the option to lock but we tried and DIIT won't do it.