Information and Communication Technology

Academic

Roger Blatchford

Director of ICT

Richard Cackett

Director of ICT

The year has seen many consolidations and changes in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Trinity College. Due to staffing movements in the second term, Mr William Quartermaine moved to become the Head of Secondary School until the end of the year. The day to day running was delegated to Mr Roger Blatchford and Mr Richard Cackett who managed existing programmes and implemented an exciting new ‘video on demand’ piece of software called Click View.

Hardware and Software Developments

With the installation of data projectors, ceiling speakers, screens and other multimedia devices in a growing number of classrooms, combined with the roll-out of notebook computers for full time staff, and a wireless network that provides stable and total coverage within the school, teachers are now able to deliver ICT directly into their classroom. This may sound minor but in terms of ownership, the teachers have embraced this ICT, and as students are not removed from their classrooms, a holistic approach to learning and teaching with ICT has come to fruition. The music department has used its purpose built computer lab in the music building to create sound tracks for video clips produced by other students, another exciting use of ICT. The management of electronic information within the College is being reviewed as the exponential growth of information being gathered, processed and stored will become an issue for all schools. Currently we talk in terms of hundreds of gigabytes and soon we will be talking in terms of terabytes which are thousand times larger than a gigabyte. Planning for future growth and the management of the information is well underway and the College will be well equipped to manage this growth.

Website

Visitors will be aware of the upgrade that happened last year and since then we have been able to monitor visitor usage of the website. It is pleasing to note that up to date information via the online newsletter and the News and Events columns on the home page are very popular, and the P.L. Duffy Resource Centre section of the website continues to be heavily used and is well worth a visit.

Curriculum

A year of consolidation would be the best description of what has been happening with ICT and the curriculum at Trinity College. Staff received professional development in their classes with Roger Blatchford who also assisted with resource development and helped staff in new pedagogy. Roger has proved a vital support link between the ICT and the end users, namely staff and students.

Staff

The College’s ICT has been very stable with minimal interruption to the network thanks to Mr Neil Seaman (network manager) and Mr Warwick Gaff (Technical support officer). Due to Mr William Quartermaine being seconded to Head of Senior School, the College was able to contract in Mr Michael Roche to support the department in its efforts to provide a high level of service to the Trinity community.

The Future

With the introduction of Outcome Based Education (OBE) and the new Courses of Study in Years 11 and 12, the ICT department is cognizant of its need to support staff and students by providing the best resources possible to allow each to teach and learn respectively.

Roger Blatchford & Richard Cackett

Directors of ICT