The BakSI national working group for technical support organizations and initiatives in schools addresses questions about school IT support programmes, their evaluation, and further development.
Numerous education authorities (or communal authorities) and school administrators are engaged in implementing support systems for the integration and operation of media and IT infrastructure for their regions, school associations, and individual schools.
In addition to integrating digital media to support teaching and facilitate organization, it is important to examine how digital media – including an increasing number of mobile devices (belonging either to schools or pupils) – can be effectively integrated into school infrastructure. How can school (IT) infrastructure be designed so as to meet the growing and ever changing needs for access points and digital work environments? What expectations do teachers and pupils have of the use of educational technology and its infrastructure? What kinds of support and training services are required? How can IT support be efficiently organized, evaluated, and financed?
The national working group aimed to help existing or future school technical support initiatives provide informal answers to (organizational IT) questions and solutions to problems regarding the implementation of digital media in schools. Additionally, the working group enabled schools to profit from solutions found by other initiatives.
Foundation
The working group was founded in 2004 as a platform for informal discussion for the following five school technical support initiatives: S3 – Schul-Support-Service Bremen, 3S – Schul-Support-Service Hamburg, fraLine at FTzM of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences; media centre Gießen-Vogelsberg (Regionale Medienzentrum – M@AUS), and media centre Stuttgart (Landesmedienzentrum – LMZ).
The focus was on discussing reliable concepts and sharing experiences from various regions and educational settings. The goal was to promote the informal implementation of digital media in educational institutions across Germany. The working group met on a regular basis, once or twice a year.
The majority of the authorities have already implemented systems for administering and developing school IT and media infrastructure. The members’ experiences were documented and published. There is therefore currently no need for regular discussion. BakSI stopped meeting regularly in 2015.
Focus: development educational informatics
