Please explain who you are and what your job is with the Department of Education.

My name is G. Maxine Esdaille. I am the Senior Education Officer of the Curriculum and Instructional Leadership office within the Ministry of Education. This office is responsible for curriculum design, development, implementation and evaluation. We provide leadership in the writing of curricula, providing professional development activities, resourcing schools with materials of instruction, developing system-wide assessments, supporting site based instructional leaders as they implement curricula and in working with local and international professional bodies to ensure that the Ministry's programmes of study are current, well researched and appropriate for our local situation.

"I supervise the team of education officers who are specialists in the various subject areas which the Ministry requires schools to offer. These officers work with schools to facilitate the effective implementation of the various subject areas.

"I have worked at the Ministry since 1987. I was first education officer-measurement and evaluation and in 1995 began the Senior Education Officer for this section. Previous to that I was first a primary school teacher and then high school counsellor before I became an education officer.

What made you choose education as a career?

Education was my second choice as a career. I first wanted to be a scientist but in some ways was discouraged from that idea by a number of people, I then thought that maybe the next best thing would be to become a teacher and have the opportunity to teach science. I am glad I chose education as I thoroughly enjoy my job and have enjoyed all the jobs that I have had in education. I loved directly working with young people when I was a teacher. I now enjoy the opportunity to have more far-reaching impact on young people's educational opportunities in this job."

When and where did you obtain your education?

I have had the opportunity to be educated in a number of countries - starting in Ottawa, Canada at a one year teacher's college when I finished high school and since that time have taken the opportunity to extend my education. I obtained an Associate's Degree in Social Work from Ryerson in Toronto, Canada; my Bachelor's in Sociology from Hunter College in New York; my Master's in Counselling and Counsellor Education from University of Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana. Additionally I have a Certificate in Examination Administration from Cambridge University in Cambridge, England and also attended the University of Chicago where I did post-graduate courses in statistics and programme evaluation. As you can see, not only do I like teaching I love being a student."

What has been your role with B.TEC and what is it currently?

I am the chairperson of the B.TEC Task Force. As you know B.TEC is the collaborative that grew out of the Bermuda/XL Initiative. As a result of a collaboration between XL Capital Ltd, the government, then-Senator Diane Watson of California, Stanford University and the Ministry of Education, a vision was developed to provide state of the art information technology curricula for the local public school system. The Stanford University team would collaborate with the Ministry of Education to write information technology (IT) curricula for the local system. That started in 1998 and has evolved and grown since then. The curricula continue to be written to meet the needs of the changing technologies.

"Part of the evolution of the original plan has been an understanding and commitment to meeting the needs of teachers who must deliver this state of the art curricula. As new and updated curricula have been written by Stanford it was recognised that teachers need to be trained to deliver this new curriculum. Stanford were charged not just with writing the curricula for the IT/Computer Science teachers, they had to train them to deliver this new curricula. Then it was recognised that technology could not be vested in just the IT curricula, all curricula are impacted by IT and therefore another university partner was added and the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education came on board to work with us to train all teachers in the integration of technology in all subject areas.

"Another part of the original initiative was the provision of hardware to deliver the new IT/Computer Science courses. As the use of IT extended to all subject areas, hardware and software for these areas was also needed. The initiative now was responsible for curriculum development, infrastructure needs (hardware and software) and teacher training. As these additional portions of the project were added, with a great investment of both time and money, it was recognised that there needed to be a mechanism in place to ensure that we were getting value and meeting the goals of the initiative.

"Another university partner was added and Boston University came on board to provide an evaluation of the process. Out of all these various separate projects has grown B.TEC. B.TEC represents the localising of the initiative into an organisation that provides a local organising and clearinghouse for the various separate projects. "B.TEC is composed of committees who have responsibility to oversee and provide leadership in areas mentioned above. We have a Staff Development Committee that is responsible for collating all the training that is associated with the project. The Staff Development committee has as its members the two staff development coordinators from the two government senior schools, relevant education officers from the Ministry of Education representatives from the Bermuda College, BIBA and local IT vendors. The Infrastructure Committee is responsible for developing the overall technology plan. This committee is composed of representatives from the various local IT vendors and a representative from the Ministry of Education's technology team.

"The Collaboration Committee, composed of representatives from our various corporate partners, the two education unions and persons from the Board of Education as well as the Chief Education Officer.

"This committee is responsible for ensuring continued community and corporate support, for keeping the various stakeholders updated on the activities of B.TEC and for establishing various community outreach programmes such as the summer internship programme for students.

"The Curriculum committee is responsible for ensuring that the curricula which our students participate is current, world class, delivered appropriately, meet established standards and is taught in a real world context. This team is composed of officers from the Department of Education, staff from the Bermuda College and a representative from the Bermuda Biological Station and Centre Solutions. The Measurement and Evaluation committee is responsible for working with all the above committees to ensure that goals established by these committees are met. This committee is also responsible for developing a process for ensuring that the Collaborative meets its overall goal. This committee is composed of persons from the Research and Evaluation section of the Ministry of Education, the Bermuda College, local IT vendors and representatives from the school system.

"The chairpersons of each of these committees is a member of the B.TEC Task Force and my role as chairperson of the Task Forces is to meet monthly with each group to support the work of each committee, to meet with the chairpersons as a team on a bi-monthly basis, to educate the community about the work of B-TEC and to report regularly to the Ministry of Education on the work of the Collaborative."

What sort of impact has B.Tec had on CedarBridge and Berkeley?

I believe that B.TEC has an important role in the community. It is an initiative that is bringing together all sectors of the community in facilitating the use of Information Technology for not only our local students but is bringing an awareness to the public of the importance and persuasiveness of technology in this community. Additionally through a variety of programmes including the Industry Substitute Programme, the Student Summer Internship programme, the Parent Involvement Programme the entire community is assisting in a very real way in the education of our young people.

"Although the programme started out in senior school, initially only for senior school computer science/information technology teachers, its benefits have spread to all levels of the system. There is now training for all interested teachers at the senior level. There is a middle school mathematics technology infusion programme. The Infrastructure Committee is not only looking at the appropriateness of facilities at the senior level but is looking at appropriateness of facilities at the primary level so that students are this level are also able to take full advantage of technology.

"Additionally the support from this public/private partnership has ensured that the entire community is at least aware of and in many cases gives real support to the public education process. We expect as B.TEC grows and evolves schools at all levels in the system will benefit."

What is your favourite aspect about B.TEC as far as aiding the student?

I think B.TEC has had its most powerful impact on the community by showing that students have great talent, ability and creativity. When we have had opportunities to showcase student work as we did at the Information Technology Fair in March 1999 and again at the B.TEC launch in February, 2002, persons were able to see the talent and vast body of work that has been accomplished by our students in the local system. Another aspect of B.TEC that is especially rewarding has been the extent to which our local corporate community is working with the education system in supporting and advancing this project. Support from the corporate community has grown significantly in the last two to three years. I can only say that this kind of cooperation bodes well for the future of the project.

"This means that both of these groups benefit - as students showcase their work in the area our community can see first hand that our students are bright, capable young people. As corporate collaboration and support grows our young people have the opportunity to make real connections with companies and organisations that can assist them as they make decisions about their long term and short term career and life goals."

If you had to do your life over again would it be in education or another direction?

If I had my life to live again I would definitely choose the same career path. I think that the experiences that I have had in education have been positive, rewarding and fulfilling. I absolutely love my job - it is exciting, never one day the same - of course sometimes I feel that there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done, but I would definitely be an educator if I had to live my life over again."