Water Your Flowers Daily

The Critical Importance of Technology Support Staff

by Judy Paxton, Board President, Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL)

It is an ordinary day on the school campus. The bell rings; students fill the classroom seats. The teacher quickly “logs on” to the school network to take attendance. That is when “ordinary” stops. The teacher’s login name and password aren’t working! After several tries, with classroom chatter rising, the teacher resorts to paper-mode reporting. A quick tour of classrooms finds other teachers experiencing the same problem. Time and resources are lost on a number of fronts: administrators, teachers, students...and now, technology support staff.

The responsibility for identifying problems and finding solutions lies with the technology support staff. This login issue takes 40 hours to fix–not the 40 minutes everyone expected. The crisis becomes top priority, pushing other support issues down the “to do” list, causing great frustration for the technology staff and others.

Understanding the Problem

Technology support teams face a big challenge: how to meet the lengthy list of technology needs throughout a school system and stay proactive instead of reactive. For example, could the issue described above be related to the inability to upgrade the system a year ago? A lack of time and financial dollar support for regular maintenance often causes crisis down the road. One technician from a large district recently said: “When everything’s going smoothly, people ask why we need more than one technician, and the support dollars are cut; when things go wrong, people just feel bad for us, saying they are glad not to be in our shoes!”

A quick scan of the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) Technology Listserv, established for self-described Michigan “techno-geeks” who help each other solve problems, shows an extensive list of technical issues being addressed in schools (and this is only a partial list):

Another challenge school systems face is understanding the broad definition of the term “tech support.” It is not simply machines and software that need technology support. Teachers, students, administrators, and community members who use the school’s technology resources need support as well.

The broad range of network, software, and hardware issues in schools today makes the challenge of being proactive even greater. Schools need enough technology support personnel to handle routine maintenance and investigate new products as they quickly evolve.

Finding Resources

How are schools meeting technology support needs during this time of tightening budgets? Simply hiring more technical staff is often not an option. Michigan’s Forest Hills school district in Grand Rapids focuses each member of its technology support staff on meeting specific needs. This involves careful planning and identification of specific jobs to cover network, workstation, video system, web master, and help-desk duties. Some schools train students to help with some of the technical issues. And, of course, the staff needs mentoring time!

When planning for technology support, school and district teams can follow these general guidelines:

• Analyze your school technology environment, including number of computers, complexity of network, software applications, and number of services being offered.
• Define your technology program reliance factor. If a school makes technology an integral part of learning and management, more technology support staff is needed.
• Create specific job descriptions to help clarify responsibilities. Designate district, building, teacher, and specialist responsibilities.
• Evaluate. Take time to step back and applaud the successes and find solutions for the rough areas.
• Evaluate technology support on a regular basis. There is no magic formula. Every new initiative brings technical challenges, known and unknown.

So, what does technology support have to do with watering flowers? My flowers died last week. They died not because I lacked knowledge. They died because my time was consumed by work-related priorities. I had no plan in place to support carrying out this important duty of watering the flowers, and no one else noticed until it was too late. Lack of maintenance led to a severe problem! Perhaps it’s time to hire more help!

Judy Paxton is the current Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) Board President. For more information, contact: Judy Paxton, Director of Technology Development, Grand Rapids Christian Schools, 1812 Sylvan SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506, (616) 574-6381, jpaxton@grcs.org.

For information about Forest Hills School District, contact: Kevin Barrons, Technology Director, 6590 Cascade Rd. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-6497, (616) 493-8800, (616) 493-8560 fax, or visit www.fhps.k12.mi.us.

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