Challenges create barriers to instruction
Primary Topic Channel: Technical Support
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The figures pulled from his district's help-desk logs tell Charlie Reisiger that his technology team spends about 70 percent of its time fixing faulty machines or grappling with software questions from teachers and administrators.
That doesn't leave much time for other activities, such as planning new projects or helping teachers weave technology into their instruction.
"Waving a magic wand would let me flip that ratio, so my team is spending 70 percent or more [of its] time on classroom [integration]," said Reisiger, director of technology for the Penn Manor School District in Pennsylvania.
Reisiger's plight is common to many schools, where research suggests overworked and understaffed IT departments are spending too much time reacting to technology problems--and not enough time on training and integration.
One year after a landmark survey first revealed the extent of the problem, IT staffing shortages continue to plague schools, according to the latest version of the survey. What's more, these shortages are keeping many schools from realizing technology's full potential as a learning tool.
Conducted by eSchool News and SchoolDude.com Inc. in partnership with the Consortium for School Networking, our 2nd annual School IT Survey polled more than 600 school district leaders and technology administrators in November and December 2008.
The results were similar to findings from our first such survey in 2007, but added new insights.
Only 31 percent of respondents said their districts have enough IT staff to satisfy their needs; that's up only marginally from 27 percent in last year's survey. And 55 percent of those polled--the same percentage as last year--said they spend more than half their time reacting to technical problems, instead of working proactively on long-range planning and projects.
School IT departments "still have more work to do than they have staff," said Carolyn Stone, an independent analyst who helped with the research.
Stone's observation was supported by yet another finding from the survey: 68 percent of respondents said the number of technology devices in their schools has increased in the last year, but only 2 percent said they've added a commensurate number of IT staff to keep pace with these changes.
The burdens placed on school IT departments are taking a heavy toll on innovation, our survey suggests.
"Our IT staff members … need more training, and we need more time to explore new technologies. We spend all our time fixing the old [equipment]," said one respondent. "I want to get out on the cutting edge of educational technology and impact student learning and train students and staff. Instead, I'm troubleshooting network, hardware, and software problems."
Wearing many hats
This year, for the first time, we asked participants how many full-time equivalent (FTE) staff members they employ for various IT positions--and how many more staff members they thought they needed to meet their objectives.
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URL for Oasis Online
rbarline The Oasis Online Consulting website is http://www.oasis-consulting.net Thanks for asking.
Posted By: bslentz, 2009-03-16 2:13 PM
Consider Outsourced Services
It looks like the initial post got some good passionate conversation started, which is good… I am going to try and keep this post as short and to the point as possible, but at the same time attempt to respond to some of the concerns about Outsourcing being a viable solution to your growing pains. First and foremost, Outsourcing does not need to be a long term solution. Here at JourneyEd all of our contracts are short term with options to renew, but we also found over the years that a good SLA (Service Level Agreement) is necessary, it keeps everyone honest and provides penalties if a service falls below specific levels. Second, Outsourcing should be done by experts in their field. The comments Oasis made about how they support their customer base sounds about right for a good company, so good for you guys, keep it up. JourneyEd has been 100% Education focused for over 18 years and earned the Microsoft VAR of the Year in 2008 and our numbers are similar with respect to desktops per technician etc. Finally, when it comes to education in particular, your service provider needs to have experience working with Education. In IT, the little things make all the difference. In Education, those little things are all the more important and can be magnified greatly. We always keep in mind we have a bunch of little people interacting with the environments we manage as well as teachers who may or may not have much training on specific technology. We have to make sure things work down to the lowest common denominator. We provide solutions that work for the environment not the other way around. JourneyEd is passionate about education and has developed over the years, many solutions to help reduce burden, both in time and money. Things like Asset Management and Free Project Management with every solution. If any of you would like to talk about other concerns etc. you can reach us online at www.journeyed.com/services. We would love to help. OK, that was longer than I wanted it to be. Hope the information is useful to someone though...
Posted By: fsmith@journeyed.com, 2009-03-05 4:35 PM
Outsourcing May Be The Solution
Hey bslentz, I looked for your firm, Oasis Online, on the Internet but could not find it. You said that you manage the Technology Departments for three separate County School Districts. Don't be shy. What's your URL?
Posted By: rbarline, 2009-03-04 8:46 PM
Here's a link that should help
It's a Technology Support Index created by the International Society for Technology in Education that should help in finding where your school falls in relation to its technology assets and its ability to support them. http://tsi.iste.org/techsupport/tech-support-index-2.4.pdf
Posted By: vgaibor, 2009-03-04 5:22 PM
I have to comment to trmilne: I really think you have a failure to grasp the situation at worse, and arent involved in IT operations at best. IT assets in schools have done nothing but increase, and will for the foreseable future because that is the way of things. To not implement new technology into schools would be a disservice to the students IMHO. State programs such as Classrooms For the Future have increased the amount of technology used in the classrooms as well the technology that must be supported. It's implementation necessitated the need for the teaching faculty to learn new ways of doing things. Office 2007 has presented problems in that its file formats dont play well with older versions of Office. The 2007 patch for Office 2003 doesnt address all the issues either, as we've run into a new problem with PowerPoint Presentations that dont necessarily work with Office 2003. We dont have the money to upgrade everyone to Office 2007 either (Office 2007 came into the school via CFF btw). We've had the teachers learn to save their projects in a friendlier format. We've even introduced Open Office to the Staff, as we've already reccomended it to our student body as a free version of Office (we are a very rural school BTW). Upgrades happen, many times outside your sphere of influence, you have to be flexible enough to meet them. But many times, too much is too much. School administration see's "free" equipment and goes for it, without regard to the TCO involved, then wonders why things go "clunk". As to the use of PowerUsers, we had them before the network was redesigned. Out of a then computer population of 230 computers, 182 of them were infected, 80% of them belonged to the teaching staff, our powerusers. The network was redone to allow for more traffic, as well as implementation of an Active Directory system with Group Policies applied using Server 2003 and XP Professional (avoid Vista as the plague it is). Applications were delivered centrally as was a managed AV. Everything worked great because it was done properly. Then the computers started flowing in. We are now up to 600+ computers, plus 20 servers all with just one overworked IT Director/technician/engineer. The insistance that all can be done with a minimal IT staff and still maintain a 99% uptime is just ignorance borne of hubris.
Posted By: vgaibor, 2009-03-04 5:15 PM
Help Desk manager?
If you did things properly the first time, there would be no need for more than one tech support for a school of that size. Add in one network administrator (or district coordinator or whatever you want to call her) and you're done. Stop whining and do your jobs. Stop upgrading constantly - you just throw off your faculty. Train a few powerUsers and give them some leeway to spread the wealth. Don't install Vista. Don't allow your people to talk down to the "LUsers" - that breeds resentment and your people will gladly do things to annoy you. Don't upgrade constantly and break their ability to work at home when MS changes formats. Really, guys, it's not about you. Suck it up.
Posted By: trmilne, 2009-03-03 7:25 PM
Need to respond
Certainly don't want to start a huge argument. However, I feel I must respond to the last comment by quoting the Supt's we have worked with for years. These comments are from only a few months ago. Supt 1- "The advantage we have experienced by hiring Oasis Online over having a District technician is the fact that we have access to a number of technicians and specialists.....The work completed by Oasis often goes beyond the actual provisions of the contract Supt 2- "Because of their comprehensive services, more of our educators time can be spent on teaching and learning and not fixing the technology. Each new expansion and program is undertaken with a positive attitude and a willingness to 'make it happen'" Supt 3- "I am so very appreciative of your ability to provide quick response and high quality information. You team has provided us with opportunities that we would never be able to accomplish on our own."
Posted By: bslentz, 2009-03-03 5:26 PM
Outsource - why am I not surprised
It is not surprising that two outsourcing companies are saying that they are the solution... We have tried outsourcing on many fronts - they are good until the ink is dry on the contract. We then see service levels drop and corners being cut to save the outsourcing company money. Sorry to be so skeptical, I just haven't seen the levels of service remain as high.
Posted By: blaylockwill, 2009-03-03 1:40 PM
Oursourcing May Be The Solution
The issue of maintaining hardware vs.using the hardware is never-ending! I would suggest, however, that schools outsource to find their instructional technology specialists. A technology resource teacher who facilitates integration by consulting with the classroom teachers and working hands-on with the students allows the school's IT department to focus on its expertise. We at COMPUTER EXPLORERS provide technoology instructors, lesson plans and curriculum, and have found that everyone relaxes when we become part of the school. The IT department can't be expected to "be all things to all people;" let hardware people work with hardware, and let teachers work with the students. Cyndee Perkins, Director of Curriculum and Program Development, COMPUTER EXPLORERS http://www.computerexplorers.com
Posted By: cyndee perkins, 2009-03-03 1:26 PM
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The Impact of Data on the Technology Department
I realize this is a late entry but one of the functions overlooked in this article is the impact of data on the technology department. In my district we now support over twenty disparate data systems that directly influence district and classroom activities. The use of data is quickly becoming the Elephant in my department. I am constantly asked to create/move/update student and employee enrollment in all of these systems K-12. It is apparent to me that our teachers cannot deliver the content to their students if the enrollment in these systems is incomplete, incorrect or missing. Several of these systems pull section enrollment from our SIS system. When students change classes, these changes deliver a bigger payload to my tech department as we scramble to align each of the relevant ancillary data systems in time for the teachers to use them. This is a constantly shifting target. The time commitment supporting databases or SAAS services that rely on user accounts and related demographic information has grown to equal the amount of time we spend on desktop support. SIF is a big help to us, but the list of non-SIF compliant systems that we use remains larger. I now have a need for need a person on staff that is fluent in SQL and Oracle queries, can manage ODBC connections. That can also use Crystal Reports and can edit XML, AJAX, Java Script, DHTML and HTML source code. However, our district does not have funding to support this position.
Posted By: mtucker539, 2009-07-10 10:25 AM