Applicability, there you are! Part 1

The two sessions I attended today were the most applicable to my job as an IT person, a personnel manager, and a one-to-one iPad coordinator.

The first was from the Val Verde Unified School District in Southern California, called Build a technology support team people love! This is definitely one of my goals, so I noted the takeaways that will help me in my daily work.

And, it was apparently applicable to many other's daily work, as the space was packed.

When people call for tech support, how do you want them to feel after hanging up the phone?
The presenter repeatedly made the point that IT is not in the technology business, but in the people business, and we happen to use technology. As my boss says, remember that the relationships matter most. Even if the answer is, "I don't know, but I'll find out" or "I can't fix that right now," there is a way to deliver that answer in a way that makes the user feel supported rather than brushed off.

Collectively, we are the face of IT.
Everyone in the IT department has an effect on the reputation of the department. And, depending on the size of the department, like a big department in a multi school district, people in the IT department may only be known as IT, rather than as individuals. So everyone needs to do their best to build the department's reputation. 

It's not the teacher's job to know certain tech things. It's her job to teach.
I have to remind myself this one often. Just because I know something, especially something that I consider simple, does not mean everyone else knows it. Yes, I think there is a minimum. However, turn that table around. Are there simple things that all teachers would know that would baffle a non-teacher?

With teachers, speak their language and understand their time.
The presenter gave a great example of a tech support call from the tech's point of view, then from the teacher's point of view. The tech was eager to get off the phone so he could fix the problem, then he was happy to have the problem resolved in a pretty quick amount of time, like 10 minutes. The teacher was annoyed because did not feel like she was being valued by the clipped conversation, and she lost that window of 5 minutes she has between classes to enter her grades.

Don't meet half way. Commit to 75% to make up for the days when when you can't get to it.
This point was about inter-departmental relationships. The IT department depends greatly on other non-academic departments to help with IT's work. The presenter's example was the Buildings and Grounds department for room setup. At my school, it's the Business department for purchasing and inventory. We need to work extra hard to make those relationships positive, and there are days when both sides won't be able to do that. Aim for doing 75% of the work to make up for the days when you don't have the time, energy, or good will to build that relationship.

Be the department that people will demand to keep, to not cut.
In an age when budgets are being slashed, be so good that teachers openly revolt at the mention of cutting IT. Especially if your teachers are part of a union, do such a good job that the teacher's union advocates for you.

So, that's the tech support session. Next up, iPads.

Flexible iPad management -OR- ISTE learns all about my job

A big reason for my going to ISTE was to support my Castilleja School colleagues during their presentation. Gabriel Lucas, director of technology, and Rachel Tennant, academic technology specialist, presented our approach to our iPad program in a presentation called Flexible learning and responsible oversight with a hybrid 1:1 iPad model.

The two of them basically built our iPad program over two years, and now it's my job to keep it running. We have about 400 iPads in circulation. We are one-to-one in grades six through nine, with a few "islands" and "peninsulas" of iPad groups in grades 10 through 12. And most faculty have an iPad.

The program -- and their presentation -- center on the ideas that a one-to-one iPad program can be scalable from 100 to 1000 (and more) devices and customizable to meet the developmental needs of each grade from K-12.

The presentation highlighted the differences between grades and how developmentally appropriate each step is. This is key, as there is a world of difference between how we manage the sixth graders from how we manage the ninth grades, and that is very intentional. They played recordings of our deans talking about the iPads in their grades.

• 6th grade: more restricted; can’t install or uninstall apps; students are new to the school, so don’t overwhelm them; teach students how to use it as a school tool
• 7th grade: not all in; inherited the program because the students as sixth graders last year had iPads; could not get the dean to do the interview; student can install apps themselves, but IT has  whitelist of apps that students can install.
• 8th grade: more responsibility, less control; transition to high school, mid-year, all students turn 13 = Apple IDs that they control
• 9th grade: less uniform; no team, like in the other grades; full control for students, more choice of when/whether to use the iPads; let students make mistakes

Four non-negotiables

1. Don’t muck it up - stick to a solid management system, a schedule for updating devices and apps, and beware of the one-offs. And, most importantly, don't let the parents manage it, especially in managing Apple IDs. This may sound counter to the way some schools work, but we knew that many of our parents, if tasked with any oversight or day-to-day management of the device or the account, would just let the student do all that herself. 
2. Maximize labor efficiency - it is not efficient to collect every iPad and touch INSTALL on each one in order to install apps or updates, which is what our school did in 2012-2013. In our case, using Apple's Configurator and giving each student an Apple ID saved us the hassle of tap, tap, tapping every device. 
3. Be cost effective - we're getting a better handle on this now by having a common core of apps that all devices will have, and we can buy those apps in bulk. We hope it will serve us and serve the students better by having some uniformity, rather than each grade or each class having a different note-taking app. 
4. Prepare for the unexpected - iCloud backup and restore have been our saviors. Students break iPads and students lose iPads. Using iCloud, we can restore the last backup onto a new device in about 15 minutes, which means the student has no disruption to their learning. 

Questions to ask yourself for your school

• How much control do you want?
• How much parental oversight do you want?
• What do you want the summer cycle to look like? Do you want to wipe out each device every summer, or carry student data year to year?
• What level of backup does the school want to provide for each student?
• How compliant with Apple do you want to be?
• What level of uniformity does the school want at each grade?

(My apologies to the readers and the Gabe and Rachel for the sub-par pictures.)