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SusanEinhorn
Joined: Apr 17, 2009
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Welcome!
October 7, 2009 @ 10:07 PM
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Welcome to all participants of the Next Steps Institute 'Student Run Help Desks - Where Do I Start?' starting October 13, 2009 in the US/October 14 for our participants from Asia and Australia . Please let everyone know a little about yourself and your school or district, a bit about your technology and laptop program, any previous experience you've had implementing student run support services, and any specific issues or questions you want to address at the institute.
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rlynch
Joined: Sep 19, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 10, 2009 @ 01:49 AM
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My name is Robyn Lynch and I am working at Shekou International School (SIS). Shekou is in Shenzhen, China – on the mainland, just above Hong Kong.
I am the tech coordinator for a PreK-12 school which is experiencing rapid enrollment growth over recent years.
Originally SIS was very small. Our first graduating class in 2007 was only seven students. In 2004 we went 1:1 in the High School to enable our students to be exposed to a full curriculum. Each was enrolled in VHS (Virtual High School). They did the core classes, fine arts and PE with onsite staff, but took all other courses virtually.
We now have 107 high school students, each with their own laptop, and 130 middle school students with a 1:2 laptop ratio. Grades 3-5 have a 1:3 laptop ratio, K-2 have access to a computer lab. Each member of staff is also provided with a laptop.
Given this number of laptops, 3 campuses, and only 3 technicians, we really need a student run help desk!
A student run help desk will also help provide opportunities for selected students to complete their school community service hours.
I am interested in how to select students, i.e. the skill set they should have, and how a student run help desk works logistically, i.e. do students get pulled out of their class to assist.
So I am looking forward to the course (but not to being lucid at 5:00 a.m. in the morning!)
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melissamcmahon12
Joined: Oct 13, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 13, 2009 @ 06:46 AM
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Hello,
My name is Melissa McMahon. I am an English teacher at North Sydney Girls High School, Sydney, Australia. We started a latop program in 2007 and are in need of more technical support. Looking forward to finding out how the students can be more involved in the process.
Thank you.
Melissa
This post was edited on: 2009-10-13 at 03:31 PM by: melissamcmahon12
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thungj17407e
Joined: Oct 13, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 13, 2009 @ 01:38 PM
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Hello, my name is Jeff Thungc. I manage the Student Technology Educational Partnerships (STEP) for the Kent School District in Washington State. We have 1:1 program (www.kent.k12.wa.us/ksd/it/one2one) for all our middle schools (6) and in one high school. STEP (www.ksdstep.org) is a student technology leadership program which creates opportunities for students to assume leadership roles in all levels. We have many student technology leadership programs in STEP and one of them involves getting students to support their teachers and peers in the 1:1 program. My challenges has been getting someone at the building level to actually supervise these Student Technology Assistants(STA). Due to budget cut and staff are overwhelmed with other activities, how do I go about making this program sustainable? I am looking forward to learning new ideas from this course. Thank you.
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pyeates
Joined: Jun 16, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 13, 2009 @ 08:52 PM
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Hi,
My name is Peter Yeates. I am ICT Services Manager at Ipswich Grammar School at Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. We are looking to implement a a laptop program in 2009 for 2010 school year and are looking for way(s) to keep learning opportunities up and the costs down!
In my head was thinking about the help desk being managed by an employee who oversees all the students helpers, and progresses them along a learning path or entry requirement (RPL) for TAFE/Uni entry for example.
Looking forward to finding out how the students can be more involved in the process to their and schools benefits; and learning from others ideas.
P.
This post was edited on: 2009-10-15 at 05:12 PM by: pyeates
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jembr
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Re: Welcome!
October 14, 2009 @ 11:05 AM
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During our conversation yesterday I picked up interest in managing the workload and sustainability. Jeff's comment about the difficulty of getting someone to coordiante helpdesk at the school level is an important one.
If it is ok with you I'll change the scope of our conversation somewhat in order to address sustainability issues.
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gblesma
Joined: Oct 14, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 14, 2009 @ 11:16 PM
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Greetings, from Traverse City, Michigan, USA. My name is Grant Blesma. I’m with the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District (TBAISD). We are one of 57 ISDs in the state of Michigan, encompassing sixteen public school districts, three public school academies and fourteen private and parochial schools within our five county region of northern lower Michigan.. We fulfill a role as a link between local school districts and the Michigan Department of Education. As the scope and responsibility of schools grow, so does the role of the ISD to include providing its local districts with those programs and services which are either too expensive or too extensive to be offered individually. While we do not have a 1:1 program at our ISD our local schools are working towards this end. With over 32,000 students and 5,200 staff, in our region, information technology departments vary in size and design. We have a staff of six technicians at the ISD, several of the schools have a single Technology Director working also as the technician, a few schools contract these services out to local vendors/consultants, while the largest school has a staff of 8-10 to manage their needs. With our State and Federal laws in place to protect the students and data confidentiality, security is very high on our list of concerns in relation to the student run help desk. The turn-over of students and their schedule to true availability to user support and break/fix issues make me wonder if the cost, both direct and indirect, are worth the effort. Our CTO has placed this task upon me so I’m looking for feedback on what roles can be fulfilled by the students running the help desk that possess minimal training in the field and provided user or, at best, power user level security to physical and network resources. Having said that, I found myself surprised to be in favor of the other tangible assets the student can take away from the experience such as confidence, self esteem, poise, and improved peer communications.
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tcarty
Joined: Sep 18, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 15, 2009 @ 04:59 PM
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Hello Everyone
My name is Terence Carty and I am the Director of IT at Branksome Hall, an independent girls school in Toronto, Ontario. I am in charge of implementing a one to one tablet program for our 7th and 8th graders in Sept 2010. Although I have taught technology for a number of years, used laptop carts etc. I have never implemented such a program. After a lot of research and a considerable amount of salesmanship, I look forward to the new challenges ahead.I also hope to implement a Student Help desk to alleviate some of he pressures on our currently overburdened
Help Desk.
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thungj17407e
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GenYES/TechYES/GenTech
October 15, 2009 @ 06:16 PM
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Kent School District has been using the GenYES curriculums for the last 6 years. In the first 3 years, we have used the GenYes (elementary school), GenTech (high school), and TechYES (middle school). In the last three years, we are focusing on the TechYES due to our 1:1 laptop program. We want to create a student support system that would be self-sustaining. We have created the STEP Club, a combination of TechYES and STA (student technology assistant). Last year, through a grant, we were able to implement TechYES 7th grade science department in one middle school. we certified 245 7th graders to meet the NCLB mandate. We will select some of these certified students and make them peer mentors for this year and offer them the opportunity to become STA to help with tech support. We are still in the beginning stage on this part. In our other middle schools, TechYES has been implemented as electives (technology class, Computer Class, etc). We are hoping to get grants to expand TechYES district wide. The challenge, again, is finding a certificated person to supervise the students in these program. We have not figured this one out yet. You can find us at www.ksdstep.org
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thungj17407e
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SWAT
October 15, 2009 @ 06:30 PM
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We checked into SWAT 3 years ago and see that what the curriculum offers, we were already doing at Kent. As with the GenYES curriculum, things were going well with all that we have going when we had an ITS at each building. Three years ago, we lost the ITS at each building (some buildings still have ITS, their position has changed) so it is difficult to implement these programs that required extra staff time. I am at the district level with forty schools and hope to find something that would be self-sustaining and can be operate from the district level. SWAT seem to require much time from staff at the building level to operate. Things might have changed since we looked at it. You can find us at www.ksdstep.org
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jasonstouhey
Joined: Oct 16, 2009
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Re: Welcome!
October 16, 2009 @ 12:07 PM
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Hello,
My name is Jason Touhey; I am working as a teacher in Seminole county, Florida, at the Crooms Academy of Information Technology. I teach PC Support and Introduction to Information Technology; my school has a program in place that allows every student and teacher at the school to have a laptop. The main reason I am here is not for the laptops, our goal is to create an entire class based on repairing computers for the public for small donations. We want to advertise on craigslist and other methods to get the word out that we can fix or clean your computer for a small donation. The main issue at hand is can I find a curriculum to match this class so if there isn’t computers to fix we have other work to be done. When we get a computer to repair how can I go about the process without boring half the class and can I keep the momentum up when there may only be one computer to fix. I think it will come down to a curriculum in place that the class does throughout the year.
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thungj17407e
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Re: Welcome!
October 16, 2009 @ 12:24 PM
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Jason,
We have a computer refurbishing program here call Bridging the Gap (www.ksdbtg.org). These computers are refurbished through our high school computer classes. The curriculum we have used are GenTech from GenerationYES, Microsoft Academy, and CISCO Essentials. We are focusing on granting these computers to families with students enrolled in our district that cannot afford to buy a computer.
The Spokane School District duplicated our program and its call TeConnections (www.teconnections.org). They took it one step further and ventured into the entrepreneurship arena- something similar to what you are doing?
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