Grumbledook Blogs

Ask not what your support provider / technician can do for you, but what you can do for them.

I know that will sound very wrong to some people … putting the onus back on schools rather than the techies but when I am working with some schools who buy in their support from outside companies, whether for technician time, for support on a particular solution or as a managed service, I can often find that the ‘ownership’ of all things under the broad umbrella of technology gets thrown over to the support provider / techie.

It is one thing for a company to say “we will deal with all your technical worries!” but unless the school leaders have some ownership themselves they lose the ability to plan and make strategic choices.

My recent response to a few schools is to make them think about their relationship with their techie and how to get a better balance of ownership and direction. So, I have a very simple 3 point plan that can be used with or without FITS (ok, it is actually part of FITS but no taken in the usual order) and applies to both school and techies.

1 – Inventory
How do you know what needs to be supported if you don’t know what you have got? How do you know when it is likely to need replacing? How much do you need to invest over the next 3-5 years? All pretty pointless questions unless you know what you have … and how you are presently using it / plan to use it in the future. Here are my recommended things to have in your inventory.

• Make
• Model
• Serial Number
• School Asset Number
• Purchase Date
• PO Number
• Cost
• Supplier
• Disposal Date

This would be the bare minimum required for insurance purposes but there are other fields that many will add in.

• Asset name (which may change during the lifetime of the asset)
• Hardware Specification fields [CPU, RAM, screen size, etc] (all of which depend on how much you use the asset register as a trueinventory)
• Location
• Principle User (which may vary, could be a department, could be whole school or could be a specific user)
• Software Specifications [OS version, installed software, etc] (you could tie this into your software inventory and remember that you licences are actually assets too!)

This will give you a basis to look at investment using tools such as this.

The people that need to be involved in this are the Bursar / Business Manager, the ICT lead and the support provider / technician.

2 – Routine Maintenance

This is one of those areas that is open to negotiation. Realistically there are some things that will require a regular look at or regular action and others which can be reactive. This is where those who have had a long look at FITS can see things like change management, release management and patch management … but what does it mean to everyone else?

a) Software patches – These tend to boil down to 2 areas … those needed to fix problems or stop problems arising (eg security patches) and those which will change / improve functionality. Sometimes you will get both. Now what you have to decide is when to install these … and since we know that people like Microsoft tend to release their patches on a particular day it is not too hard to plan around this. If you are using particular solutions such as RM’s CC3/CC4 then you know that they will check and release versions of these for you … security patches get a priority of functionality patches … mainly because if you change functionality then you might want to prepare people for it … so the school can help by deciding when are the best times to look at releasing security and functionality patches.

b) Backups – you know that each school will have its own requirements for this based on what systems they run, the number of servers and users … lots of variations here. But one thing is surely needed … a log of when backups are done *and* tested. A school should be able to pick up a sheet of paper, look at an online chart and be able to answer this for any piece of data you store. The sticking point for some schools may be that there is not a backup policy (what is backed up, how frequently, how is it restored, etc) but even a basic policy can be generated quite quickly.

c) Hardware maintenance – Many items of hardware need a checkover on a regular basis. PAT testing can fit into here, cleaning out of filters on projectors, airdusting / vacuuming the debris that can collect in servers depending where they are, the same with desktops & printers … and let us not forget that this can include the cleaning rota for keyboards and mice.

d) Anti-Virus / Anti-spyware – I see a mixture of schools who have a centrally managed system where it is really easy to see what updates are pushed out to computers and also reports of viruses appearing on systems (and hopefully cleaned off too), and then we have schools which find that it puts too much cost on and just have a client on each machine. Either way you need to set some standards for checking that it is up to date or being updated on a regular basis. This needs some periodic checking and recording.

e) Purchases – This might seem a strange one to include in here but how many people have been frustrated to find out that they have run out of toner or ink for printers, that the few spare mice they had have all been used up, even things like stocks of paper for printers have been used up. This links in with the inventory  really … so is down to school need, but supported by the techie.

This is by no means an extensive list but a good starting point. Larger schools might include in here regular meetings with key staff to help identify needs and issues which can be used to help plan maintenance and future plans too.

3 – Communication

This is the bit where we can see that it is aligned to FITS more clearly. In FITS we see things like a single point of contact (the helpdesk) but for many schools this could be a log book where teachers put problems and the technician picks them up when they come in. The downside of this is that the technician may find 8 problems since they were last in but has to go to each teacher to get more information to try and decide what needs to be done first (and how many of us have pushed to get *our* problem as the number one task because *we* are more important than anyone else!), but that can leave the techie in a terrible position.

There are a couple of things that the school can do to make life a bit easier all round and they all centre around communication. Having a single point of contact between the school and the technician is a good thing, but don’t let it be a purely impersonal item such as a log book / job sheet. Where possible make it a person … someone who can manage IT and the support contract. Set some ground rules … things like priorities. Something affecting the whole school is the most important and this does not have to be that the server is down … it can be things like an update is require for you MIS. Without it then you cannot complete school activities such as attendance, termly returns, etc. Whilst this might be difficult to explain to some staff in the school as long as the senior leaders and the designated member of staff who is going to manage things (manage … not do the work I should add!) then it should be accepted by other staff. Clear information about the progress of jobs is handy too. Put a framework in place so that if the technician is in one morning a week then at the end of it the member of staff managing the IT support can clearly see what has been done and what is left to do. Some larger companies might have an online ticket system for this, but often the job book will be just as good. Again, this is not an extensive list but a good starting point that I would expect to see in schools.

So there you have it. 3 simple and basic targets that I would expect in each and every school, no matter how your IT is supported.

A recent tweet (or rather a retweet) had the following URL (in which we see ten commandments from a technically savvy teacher to technicians) – http://bit.ly/dpdjFO – and whilst I can understand the intention I just find it opens up the can of worms that is techie/teacher bashing. On places like the TES forums you get techie bashing (interspersed with some common sense) and on EduGeek.net you get the occasionaly rant about clueless teachers (followed by lots of agreement and the odd balanced example of clueful teachers). It frustrates me. It annoys me the two groups of people who could do much when they work together suddenly express a lack of understanding about the other is doing … And then you get some wonderful examples of it all working together.

As a result I am reposting the 10 Commandments, followed by the techie equivalent. I will then stick in my own version … and I make no apology for any trolling that appears to be taking place. As I was poked to respond, I am poking others to rise too!

The ten commandments of school tech support

• [Original]Thou shalt test the fix.
  [Techie]Thou shalt accept that we can only fix things we get told about. Reading minds might get us burnt at the stake.
  [Me]Communication and the processes by which tech support work should be effectively communicated, but all should accept that it is a two way thing.

• [Original]Thou shalt talk to actual students and teachers and make time to watch how technology works during actual class time, not just when it’s quiet.
  [Techie]Thou shalt listen to technicians when they ask questions, give truthful answers about what you expect technology to do and accept that there are limitations.
  [Me]No technology is perfect and some compromise is needed. It means a bit of give and take on both sides. When people want to use technology then try to take the time to discuss how it will be used, how you can measure it is doing what is needed and how you can work out how you deal with changes.

• [Original]Thou shalt not make fun of the tech skills of teachers or students, nor allow anyone else in the tech department to make disparaging remarks about them.
  [Techie]Thou shalt not presume to be all knowing gods yet still argue when a technician tells you it is illegal to copy commercial DVDs.
  [Me]Ok, let us all accept that there are stereotypes on both sides. Users will make stupid mistakes and it will be laughed at, usually when it is the same repeated mistake. Then again, you get teachers poking fun at the higher percentage of technical staff with elements of dyslexia / autism / other stereotypical conditions. Accept that there willing always be this one upmanship whilst each side treats the other as inferior. Also remember that the technically adept teacher and the educationally adaept techie are both at the top of the tree. You are the exception still so when the other makes a scathing comment it might not be aimed at you but a generalisation, try to find out what caused it and help people overcome the problem.

• [Original]Closing trouble tickets shalt not be thine highest calling; thou shalt strive to continually make the learning environment better.
  [Techie]You report a fault then we will follow it up. You are measured by exam results, we are measured by completion of tickets.
  [Me]Now we get onto the weighing the pig arguement. Both sides need to be measured but it is the big changes that need to be understood. Technology and how it helps deliver the Learning Environment cannot be done in isolation. It is a partnership. Every side has something to add. It will fall apart if anyone decides that others aren’t important.

• [Original]Thou shalt not elevate the system above the users.
  [Techie]Thou shalt accept that the system is our priority; it is set up to delivery as much as possible to as many different requirements as you gives us, but accept that your request may disrupt things for others. We sometimes have to work to a lower common denominator. It is part of the greater good.
  [Me]It is all very well thinking that the there is some big battle between users and system but it is a hard balancing act. We are back to the word compromise again. Both sides have very good reasons for standing their ground for somethings … it could be down to legal requirements such as Data Protection, it could be down to the flexibility required for personalised learning. Sit down and explain them and try to have an arbritrator to deal with the hard choices.

• [Original]The network will be never be perfect. Learning is messy. Get thyself over it.
  [Techie]Unplanned growth in computer systems leads to it falling over. We will keep things organised. Get thyself over it.
  [Me]There is a big difference between things just happening and planning flexibility into systems. No system is permanently fixed but you do have to be careful what you change. Again, it is compromise and planning that make the difference.

• [Original]When teaching someone a new skill, keep thy hands off the mouse.
  [Techie]We like to show you how to do things but repeated ‘but can’t you just do it for me’ will result in us just doing it for you. Don’t cry foul. Read our cribsheets, watch our training videos, listen to our advice and instructions. You are just one user of many.
  [Me]The two worst groups of people in the world to train are teachers and techies. Seriously. Teachers expect respect due to their position and techies based on their experience / knowledge. Introducing something new to either is beset with issues. Teacher are appraising you ability to train as well as what you are training them in, Techies are appraising your background before you even get into the in-depth stuff to see if you are a blagger. Teachers forget that the techie might not be an experienced trainer, after all, teachers did a degree and then more training (either as post-grad or on the job) to learn about it. The ability to train people can take time to develop. Give helpful feedback to support staff if you think that there are areas for improvement. You would do that for another teacher … give the techies the same courtesy. Techies do sometimes need to step back and work out what the user needs though … do they need a problem fixed or do they need to learn about the problem, what to do if it arises again and how to avoid it in the first place? This is a judgement call and by asking the teacher involved it can save a lot of problems later on. Also make sure you talk to whoever controls the CPD in the school as you might be in a position to identify training needs for staff.

• [Original] Thou shalt listen to requests with an open mind and respond in plain English.
  [Techie] Thou shalt ask for things in plain english and not buzzwords. Thou shalt understand that whilst with sufficient thrust pigs may indeed fly, it is not a good idea to be under them as they go overhead, be near them when they land and the RSPCA might get a tad annoyed. We will listen but be prepared for the answer to be no. If you ask for more information you will get it, and if you think I am talking down to you by using analogies about roads or cars it is because you won’t understand the short version, or have rolled your eyes when I mention something vaguely technical like CPU.
  [Me]We all have our own language. Lawyers have one, doctors have one, even priests have one. They are used to convey information and context in the most accurate and concise way possible. Translating it can take time, might need to be gone over a few times and is open to misinterpretation. When it comes to asking questions then yes, an open mind is needed, but often more context is needed too. Trying to convey the reasons why a request is made. Simply presuming that because you are a teacher you expect it to be done does not work, likewise just because you are a technical expert it does not mean that you, the techie, can say ‘no’ with no other comment or explanation. Try to come up with a common language to use … it will not be plain English. It will have some technical language in there as well as educational language. It will take time but once you have a good understanding it will help communication further down the line. Try having a glossary of terms for people to use, with examples.

• [Original]Blocking shall be controlled by educators, not filtering companies. Thy job is to enable learning, not enforce behavior.
  [Techie] Blocking shall be generally automated because there is not enough time in the world to check every single site. Just because we are sat at a computer all day it does not mean we are just surfing teh web, checking on dodgy sites. Perhaps if you kept the kids under control they would not want to get to the dodgy sites. And try talking to other teachers before asking for things to get blocked. I’ll happily block that games site that is dmaging your lesson, but you can explain to Maths why they can no longer access a site they pay a subscription to.
  [Me] This is all buck-passing. Get over it. Internet access is too large an area to make it black and white. I have already ranted about blaming technology when it is really about choosing the right tools to aid classroom management. Blocking should actually be controlled by the Head and Chair of Governors as *they* are the people that will get into trouble if things go wrong. It is also a case that the job of internet access is to enable learning but the job of the filters is to prevent inappropriate use. Unless all sides are prepared to sit down, discuss the appropriate use and how it is to be managed then we are just mudslinging.

• [Original]Thou shalt include students and teachers in decision-making about technology purchases and policy. Their interest is not an affront to your professionalism.
  [Techie] Thou shalt include the technical staff in the development of your curriculum. Their interest is not an affront to your professionalism.
  [Me]Again we are talking about planning here. It goes a bit like this. Someone comes up with requirements for what a system should do. This is based on how the learners are going to learn, how the teachers will teach, how things will be communicated inside and outside of the school and what are teh likely future changes too. A solution is put together to fit those requirements, sometimes out of an options papers or feasibility study to make sure all angles possible are covered adn then a group of key people make some decisions based on cost, capacity to deliver the requirements being completely met (or with some compromises). This all takes time, meetings and the experience to know how to do this efficiently, and this is before we get into things like procurement, etc. Companies will pay a lot of money to Project Managers to do all this, but many schools will take shortcuts for very justifiable reasons.
  • 1 – if the support team already have an off-the-shelf answer then they are likely to put that forward as a given option. It is likely to be cost effective because they are using already and will have the benefit of being setup quickly.
  • 2 – They are the technical experts and will often shorten the selection process because they have spoken with other schools about things that work or don’t work. If teachers and students in your school are not involved it doesn’t mean input from other students / teachers has not gone into the decision.
  • 3 – Last minute planning is the bane of the life of teachers and techies alike. Having to make quick decisions will mean not everyone can get involved. Accept that and make sure you plan better in future.
  • 4 – Technology is a tool. Everyone should get involved but someone has to make a decision about it. Battling about who has that power is pointless but it will vary from school to school who does it. Final decision on solutions should be made by senior management, not the network manager or head of ICT (or other head of department actually), but it should be part of the same process of looking at building developments around curriculum use, the curriculum itself, etc.

So there we have it.

Point, counter-point and hopefully some common sense. It has take over a week to knock this out and I know that there are areas for improvement, but I still find the techie / teacher bashing annoying. If it seems that I come down in favour of the techie side of things more than teachers that is because I still believe there is not a fair balance on respect between them. It will be ground down over the years and it is a lot better than were it was 5 years ago … but it is not changing enough for me to be happy.

What a wonderful week it has been. After a chance to catch up with schools involved in a local Apple RTC project (lovely to see and hear of teachers and pupils excited and engaged by the chance to try something different) we had the first piece of training for our new Technical Champions.

The course is actually the “Level 4 Certificate in ICT Support in Education: Practitioner” and is delivered via accredited training partners using materials from The FITS Foundation. In Northamptonshire our training partner is NEOS IT and we had the pleasure of George coming to Lodge Park Technology College on Tuesday and Wednesday to deliver training to the Technical Champions plus a few others.

A key concept across the whole course was the use of the word management. I know that I joke (quite frequently) about that particular word … even to the point of never using it but substituting the word ‘manglement’ instead … but it is really important in a heck of a lot about FITS. Once you get past the first stage of a service desk pretty much everything else has an element of management in there and this builds into the idea of Change Management.  I’ve written about the importance of Change Management before but it is explicit in the training materials. Without it then any significant change or choice your school makes with technology and learning … well … it is likely to fall flat on its face and it will probably end up being the missing piece of management from the FITS materials … Blame Management!

Why will some technicians, IT Managers and SLT not like what this means? Well, it introduces a large amount of accountability via a group that is central to Change Management (often call Change Advisory Board or Change Advisory Committee) and is likely to contain people like the IT Manager, a member of SLT, whoever looks after finances and then we get onto representatives of the stakeholders at the school. The training was quite interesting when we discussed who should be a representative. Of course people remembered about teachers, some mentioned about admin / office staff, one person mentioned about governors but I was disappointed that I was the only one to raise the students. And this was with a forward thinking bunch too … it got me to thinking that we still don’t communicate 2-way with our students enough and that this is partly down to the ethos of the school more than anything else. At this point people really understood who deep FITS can be involved with school change and transformation … and people were excited by that, a little daunted perhaps but the excitement is important.

My question to those reading this is how would you set up a group to manage change at your school? Do you have one already? Does it also deal with IT changes? Who is involved in the group? If you have student representation how do they feel about being involved?

I know … a typical Tony-style blog … talks about stuff and then asks a heap more questions. Oh well, you should be used to it by now.

One of the things I will be prodding the Technical Champions to do over the next month s to set up their blogs and I will share their links here too.

I have a reputation now for being a bit of an independently minded person … having worked in independently minded schools has helped this view. Some might call me bloody awkward, even troll-like at times, but I do think that it pays off to think slightly differently and to try something different too.

Take the above title. To many it means nothing to but a number of Northants schools it now means that their IT Managers have a chance to be part of that forward-thinking mindset. Since I have been out of a school now for a good 15 months, and before that I was more out than in for the previous 15 months, and not having done a heck of a lot of hands-on techie stuff recently (or at least not officially) I feel that the LA and schools need a group of technically knowledgeable people to develop good practice, become stakeholders in what we do at the LA with regards to technology and to ensure that technology and educational need match up.

So, we are accepting applicants for the role of Harnessing Technologies Technical Champions. These IT Managers (selected via a panel including LA staff, RBC and Becta representatives) will be trained with the new FITS v2 pilot program and supported in implementing FITS in their schools. They will be able to provide support and advice to other schools, to be critical friends to their peers and the LA, to develop and document good practice and then to share it with the world in general.

I hope to make sure they all blog their experience too as part of their development of communication methods so will publish links to these as and when they get created.

The deadline for applicants is the end of this week and we have had good interest so far.

Best of luck to all those who apply.

There are times when you just know that a day is going to be a wonderful one, that no matter how nervous you are about presenting, no matter how tired you may or how much work you have to do for the next day… You just get a tingle.
And that is what I had this morning as I drove down to the Open Source Schools seminar on innovation for LA Staff.
In fact I felt so excited that I started to rethink my presentation and I mentally rewrote it… And then spent some time in the intro reworking the presentation.

A wonderful set of speakers made the event wonderful and rather than do a breakdown of each one I would strongly suggest you visit the streams that were kindly set up an run by Leon Cych (links on the Open Source Schools website).

I’ll make a specific blog post about my session later but I would just like to thank all those who were good sports by joining in, by answering questions and for the positive feedback at the end.

But the thing I really want to blog about is the wonderful tour we were given of Bletchley Park, slightly whistlestop due to the time the seminar finished, but wonderful nonetheless.

We went round in awe and with a sense of reverence, and we are talking about the great and the good of OSS and innovation in education. The feeling that what we do, to help kids and teachers, has a direct line from the work done by the secret many in those huts.

OSS folk (in particular Moodle) have been called men in sheds, fiddling around … And as was said at the beginning of the day, it was the men in these sheds that made a difference.

It gives you hope and gives you the drive to do the best you can.

You don’t get many days like today… and I am glad it was shared with many other like minded people.