They’re Taking Requests: Student Techs Command the Help Desk — THE Journal.
THE Journal profiles several student-led technology support programs across the U.S. and finds that students can be a big help in providing high quality, low cost tech support. And in these times, who doesn’t need that!
Graham County Unified School District 281, a small district in northwest Kansas, runs all of its technology troubleshooting through the online help desk, according to its technology coordinator, Scott Parker. “When a support request comes in that I need to handle myself, I can handle it, and when something comes in that a student or a group of students can handle, I can delegate it to them,” Parker says.
The arrangement compares to a real-world job call, he explains. Once receiving the ticket, the student has to set up a time to meet with the teacher to find out what the teacher needs done. That involves working around the schedules of both parties, and may mean meeting during a student's study hall time or after school.
In the 10 years that GenYES has been in place in Graham County, the students’ role in the district’s tech support infrastructure has become essential. Mandatory, in fact: The program is a required course for all sixth-graders. Parker’s students apply the skills they learn in the class to providing help for teachers of all grade levels on technology-assisted projects.
This isn’t just about tech support in the “fixing stuff” sense. Tech support means ALL kinds of support that teachers need to implement technology. GenYES students can provide invaluable support for teachers as they create new lessons using technology.
At Paradise Valley Unified School District in Phoenix, which employs GenYES at all levels of K-12, project-based technology integration is the focus of the program. “There really isn’t a lot of troubleshooting,” says Jeff Billings, the district’s director of technology. “The curriculum is less nuts and bolts, more helping teachers learn how to do things-from the small to the big.
“The real value of technology is in the integration-the ideas, the applications, the creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. If something is truly broken beyond the appropriate student capability or time to fix, enter a ticket and my staff fixes it.”
Read more about how students are making a difference in technology in They’re Taking Requests: Student Techs Command the Help Desk — THE Journal.
Sylvia
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