Student Tech Support For The 21st Century


Generation TECH - All New Curriculum and Tools for K-12 Student Tech Support Programs

Special to NECC, Philadelphia, PA - June 27, 2005 - Generation YES® (Youth and Educators Succeeding) today announces a major upgrade to the Generation TECH student tech support program for schools. Generation TECH is a comprehensive set of curriculum, resources and tools that allows schools to establish effective programs of students fixing and caring for school hardware and software. Students learn technology, troubleshooting, and communication skills as they help the school maintain educational technology and infrastructure. The teacher support tools allow dynamic class management, project tracking and assessment within a rigorous academic structure. Middle and high schools benefit by having a core of students trained in technology, familiar with the school infrastructure, and available on the school grounds to help fix computers immediately in classrooms.

Generation TECH schools will start using the new curriculum and tools in the Fall 2005 semester.

New Curriculum Units and Technology Projects
The updated curriculum includes 8 major units that give the Generation TECH teacher or advisor a leveled, multi-semester curriculum to teach from. Starting with computer basics, students learn the technology, people, and troubleshooting skills needed to be an effective part of the technology support team in a school. Every unit contains multiple activities adaptable for use in schools with any type of hardware or software.

    Units
  • Communication and Documentation (technical writing, organization, listening skills and team work)
  • Hardware (components, systems, and networks)
  • Software (operating systems and applications)
  • Problem Solving (interviewing skills, job tickets, troubleshooting and escalation)
  • Researching Solutions (offline and online sources)
  • Preventative Maintenance
  • Helping Teachers (long-term solutions, pro-active tech support, tutorials, and help guides)
  • Portfolio Building

    Curriculum
  • 8 all new units of study with over 70 hours of instruction
  • Units take advantage of new online tools for a dynamic classroom experience
  • All units include supplemental resources, handouts, and links for teachers and students
  • Units provide scalable activities for beginning, intermediate and advanced students
  • Curriculum supplemented with blog entries and podcasts

    Program Guide
  • Program and class logistics for multiple implementation models
  • Class management best practices
  • Security and safety

    Assessment
  • Downloadable spreadsheet ready tracking of student online work output
  • Sample rubric for each activity
  • Customize and create additional rubrics online

21st Century Tools for 21st Century Students
The Generation TECH online tools have been updated to include the most advanced community and communication tools found on the Internet. These tools help create a dynamic, collaborative environment that not only allows the student to work on independent projects and document tech support tasks, but also allows the teacher to manage students whether in a class or independent study environment.

    Student Dashboard
  • Announcement Center - Consolidates blog postings from teacher to whole class
  • Overview of latest activity in community message areas
  • Project and task overview

    Teacher Dashboard
  • Summarizes student project work and blog entries
  • Classroom Blogroll - conveniently allows teachers to read and respond to student blog entries
  • Classroom management
  • Send announcements to the class

    Project Tool
  • Organizes work for team or individual student
  • Can link tasks, blog entries, bookmarks to projects

    Blog
  • Allows student to document work
  • Allows teacher to monitor progress in an overview form
  • Trackback support - makes blogs more collaborative in the classroom
  • Supports standard blog readers with both RSS and Atom syndication formats

    Calendaring
  • Project planning tool for student projects
  • Shows current projects and tasks in calendar format
  • Teacher assessment connection and management
  • Tasks link to overall projects

    Podcasting (MP3)
  • Provides curriculum and related materials in alternative format

    Social Bookmarks
  • Annotate shared links and resources for project or class
  • Shows ranks and relationships between links

    The Leadership Network (theLN)
  • Guided discussion of topics related to tech support and student involvement
  • Staffed and monitored by Generation TECH staff

Help Desk and Ticket Management System Included
Included in the Generation TECH school site license is TechDESK, a help desk and ticket management system designed specifically for schools. The TechDESK help desk allows school personnel to report trouble with technology from anywhere in the school by just using an Internet browser, and to check on the progress of repairs at any time. The ticket management system allows technical support personnel, both students and professional staff, to manage the repair requests, assign technical support staff to the issues, and document the problems for later review. The management system also includes features often found only in expensive enterprise help desk systems such as messaging between technicians, visual management tools, and statistics reports. With TechDESK, schools have the ability to manage their technical support operation efficiently and effectively from a user-friendly browser interface.

TechDESK was developed by the San Diego and the Imperial County Offices of Education technology division, Part of the statewide TechSETS initiative to provide technical professionals in California schools with resources and tools specifically designed for managing the technology problems found in schools, this system is currently offered free to California schools. However, through Generation TECH, schools nationwide now have access to this valuable resource.

Increased Need, Reduced Budgets
Even as more technology makes its way into schools, the current budget crisis leaves many schools and districts no choice but to make do with smaller budgets for technology support. Although many schools use students to provide ad hoc support as technology aides or tech support assistants, Generation TECH provides comprehensive, research-based curriculum, tools and training to ensure that the impact is positive, academically enriching, and provides significant results. By teaching students how to use technology skills to fix educational technology, both students and teachers benefit. By ensuring that educational technology is in good working order, and making sure that teachers have timely support when they need it, the use of technology in the classroom improves.

Widespread Use of Students
In 2002, the National School Board Foundation (NSBF), released the results of a survey on school technology decision makers entitled, Are We There Yet? According to the study, "…more than half of school leaders reported that students are providing technical support in their districts. Often, they are assuming major responsibilities."

Many of the schools that do enjoy the benefits of student technical support do so without the students receiving formal credit for their work. In addition, many of these programs are under increased scrutiny as electives are dropped in favor of core content area academics, and pressure is increased to improve test scores in math and science. Generation TECH offers an academic curriculum that includes assessment of student progress, and teacher resources to support the continued operation of the program.

The study concluded, "Students seem to be putting their technical prowess to good use in schools, which may have insufficient time or talent on staff for technical support. In the process, they gain experience and skills through performing hands-on, authentic learning tasks, tutoring others, and contributing to effective - and creative - use of school technology. Technical support may be an arena in which students excel - and lead the way."

Security and Consistency
Security is a major issue with allowing students to participate in school technology. The fear is that if students are given increased access to the hardware, they may become security risks, accessing inappropriate information, or damaging systems.

"This couldn't be further from the truth," says Dr. Dennis Harper, founder and CEO of Generation YES. "These duties teach students to respect adults and the system. When students are treated as partners in transforming education, they will accomplish more and be less likely to cause trouble. I can tell you from first hand experience as a district technology coordinator, students don't hack into a system that they help build."

"We find that students provide consistency in our tech support, and are especially good with working with classroom teachers," adds Scott LeDuc, technology coordinator at Olympia High School in Olympia Washington and author of the Generation TECH curriculum guide. "On average, our professional tech support personnel stay with us less than one year. The students, on the other hand, are in school for much longer than that. I have some students who have been in Generation TECH all four years of high school. They also provide continuity in the program as the advanced students teach technology skills to the beginning students. The students pass along the pride and sense of empowerment to the beginning students that helps our program remain effective and self-sustaining."

Tech Support is Crucial to Technology Integration
Technology integration efforts in schools hinge on the school's ability to provide teachers with working technology when and where they need it. Even the best teachers cannot effectively integrate technology into their lessons and daily classroom activities if it doesn't work. Although this seems obvious, the current budget crisis and the increasing levels of technology found in schools make for tough choices when it comes time to cut budgets. Accelerating this trend further, schools are being required to add technology to track student data, incorporate complex networks, and modernize administrative services. Technical support personnel are required to support all these new systems, further decreasing the amount of time available for support of classroom technology.

According to a report from the CEO Forum on Education and Technology, "Although technology is being leveraged in the classroom, lack of on-site technical support in schools may discourage teachers from using technology to its fullest potential. Even highly experienced, technology-using teachers can become preoccupied with trouble-shooting hardware and software problems, which siphons time away from students."

A study by Forrester Research found that large corporations consider one full-time technician on-site for every 50 computers an adequate staffing level. In a total cost of ownership (TCO) comparison, IDC found that schools have "extremely low" levels of technical support, typically less than 10% of the level businesses consider adequate.

This low level of support in schools means that the burden typically falls on teachers to fix their own computers, or just do without. Students can fill these gaps by providing crucial support for educational technology. The Generation TECH curriculum focuses on this use of students as tech support for classrooms and classroom technology.

    Generation TECH Benefits
  • Dramatically increases school-site level of technology support
  • Teaches 21st century work skills
  • Return on Investment (ROI) in one year
  • Promotes student ownership of school technology
  • Flexible tools and curriculum support classes, clubs or technology assistants
  • Promotes consistency and security in student tech support
  • School-tested middle and high school curriculum based on exemplary Gen Y model

    Generation TECH Features
  • Supports any hardware platform
  • Online support and tool suite
  • Comprehensive curriculum designed for high school students
  • Leveled, multi-semester curriculum supports long-term student tech support
  • Advanced students become peer mentors who train beginning students
  • Students create lesson plans and technology help guides that can be used by students and teachers throughout the school
  • Proven TechDESK help desk and ticket management system - designed just for schools
  • Assessment strategies, rubrics and online management

Generation YES Corp.
Generation YES works with schools all around the world to plan, implement and enhance student technology programs through consulting, innovative curriculum and research-based support services. (https://www.genyes.com)

Generation YES and Generation TECH are trademarks or registered trademarks of Generation YES Corp. All rights reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners.

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For more information:
Sylvia Martinez, Generation YES
(888) 941-4369 x107
[email protected]
NECC Booth: 1948/1950

Press Release site: https://genyes.com/news/pressreleases/072705
Generation YES site: https://www.genyes.com
Generation TECH program information site: https://www.genyes.com/programs/gentech
National School Board Foundation, Are We There Yet? Report https://www.nsbf.org/thereyet/index.htm