Technology Departments are Customer Service Operations

What Is The Tech Team’s Commitment?

Please allow me to pass along another reminder that RETA’s excellent webinar series continues on Monday night at 6PM with Wikis in the Classroom Part 1. If you want to know how you and your students can use Wikis as a fanastic engagement tool, you need to spend this entertaining and informative hour with instructor Bethany Bovard.

In the meantime, at the risk of heading down the doomed path of Charles Foster Kane and his Declaration of Principles, it is time for me to make some promises to the technology stakeholders at Socorro Consolidated Schools. I have never fancied myself as anything like the fictional millionaire portrayed by a young Orson Welles, nor do I have any desire to utter “Rosebud” on my deathbed. However, some days, I expect that my final utterance might well be “School Dude.”

For those of you who may not be familiar with School Dude, it is a multi-level Internet-based program utilized at Socorro Consolidated Schools to process work orders for building maintenance and technology issues. After coming to Socorro from the dark ages in NYC, School Dude is impressive to me as a manager and as a teacher. Anyone can access School Dude from our web site (My School Building) and the registration process is easy. You can contact the Tech Team if you need assistance registering or you can see one of the technology specialists at your school.

However, even an excellent tool like School Dude is as only as good as the management of the work orders received and the timeliness of the response. As a teacher, I can understand and appreciate the expectation for immediate action when a work order is submitted. Some emails have suggested that the technologists must be sitting around like a bunch of fireman, lounging in their red long johns and sipping coffee, waiting for that alarm to ring so that they can get dressed, slide down the pole and go speeding off in a shiny new truck. In the words of the Beach Boys … “Wouldn’t That Be Nice?”

As a manager, I have an obligation to every individual using technology in this district to “raise the bar” to meet expectations … not just your expectations, but mine. As a teacher first and always, it is my expectation that every teacher should have access to the latest technology, the best training possible and the most dependable equipment that can be provided. My reason for this expectation has less to do with how a teacher uses the technology but more with how a teacher puts the technology into the hands of students.

That does not mean that teachers and administrators are any less important than students. We all need the abundant technology of the district to help us become the most efficient and effective we can. But, as employees of Socorro Consolidated Schools, everything we do must be an effort to achieve our vision that “Our students will be prepared and motivated to enter the ever-changing world as socially responsible and productive global citizens.” We are a student-first business.

In that same light, the Tech Team operates as a highly specialized customer service department. Who are our customers? The list is long and it includes administrators, teachers, students, parents, the community, the School Board, NMPED, colleges, universities and everyone else who expects Socorro Consolidated Schools to provide data, educate our children and to keep expanding our technology horizons.

Like any customer service counter, there are very few people who come up to tell us how spectacular we are. Anyone who has waited on line at the customer service counter at Walmart knows exactly what I mean. That is not a request for “thank you” notes but, rather, a metaphor suggesting that by the time people are contacting us, the have become severely frustrated with a non-functioning program or piece of equipment. Some have resorted to cursing at the technology, threatening it or, when possible, even kicking it.

I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t done the same thing myself with non-operational technology. Just to be clear, I’m not referring to something that happened weeks or months ago … I’m talking last Friday. I feel your pain.

I am only going to ask one thing from you: please put all your work orders through School Dude. In return, you have my commitment that all work orders will be evaluated on a daily basis and assigned to a technologist. That technologist will be given a time frame in which the issue should be addressed. The technologist is expected to resolve your issue and explain what was done. If you are not satisfied with the result or the service, you may email me directly.

There are three instances that are sometimes difficult for everyone involved to navigate. First, some problems are not the fault of the technology
… it really is a training issue. We will provide training and guidance when necessary. Secondly, the Tech Team must operate within the bounds of policy and procedure. Some decisions may seem unjustified, but they take on a different light when examined from a district-wide perspective. The third item is that the Technology Department is not the magic garden where money grows on trees. I wish I had a million bucks to spend on technology but, soon enough, I will begin begging for whatever grant money I can find. Every little bit helps.

Just one last favor … try to remember that my staff is very dedicated, hard-working and sincere. We are all nice people, just like you. We can appreciate that things get frustrating sometimes but let’s keep things positive. Whatever happened in the past stays in the past … let’s work together to build a great future.

This week’s Spotlight on Technology Award goes to the Castillo sisters, Janice Jaramillo and Denise Contreras of Parkview Elementary. They came to the Tech Office last Monday night for RETA’s Show Me the Moodle webinar (click the link for the recorded webinar). They managed to clean out all our Oreo cookies and demanded that we have more Oreos and a quart of milk available this week. Consider it done!