Well, it's official:
(a) I've let this blog stagnate a bit. OK, more than a bit... nothing original in months. So I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to follow another ed-tech blogger's lead and join the Be a Better Blogger in just 30 Days project. Hopefully you'll see some original content instead of all of the placeholders I've been posting. That is - when I've actually bothered to post.
(2) I'm working on other tools to organize my thoughts separate from this blog. Right now I'm using a private wiki to organize long-term projects - you know, the ones that take more than a few days and are unsuited to the helpdesk software we're using - and looking for ways to improve that system somehow. Asking myself the question: would access to IM help more than it hurts, from an improvement-of-tech-service standpoint, from a personal-network standpoint, or from some other point I haven't considered yet? I think I've moved out of pure crisis mode and have found time to think about some larger questions.
(III) I have some things to put into better form both in purely technical posts (like how to make certain Linksys managed switches not suck so much) and organizational ones (where should technology resources fit on the org chart, and why). I hope not to bore you with some of the exploratory stuff, but get you to participate.
(last) If you've been following along in spite of my lack of anything original or even newsworthy, shoot me a comment. I'd like to know someone is still reading along...
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Just on vacation, that's all
I've been on vacation this week. My readers (both of you - you know who you are!) have encouraged me to get away from the computer completely for a few days... and guess what? It seems to be working. Except for today, that is. Looks like I didn't quite make it after all.
Hopefully when I get back into the swing of things next week I can make more time for blogging and tweeting and other ed-tech subjects that are not directly related to work. The danger is though that it might turn into a continuation of the work day instead of something done to shift my mind away from work or even to process what I'm dealing with at work in a different way. It's a fine line to walk. How much time is too much for these side projects and musings before they seem like so much work in and of themselves? Time will tell I suppose.
Hopefully when I get back into the swing of things next week I can make more time for blogging and tweeting and other ed-tech subjects that are not directly related to work. The danger is though that it might turn into a continuation of the work day instead of something done to shift my mind away from work or even to process what I'm dealing with at work in a different way. It's a fine line to walk. How much time is too much for these side projects and musings before they seem like so much work in and of themselves? Time will tell I suppose.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
EdTech Once Again
In case you were wondering, yes, I'm still alive and working through a bunch of things on the personal side of life. I have a loooooooooot of work material to review and even more to plan for our busy period (summer between the last teacher workday of the year and the first one of the next school year, for those of you playing the home game). Try picking up a data center and moving it a few miles down the road, without downtime, on our budget. (yikes.) At least all of the moving is being done at the same time, so I don't have the opportunity to lose momentum between personal and work projects. Trying to use this as an opportunity to shed some stuff I should have dumped a long time ago.
Standing by for comments (if you care to comment, that is).
Standing by for comments (if you care to comment, that is).
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Starting on: thoughts on internal customer service
It's weird how normal ordinary things set my mind off in interesting tangents. Here's today's latest gem:
I figured I would go to Subway after church to take advantage of the "five-dollar-footlooooong" promotion they're running. However, this particular one I picked had such disastrous customer service that I did two things I don't normally do:
(a) placed a call to the owner's "call me" hotline for customer comments, and
(b) thought about how I do my job, serving our students, teachers, and administrators, would affect how they live and play within the rules or be tempted to break them.
Think about it... if we as IT people don't really attempt to communicate with the people we serve, or even actively try to keep them at a distance using attitude and jargon, that's one more reason for them not to seek our help in the future. Which can lead to frustrated users, pockets of "shadow IT" out in the schools, or outright conflict.
I'll leave with one case in point. I found out recently a teacher brought in her computer to use in class equipped with a cell network card, like the ones from Sprint, Verizon, ATT, and so on. What bothers me is that it was done to BYPASS OUR WEB FILTERING. IN FRONT OF HER CLASS. Instead of telling us something useful for class was blocked and making us aware of the problem so we could fix it with her, she chose to go around us entirely. Along with possibly pursuing disciplinary action against this teacher for an action clearly in violation of our policy, I have to ask what we could have done differently to accommodate this teacher's needs (in this case it was to show a YouTube video) that would have been within our policy and guidelines. I figure if one did this there are certainly more who would consider doing this. What about our process needs to change so people will involve us, not go around us? And certainly, the way this is handled will determine whether more people tell us what's wrong so we can help them, or not tell us because they'll be afraid of disciplinary action, or rather find another way around that just might break the rules again. I'm sure you out there have other instances...
In short, I can't assume "no news is good news", in fact, no news could mean people don't want our help.
I apologize in advance that I probably won't be able to respond fully to any comments or questions for a while (more of that pesky personal life stuff) but go ahead, let me know. I'll eventually try to tackle it on the blog somewhere in a future post.
I figured I would go to Subway after church to take advantage of the "five-dollar-footlooooong" promotion they're running. However, this particular one I picked had such disastrous customer service that I did two things I don't normally do:
(a) placed a call to the owner's "call me" hotline for customer comments, and
(b) thought about how I do my job, serving our students, teachers, and administrators, would affect how they live and play within the rules or be tempted to break them.
Think about it... if we as IT people don't really attempt to communicate with the people we serve, or even actively try to keep them at a distance using attitude and jargon, that's one more reason for them not to seek our help in the future. Which can lead to frustrated users, pockets of "shadow IT" out in the schools, or outright conflict.
I'll leave with one case in point. I found out recently a teacher brought in her computer to use in class equipped with a cell network card, like the ones from Sprint, Verizon, ATT, and so on. What bothers me is that it was done to BYPASS OUR WEB FILTERING. IN FRONT OF HER CLASS. Instead of telling us something useful for class was blocked and making us aware of the problem so we could fix it with her, she chose to go around us entirely. Along with possibly pursuing disciplinary action against this teacher for an action clearly in violation of our policy, I have to ask what we could have done differently to accommodate this teacher's needs (in this case it was to show a YouTube video) that would have been within our policy and guidelines. I figure if one did this there are certainly more who would consider doing this. What about our process needs to change so people will involve us, not go around us? And certainly, the way this is handled will determine whether more people tell us what's wrong so we can help them, or not tell us because they'll be afraid of disciplinary action, or rather find another way around that just might break the rules again. I'm sure you out there have other instances...
In short, I can't assume "no news is good news", in fact, no news could mean people don't want our help.
I apologize in advance that I probably won't be able to respond fully to any comments or questions for a while (more of that pesky personal life stuff) but go ahead, let me know. I'll eventually try to tackle it on the blog somewhere in a future post.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Maslow's Hierarchy Strikes Again
Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I'm dealing with some stuff low on the pyramid. AGAIN.
So long story short, the time I have for edtech discussion is limited at the moment. I promise I'll be back - but I just can't say when right now. Sorry.
So long story short, the time I have for edtech discussion is limited at the moment. I promise I'll be back - but I just can't say when right now. Sorry.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Finding tech support, wherever you can
One thing has come to mind now that our filter software at work changed...
There are other avenues of support besides what the vendor "officially" puts up on the Web or in e-mail. For example, there are forums out there where I routinely find expert advice that have nothing to do with a vendor's official information. In fact, it's usually better, since it comes from people who use the product (and run into problems that the vendor won't acknowledge for PR reasons) and have found their own ways to deal with the problems. Also remember that in the rush to embrace Free and Open Source software, many times the way to get support is through chatting on IRC with the developers who can look at and fix up problems or suggest another option. Lastly, being able to follow other people on sites like Twitter and ask/answer questions can be very valuable, especially when you're trying to fix something that's broken now, or up against a deadline and can't wait for the "official" support to get back to you.
Now tell me how blocking these support avenues helps us out there.
More later as I start digesting this issue and coming up with options.
There are other avenues of support besides what the vendor "officially" puts up on the Web or in e-mail. For example, there are forums out there where I routinely find expert advice that have nothing to do with a vendor's official information. In fact, it's usually better, since it comes from people who use the product (and run into problems that the vendor won't acknowledge for PR reasons) and have found their own ways to deal with the problems. Also remember that in the rush to embrace Free and Open Source software, many times the way to get support is through chatting on IRC with the developers who can look at and fix up problems or suggest another option. Lastly, being able to follow other people on sites like Twitter and ask/answer questions can be very valuable, especially when you're trying to fix something that's broken now, or up against a deadline and can't wait for the "official" support to get back to you.
Now tell me how blocking these support avenues helps us out there.
More later as I start digesting this issue and coming up with options.
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