As we live in an age where so many answers can be found in mere seconds with a Google search, expectations are shifting when it comes to resolving technical issues. In this article featured in eSchool News, Andrew Graf, Chief Product Strategist at TeamDynamix, explains how K-12 schools can give students, parents, teachers, and administrators access to valuable district information to help resolve more IT issues faster with a streamlined online knowledge base.
By Andrew Graf, Chief Product Strategist, TeamDynamix
When I have a problem with my iPad, I look to Google. Google is my worldwide knowledge base for fixing my toilet, unsticking my iPad, and figuring out the origin of that clunk sound my car started making. For every technology and almost every mechanical thing in my life, I can go to a website or run a general Google search to figure out how to fix it—or at least diagnose the problem.
Everything, that is, except how to get onto the wi-fi in my school district.
Technology is delightful and enriching. It connects students across the globe and invites them to explore the wonders of the world. But the ugly truth is that behind all this technology is a frantic, very overwhelmed IT team without the platform to manage the thousands of transactions asked of it each day. These IT people fully understand and support the promise of technology in teaching probably more than anyone. But when it comes to managing 75,000 K-12 students with brand new school-issued iPads or their own devices, there is often no knowledge base or even an adequate tech-support system in place to adequately assist them.