The high school at which I teach has no textbooks, all the course
content being delivered over the Internet and local network
resources. Last week I arrived to open the school only to find that
all our network infrastructure was down -- online district utilities
for email, grading, and attendance; the internet, which has most of
the course content; and the connection to the on-campus servers that
authenticate the student and teacher logins and house the students'
work and additional course materials. Even our phone system was down
for some reason. In the past we've lost our network connections for
brief periods of time due to problems with the microwave relaying
system that connects us to the district, but this was more widespread.
Students began arriving about an hour after I first arrived. A few
of us teachers got together and figured out some make-shift
activities that lasted about two hours. Then we let the students
take a break. As the highest ranking educator on campus at the time,
I used that opportunity to run upstairs to where the technicians
work. There were two district technicians there. I'll call them Tom
and Harry.
Me: "Tom, I'd like to know whether the problem with our network is
likely to last very much longer so we can figure out what to do with
the students. They're on break right now."
Tom: "Harry was working on that. He's in the bathroom."
Me to Harry after he returns to his desk: "Harry, can you give me
any idea about how long this network problem might last so we can
make some decisions about what to do with the kids?"
Harry, shrugging his shoulders and raising both hands: "I have
nothing to do with the Internet."
Me: "The kids are on break right now. Do you think that this is
likely to last all day or just a short while?"
Harry: "All I can do is run a local diagnostic and report to the
district."
Me: "Well, can you do that?"
Harry: "Do what?"
Me: "Run the diagnostic and let the district know what's going on."
Harry: "I already told you that's what I'm doing."
It took three days to get vital instructional services restored, and
an additional day to reimage all the student computers, which they
chose to do during school hours. On that fourth day we were told it
was a virus that brought down the network.
My point in relaying this story is that techs and practitioners speak
a different language and have different views of tech support
situations. Techs usually come across as cryptic and evasive to us,
while we, evidently, come across as idiots to techs. In reality,
techs are not usually as techy as they present themselves, and most
practitioners are not as idiotic as the stereotype either. For
example, our campus tech told me we couldn't load Revolution on the
student computers because the computers only have 40 GB hard drives,
and Revolution would take up 30 Gigs of that space. She was holding
the Revolution CD in her hand as she said this. I had to sit her
down and walk her through the process to show her her error. And I'm
just a teacher.
Since this seems to be a communication problem that affects tech/
practitioner relations everywhere, how do we get past it?
_______________________________________________
use-revolution mailing list
[email protected]
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
