Empower your people
By Christopher Dawson | August 29, 2008, 11:13am PDT
Summary: It’s the beginning of the year and I’m going out of my mind. Even though we’ve added my position of “Technology Director” and I don’t have to teach anymore, we’re still not exactly overstaffed on tech here in the district. I’m supposed to be handling curriculum and designing systems and integrating technology into [...]
It’s the beginning of the year and I’m going out of my mind. Even though we’ve added my position of “Technology Director” and I don’t have to teach anymore, we’re still not exactly overstaffed on tech here in the district. I’m supposed to be handling curriculum and designing systems and integrating technology into the fabric of our classroom instruction (or something like that), but I’m spending a lot of time putting out brushfires.
Fortunately for me, the guy I have covering elementary technology is very good at what he does. He always has a smile for disgruntled users, he’s willing to run around four schools filled with miniature kids and cranky teachers, and whenever I ask him to jump, his only question is how high. I know it’s a cliche, but in his case, it’s really true. He’s a “yes-man” who actually manages to do the things he says yes to.
So when he asked me if there was any way he could help the users he supports with some widespread email and SIS issues, I said absolutely. I gave him administrative rights to both systems and some quick training, knowing and trusting that he wouldn’t screw anything up (he’s demonstrated several times that he’s willing to ask questions before getting in over his head).
Suddenly, all of the problems stop coming in from the elementary schools, since most were related to email and the SIS (these systems are new to the elementary folks). Two principals thanked me specifically for empowering him to handle some administrative pieces so that the elementary users could be comfortable with the new systems.
Obviously, users need to earn this trust and respect, but everyone in your organization will benefit from motivated, well-trained, and fully-empowered users.
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Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.
Disclosure
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.).
He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change.
He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have).
Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others.
Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair.
Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards.
Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap.
Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff.
Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable.
Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.
Biography
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider.
He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.
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how much does he get paid for that valuable service? I am the guy you are talking about, in my building; I spend around 6 hours a week taking care of users and their issues, doing training, etc., and I get paid about $700 a year for this "job enlargement" as we call it here. Mind you, I would do it anyway, I like helping my peers and working with the machines; but every once in a while, I think about how much money I am saving the district, and wonder if maybe we need to show the actual cost the technology would incur without the essentially volunteer work being done to keep it all going. Instead of paying me the $3+ per hour that I get, what if we had to actually pay scale? And every once in a while, when I look at my beat up old car and compare it to the cars the kids drive to school every day, I wonder if maybe I am in the wrong business.
Anyway, I'm not asking for money; and I bet your go-to guy isn't either, but make sure you are keeping him happy. Give him the better equipment when you have it available, pat him on the back a LOT, and make sure others know how valuable he is. Especially the board and/or those who are in a position to actually steer some money his way once in a while; if the budget has a place to fit it in. You and your district and the kids will all benefit.
