HiTechHall’s Tech Waves

Here is the third of several essays I wrote as part of an application to the Foreign Service. It describes a scenario that I’m sure many other technology coordinators and educators have faced during their careers.

Give one example which best illustrates a situation where you had to handle several different tasks at once and where it was important to ensure the quality of your work performance was maintained at a high standard. Indicate any resources you had to organize, and the pressure you were under to change, the order of priority.

My Response:

My background as a teacher with a Master’s in Instructional Technology and an experienced Web developer led to my job as a Technology Coordinator at a large school. My job was to integrate technology into the curriculum, teach, train teachers, develop IT policies and interact with other district technology personnel. I was the school’s first full-time IT staff member, and the administration expected immediate results.

On my first day of work I discovered that many of the school’s 600 computers were over seven years old, overwhelmed with malware, or simply broken. My job, however, relied on the fact that all of the equipment actually worked. The district had a small computer repair department, but it was overstretched and rarely able to respond to IT help requests. It was imperative that I find a way to get my school’s PCs fixed while also handling my other responsibilities.

I enrolled in night school to learn PC & network repair. While it would take time to achieve proficiency, I knew that I would be able to get key questions answered by my instructors and fellow students. As a mechanically-inclined person, I was able to quickly apply what I was learning, and my school’s technology situation improved rapidly.

Having successfully addressed that challenge, I needed to refocus on my original job responsibilities. I began by developing a course to train students in PC repair and networking. I then recruited my top students to participate in my newly-formed “Tech Troubleshooting Team,” which assisted in the rapid deployment of my ongoing technology overhaul project. As a result, teachers had their machines repaired on a timely basis, the students acquired valuable IT skills, and I was able to complete multiple tasks under pressure.

Here is the second of several essays I wrote as part of an application to the Foreign Service. It describes a scenario that I’m sure many other technology coordinators and educators have faced during their careers.

Question #2: Organizing Your Own Work

Give an example of a situation that shows your ability to think logically, analyze problems, communicate with others, and apply sound judgment, particularly where you had to meet tight deadlines or work long hours. Indicate the complexity of the task you were organizing and the consequences if you had failed to meet your deadline.

My Response:

During my third year as a technology coordinator at a large school, I was told by district administrators that we would receive 212 new PCs to replace an equal number of antiquated machines. While this “refresh” project offered great benefits, it also presented several significant challenges. Where would I find storage space in our already overcrowded facility for the machines? How would the installation and configuration be scheduled to limit classroom disruptions? Most dauntingly, which classrooms would receive the new machines and which wouldn’t?

As the school’s sole IT facilitator I needed to solve these problems. First, using a blueprint of the school, I located a vacant changing room far above the theater. But how were we to get 424 heavy boxes up there? As a football coach, the answer came to me like a linebacker blitz: I’d round-up my players to participate in some unique “off-season” conditioning drills. As a result, the boxes were enthusiastically delivered and stacked within an hour.

Second, I scheduled the computer installation work to be done everyday after school over a period of several weeks. This largely eliminated the disruption of classroom instruction, yet still allowed us to meet our deadline. The slower deployment also bought me time to come up with a plan for dealing with the final, more difficult, challenge.

The school was “technologically-polarized.” Certain classrooms were outfitted with the latest equipment while others had none. This was an opportunity to make the necessary changes to correct this imbalance, though I knew that in doing so I would be walking a political minefield. I decided to rely on my recently-formed Campus Technology Committee, which included staff from various departments at the school. After lengthy debate and collaboration, we were able to develop the school’s first official policy for equitable computer distribution.

A while back, I completed an application to the Foreign Service. I had to write a number of short essays that provided examples of how I’d solved certain technical and organizational problems for employers in the past.

Having worked mostly in school environments, all of my examples came from those job experiences. So over the next few weeks, I thought I’d post those essays here. I’m sure a lot of teachers and coordinators involved in technology in schools will be able to relate to at least some of these scenarios!

Question #1: Practical Problem Solving

Using your technical knowledge of networks and voice communications, describe what you consider to be the best example of a situation where you had to find an innovative solution to a practical problem. Indicate who was affected by the problem and in what way, and the nature of the difficulties faced.

My Response:

A number of technically-advanced users at the school where I worked began using the NET SEND command to transmit messages to the other 600 computers on the domain. These disturbances were becoming more frequent, were often obscene, and were causing significant instructional downtime. This group also began utilizing proxy servers and obscuring routines to bypass the school’s content filter. The administration asked me to find immediate solutions to these problems.

I began by querying other district technologists, all of whom were similarly unfamiliar with the command, and doing Internet research. I learned that NET SEND is part of Window’s arcane Messenger service and that there are multiple ways to disable it in Win98 and W2K. XP requires the SP2 upgrade which turns off NET SEND by default. With the assistance of some technologically-advanced students I trained specifically for the task, we were able to entirely eliminate the NET SEND problem on our network.

I solved the second issue by tracking down and establishing a working relationship with the district’s content filter administrator. Content filters require continuous “human” tweaking, including script-writing/running and port blocking. Their “blacklist” databases need to be regularly updated as new proxy servers and other Web-based threats appear daily. Monitoring the content filter is a continuous process, requiring ongoing communication between network administrators. I ensured that this dialog would occur on a frequent basis.

To limit similar problems in the future, I formed a Campus Technology Committee made up of a diverse group of tech-savvy teachers and administrators. The CTC’s first task was the creation of a campus acceptable-use policy for Internet and e-mail, to be signed by teachers, students and parents. User abuse of the network decreased significantly once this document was put into use.