If you are in IT in education, you know that it can be a challenging career path. You are dealing with highly technical things and making them accessible to non-technical folks.Image may be NSFW.
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IT folks, sometimes, have the reputation of being less than friendly. Look, we get it, you know more about computers than everyone, but that is your job. When HR has to explain a complicated employee policy, they don’t act like everyone else is a moron.
IT should strive to be friendly and helpful.
What are four ways that that an IT department can be a “teacher” friendly IT department?
Treat them as skilled professionals
Teachers are skilled professionals. Teaching is a difficult profession, filled with many failures and fewer small victories. Teachers have to do a lot of lip bitting and repeating. When we implemented the Foundations and Frameworks reading program a few years back, I saw first hand how difficult it was for teachers to throw out the existing playbook and start over.
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Teaching is just as much a learned skill as accounting, sales, marketing, or operations. They are not below you on the school importance hierarchy. They are at the top. You do not exist without them.
Make changes in years where it’s slow elsewhere
IT is a career that is full of pivots, deployments, and migrations. These things affect the rest of the school in dramatic fashions. Are you planning on rolling out a new OS? Do it when the school year is a little less crazy. Are you migrating email solutions? Do it in a year where you aren’t doing a lot of construction on the building. Are you planning a switch from Mac to Chromebooks? Do it when you aren’t deploying a new curriculum across the school. IT is just a cog in the school wheel, so don’t try to replace it when others are being replaced.
Act like you work at Best Buy
Another school came to me once asking for a referral on a new IT Director. I sent them to my local Mac reseller and told them to hire one of the guys responsible for explaining what is wrong with their Mac.
Do you know why he did well in that new job? His business was explaining to people, in non-technical jargon, what Image may be NSFW.
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was wrong and how much it would cost to fix it. He knew how to talk about technical things to non-technical people. He knew how to work with technology while also having incredible customer service.
Yes, I said customer service.
If you work in a school, teachers are your customers. You need to treat them like you work at Best Buy, and they are coming in to pay you for help. Treat them like they get a survey at the end of every interaction.
Be a part of the group
Teachers are usually a tight kit group. They eat together in the cafeteria. They plan their lessons together. Image may be NSFW.
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Be a part of that group. Walk the halls in the mornings to say hello, and ask if there is anything you can do to help. Don’t be stuck in a closet somewhere. Be approachable. If possible, move your office to as close to the “center of the school” as possible.
Be visible to everyone. Fraser Speirs once coined the term: you need to be having coffee with your teachers on a regular basis.
In a nut shell, don’t be a Nick Burns. Instead, be approachable, helpful and knowledgeable, and you will likely have success as an IT administrator in education.