Blurring the Lines

I am an Instructional Technology Specialist (ITS). It is my job to help teachers to integrate technology into their instruction in order to improve the learning experience for students. When I grappled with the decision of whether or not to leave the classroom I finally decided that I can impact the learning of far more students in this role and took the leap, and I truly love my job. I get the opportunity to lead PD sessions, co-teach lessons with other teachers, and offer one-on-one sessions all in the hopes that more students will be impacted by an improved and more appropriate learning environment.

All that being said, the line between "ITS" and "Help Desk" are often blurred. During my training sessions I hand out my card to anyone who wants it and offer my continued support for helping participants integrate technology into their instruction. But because I hand out my card so readily, I also get a number of calls from people wanting me to fix their computer or hardware. This is where the lines start to blur. Because I am fluent a number of software and internet applications, I have by default learned to trouble-shoot computers and a number of different types of hardware. So the teacher in me want to teach others how to trouble-shoot themselves so they don't have to make more pleas for help, but the ITS in me wants to tell people that it isn't my job to fix their computer and that they need to call their building's tech or the Help Desk. Of course I usually end up teaching them to fix it and then I end up getting more calls and emails for hardware issues.

Another reason the lines are blurred is because I manage the accounts, usernames, and a variety of other "technical support" types of functions for a variety of applications in the district. For example, because I am the website administrator/trainer for our district, I also inherited the job of managing the web server. This further leads people to call me to help them when they need both instructional and technical help with technology. And again, the teacher in me usually wins out and I end up teaching more people how to trouble-shoot and fix their hardware issues.

The reason I let my inner teacher come out in these instances is that I want the issues to be taken care of quickly so that the teachers can get back to teaching and the students can be more positively impacted.The fact is if they have to wait until their building tech can come check on their problem, the learning utilizing that tool will be put on hold and students will be negatively impacted. I also feel that the more teachers know how to do on their own for technical support, the more I will get to do on the instructional side of technology integration. I feel that if I just teach this teacher to be a little more confident in his/her abilities his/her comfort level with technology will increase and the integration will happen more readily. The problem is that there are just so many teachers out there and I get stuck in this vicious cycle that just seems to keep going around and around. The solution for now seems to be keep plowing forward and try to help as many people as possible.

Image courtesy of Flickr and Philou.cn.