Technology use has exploded in the school building. With the theme of this being the #YearofAskingforHelp, there is a growing need to get IT assistance. In fact, the need to ask the IT department for help has been growing exponentially. We not only require teachers to put in IT help tickets, but some systems require students to do it in high school. The process, as my professor used to say, is “not obvious to the casual observer.” Here is where we need to offer help.

Simple communication is required. This means providing one sheet of instruction. If you provide instructions that take several pages or require watching videos, it is too long for people to use. Consider using a simple example. I snipped an empty ticket and typed some fields in. Then I used it with circles around key information to explain.

In my opinion, the phone number should be blank (or zero if it’s a required field) as I do not want IT calling the classroom phone or my personal phone during class. Others feel differently. I do know that the schools keep track of the room phone numbers so that IT can always get their phone number. And, IT personnel have everyone’s email. Unfortunately, I also know a number of teachers that do not check their email daily and that’s unfair to the person trying to solve the problem. (sigh)

There are different types of tickets with different fields. If you feel like they are different enough, you can provide multiple examples. But I think if you explain one ticket well, most can extrapolate from there. What do you think? Will a simple example make your teachers and students fill more confident in asking for help? Will it help you?