Student Staffed Tech Help Desk/Tech Teams?

[Laura Webber]

Hi everyone,

I'm the Upper School Tech Coordinator for a girls' school in Baltimore where we have a one-to-one tablet pc environment. I also teach a couple of sections of computer science. I'm actually going to be teaching more next year, so we developed an idea to train some students to do basic troubleshooting and emergency "help me connect my projector" stuff for those periods when I am teaching.

I'm looking for ideas from other schools who have successfully set up student tech teams or help desks. How did you go about selecting students for the team? What sort of training did you put them through? Any resources you can share with me?

Thanks so much,
Laura

[Laura Flynn]

I am starting a group next year, but since we want students who are availble to help during classtime, we are creating a "tech assistant" time slot for scheduling similar to a "teachers assistant" course (credit/no credit). Many study hall/teachers aide students are loaded with AP classes and want a low-stress option for their 7th class. We will have to wait and see how many sign up, and what fits into their schedules.

The plan is to have these students help out with network/computer maintenance tasks, as well as assisting in the classrooms. Sometimes projects would run more smoothly with one other assistant in the room. These students could also go to classrooms to help teachers get projectors/doc cams going, things like that. I'm interested in hearing what other schools do with student tech groups both during the day and after school.