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Organisation with external (school) technicians

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Edward Nutting edited this page Feb 3, 2017 · 2 revisions

Overview

The Outreach programme takes our workshops to lots of schools, each of which has a different setup. Before we go to each school, we have to work out what they have available and any configuration to their systems or network(s) that is required before we arrive. This involves communicating with the IT Managers of the schools.

Purpose

The purpose of this task is to ensure that when a team of outreach people arrive at a school to run a workshop, all the technical requirements that require the school to act have been completed. This typically involves determing whether the school has an IT Suite we can use (or we have to take our laptops with us an set up in a classroom) and making sure any necessary websites are unblocked.

For the main Digimakers events held at At-Bristol, Caroline usually tries to handle the communication but will often have to defer to the OTA or workshop creators in order to sort the precise technical requirements.

Details

  1. Determine the event venue
  2. Ask whoever your main contact is to put you in touch with their IT Manager. For a lot of Bristol Primary schools this will be a person in the council who works part-time for the school (one day a week or so).
  3. Ask what the school already has by way of equipment and blocking systems
  4. If the school has an IT Suite, you will need to ask your main contact whether that room can be booked for the session or not. Sometimes school timetables do not make this easy to do but having an IT Suite available is a big advantage over using the laptops (assuming no software needs installing; if software needs installing the opposite becomes true i.e. laptops would be easier).
  5. If you are going to be using laptops, ask whether a person who knows the Wifi SSID and password are going to be available on site when the session is to connect the laptops. If not, ask what the easiest way to connect them all is. You may need to obtain the laptops a day early in order to add the school's network details.
  6. If the internet is required, send a list of required websites to the IT Manager and ask them to unblock them. Note that things like YouTube are generally not possible to unblock, but things like Microbit.org are. If videos are required, it is best to tell the workshop creator to make them available offline on a USB Stick.
  7. Convey any other specific requirements to the school and ask if they can be met. Note that installing software on school computers is generally not possible or will take too long to arrange.

Be aware that different people from different generations use different words for exactly the same thing. This is particularly noticable in technology where trends in terminology move very quickly. For this reason, it is necessary to try quite hard to interpret what people are saying (in email or on the phone) but while still making sure the right thing is being done; this will require you to Google terminology and learn what people mean.

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