Technology Services in the Canyons School District
Here's a quick run-down snapshot of the team we have been developing to serve the technology needs of the Canyon School District.
Canyons School District:
- Formed because of the division of the Jordan School District, near Salt Lake City, Utah
- Consists of 29 elementary, 8 middle, 4 high, and number of special schools
- Approximately 33,000 students, 1,700 teachers
A clean copy of the org chart for you to hang on your wall:
The Technology Services Team:
Technical Support (Classified, break-fix):
- Serve as level 1 technical support in the schools. Will be the first point of contact for break-fix technical support issues.
- One Technical Support Specialist per high school, housed in the schools.
- One roaming Secondary Technical Support Team Lead to serve as a coach and a mentor to other support personnel, provide consistency throughout the secondary schools, and to help individual schools where necessary.
- One Technical Support Specialist shared among every two middle schools, housed in the schools.
- A team of Technical Support Specialists to service the elementary schools (geek squad approach), at a ratio of just over one Specialist to four schools (including the Elementary Technical Support Team Lead). We anticipate using smart devices to push out job requests to the Support Specialist physically closest to the issues at hand.
- Serve in the critical bridging role between the Service and Deployment teams.
- Will provide some level 1 technical support to district office personnel.
- Will continue to support the same systems that are currently maintained by the Jordan School District Information Systems Department (and then some). At this point, the number of systems currently sits at 55, with new systems seemingly being added weekly.
- Will inherently provide some level 1 technical support but will focus primarily on assisting teachers and students to utilize technology to teach and to learn. Each member of this team will also provide teacher professional development as it relates to their specific realm.
- One Educational Technology Consultant per every secondary school to teach half time, and help teachers with technology the other half.
- Six Educational Technology Specialists to provide ed tech support to elementary teachers at a current ratio of roughly one Specialist per every five schools (with another six Specialists being deferred as future hires = final ratio of roughly 1:2).
- One Extended Technology Specialist (with one deferred) to assist teachers and students with technology in special learning environments (i.e. special education).
- Four Media Technology Specialists to work with on-site Media Assistants in maintaining the Media Centers (collection development, Big 6, etc.) in our elementary schools at a ratio of roughly one Specialist per every 7 schools (with another two Specialist positions being deferred as future hires = final ratio of roughly 1:5).
- In the end, the coveted "Social Media Specialist" position has been merged with the "Distance Learning Specialist" position to form the Media Technology and Distance Learning Team Lead. After all, shouldn't every librarian/media coordinator/specialist be a "Social Media Specialist" in today's landscape? I certainly think so. Our students are using social media to learn without us. Why shouldn't we, as educators, be expected to understand what they're experiencing in order to best help them use such technologies effectively? This person will also work to coordinate many facets within of our district's Ed Net/Concurrent Enrollment programs.
Questions, comments, suggestions? I'd love to hear what you have to say!
* TBD = To be determined or hired before August 2009.
* Deferred = Currently budgeted for but not to be hired in the immediate future.
