Back in 2006 when I started in IT there were lots of things we were concerned with. Growing our bandwidth to 100 Mbps, supporting printers, replacing projector bulbs and making sure those old Gateway computers were still running (do you remember the cow boxes?).

Over the course of the last two decades we’ve added layer upon layer of complexity to our K12 systems. We’ve switched from “pay once” models to subscription-based SAAS models while adding to our ever growing fleet by making sure each student has access and connectivity. These are all done to make learning more accessible to kids, but it all comes at a cost.

One of the biggest challenges for school technology departments isn’t just the number of devices or platforms they support. It’s the lack of visibility and coordination across them. When we started out, most of our inventory was on one giant spreadsheet. We had a help desk system that didn’t talk to our inventory system. Someone tracked software licenses in a separate spreadsheet or database. Heck, even our repair history was mired in endless email exchanges or some handwritten note on a messy desk somewhere.

What ends up happening with all these siloed systems is that tech departments spend more time tracking down information than actually solving problems.

With all this critical data living in so many different places, inefficiency becomes the enemy of an already over-taxed department. Supporting thousands of devices and dozens of systems means those minutes lost to inefficiency add up fast.

 

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Why Visibility Matters

Efficient technology departments build systems that give them full visibility into their technology ecosystem. Instead of scattered tracking tools, everything lives in a centralized system where the lifecycle of technology can be managed from beginning to end. From purchase to deployment to repair to retirement.

When this happens, tech departments both small and large gain something incredibly valuable: context. They can see trends that happen during certain times of the year and make plans to budget for lifecycle replacements. Imagine a technician opening a help desk ticket and instantly seeing:

• What user is assigned to the device
• When it was purchased
• Its repair history
• Warranty status
• Other tickets associated with the device type
• Predicted lifecycle replacement

Instead of spending precious minutes and hours starting from scratch each time looking for information, they start with the full story. This kind of data and visibility dramatically reduces troubleshooting time that is already limited.

 

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Turning Data Into Smarter Decisions

When we first deployed our 1:1 devices back in 2011, we sent them out into the wild with some basic inventory data. We knew which student had which device, but that was about it. When the inevitable repairs started coming in, each case was considered in isolation. Each help desk ticket was its own standalone story that only had one reader.

When tech leaders can see patterns across devices and support tickets, they can answer questions like:

• Which devices fail the most often?
• Which campuses generate the most help desk requests? (this one is an interesting one to solve!)
• Is a device worth repairing again, or is the cost of repair more than replacement?
• Are there ‘slow’ or ‘fast’ seasons when repair requests come in?

Each of these data points are subtle in isolation, but over time they indicate trends. These trends and insights allow departments to move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive planning. And for lean tech teams, that shift is everything.

 

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The Reality of Modern IT Departments

Whenever the phone rings in IT, it’s usually not someone calling to tell us how great the WiFi is working. Every call, every ticket, is a challenge and an opportunity. As I said at the beginning, the modern IT department supports much more than some desktop computers and classroom printers. We now support thousands of student devices, learning management systems, AV, SIS, security cameras, cybersecurity and data governance, network infrastructure and much, much more.

What’s remarkable to me is that while the technology footprint has exploded, the size of the teams supporting it often hasn’t. The result? IT departments are constantly in reactive mode. They never get a chance to catch up and end up just spending their time responding to tickets instead of building systems that prevent problems in the first place.

Because schools rarely have the luxury of dramatically expanding their tech teams, efficiency has to become the most important strategy. In my mind, this means focusing on three things:

Standardization: When possible, we have to reduce the variation of devices, software, and systems we support. If there are 17 different math learning platforms, that’s 17 different systems to learn. The more complex our environment, the harder it is to support.

Automation: There are now tools that exist to help us in certain areas of our department. Having automated device management, updates, and self-service tools can eliminate hundreds of support requests. We can even leverage AI to help automate and fix some of the low-hanging fruit of help desk requests.

Centralization: My team was spread out over 9 campuses initially. That made it harder to know our existing inventory, group support tickets, and holistically view and track our assets. When all of that exists in the same ecosystems, tech teams can work faster and make smarter decisions.

When these three elements are in place, small tech teams suddenly operate like much larger ones.

 

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Technology Should Fade Into the Background

While technology is in a constant state of change, it shouldn’t be the focus of education. In the classrooms where I saw technology being used the best for learning, it was almost invisible. In tech departments, it’s somewhat the same. At its best, school technology shouldn’t demand attention.

It should simply work.

That’s easy enough when you don’t have to involve humans, much less younger humans that can be a little careless with their technology (don’t get me started on how many times my daughter has cracked her phone).

That said, teachers shouldn’t have to worry about whether the projector or interactive panel will turn on or if the device cart is missing half its laptops. Students shouldn’t lose learning time because a system is down or a device isn’t available. The goal of an efficient technology department isn’t just fixing problems faster.

It’s building systems where those problems happen less often in the first place. And when the right infrastructure is in place behind the scenes, something powerful happens:

Teachers focus on teaching.

Students focus on learning.

And the tech team finally gets a moment to breathe before the next major emergency or printer jam appears.

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Carl Hooker is a 27-year educator and former Director of Innovation and Digital Learning from Austin, TX. He consults districts and companies all over the globe around the thoughtful and efficient use of technology when it comes to learning.