Improving Student Accountability for Equipment

Human Performance Improvement is a field that was actually around for many decades before it was named and defined. Usually, it seems that we, as educators, tend to try to adjust our instructional approach whenever there is any issue or shortcoming in HPI. However, because human performance is really more a behavioral issue, instructional adjustments rarely have any significant impact on it. Rather, there needs to be some change to the operational end of the things in order to affect HP and to achiever HPI.

Because I frequently used technology in my classes, especially computer access, it was not unusual for me to issue different pieces of equipment to different students. Usually, I would simply have a notebook in which I would keep track of which pieces of equipment were issued to which student, when and for what purpose. This manual database usually included a schedule of when equipment was to be returned by the students. However, this system had limitations. If the document was ever lost, we had to rely on memories in order to track and recover equipment. Later on, I decided to create a spreadsheet of the same information and be sure to save it with significant redundancy so as to eliminate the issues associated with documentation being lost or misplaced, even temporarily. This was a workable solution, but still cumbersome and time consuming.

One school that I visited, had a technology department that operated differently from the others I was aware of. This school had adopted digital student identification cards very early. They had actually started using ID cards with magnetic strips in the late 1980’s. When they adopted a 1-to-1 iPad program across the district, they realized that they could use their student ID system to help with tracking and maintaining the iPads. They had acquired a student database that was relatively infinitely expandable. They could add data fields, add students, add campuses, etc. as needed. So, they created a new field in their database that would allow them to use the electronic IDs to issue, track and recover their iPads as needed. As an iPad was issued to a student, the device’s digital ID was scanned into the student database and connected to the student’s digital ID card which was also scanned at the same time. In addition to this, they also had every iPad setup so that it had GPS tracking activated in such a way that it was supposed to be impossible to deactivate. They told me that, in 5 years of using this system, they had only failed to recover 3 iPads. Out of approximately 750 issued each year, that is pretty amazing. It is especially amazing when you discover that 2 of those 3 “lost” were issued to students who moved out of the state unexpectedly and over the course of a weekend.

A performance support system (PSS) is a set of tools and access that allow a person to perform a job or task as efficiently as possible with minimal training and/or intervention. These can be as simple as reminder systems or as complex as online databases of information needed to perform any given job and the tasks thereof. In order to make this district’s system of tracking and maintaining their iPads more successful, the technology department could institute a PSS that would help the students to successfully use and maintain the iPads without intervention or direct assistance from the technology department. One part of that could be timely reminders on the device to the student to ensure that the device was connected to a power supply and had internet access at the appropriate times to receive pushed updates. There could also be a “how-to” app or online information that would have step-by-step instructions for students to be able to do many of the different tasks that are necessary to keep their devices running efficiently, or to address errors and malfunctions up to a specified level so that the technology department is only having to deal with major issues and “re-imaging” of devices that have been returned.

Knowledge Management is built into this system as the whole thing is set up on a database system. But, there is a piece that could be added to the process that would allow the technology department to improve their own performance and success rates. They should create either a database or spreadsheet system to enter and access information gained by the techs in dealing with students and student devices. For example, if during last school year, it was discovered that 80% of students had discovered a “backdoor” for installing apps that were not authorized and a tech has discovered how to close that “backdoor” that information would be entered into the database for other techs to be able to access, and also as a basis or starting point for dealing with similar future incidents.

Informal learning is and should remain informal. Some of what is learned in that informal time could be added to the formal/managed learning. I have always visited with other people at my schools. The information I was able to gather from those informal discussions was sometimes more valuable than the information that is presented in workshops and professional development sessions. Sometimes it is also information that cannot be presented in a formal setting because it is individualized to a specific person/situation. But, sometimes, it is also information that everyone should know. These pieces of “informal learning” should be codified and added to the PD sessions. They include things like who to talk to about specific situations, especially when that person is not the “official” person for a given issue. But, on the whole, informal learning is effective specifically because it is informal, so that people are more comfortable sharing and receiving the information. In the scenario above, the informal learning could be something like: “Student Xyz Abc is known to leave his iPad in various places around town. It might be a good idea to occasionally run a GPS locate on it to be sure it is not sitting down the street on top of the gas pump where he gets gas every couple of days.” This would be a piece of informal learning that would best be left informal. After all, it only applies to one student and is a piece of information that would not be of much use to anyone other than the technologist who would run the GPS scans on the devices.

References

Raiser, R.A. and Dempsey, J.J. (2012) Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology 3rd Ed.