As the end of summer approaches, it signals the start of a new school year, accompanied by a slew of school IT instructions and guidelines. However, amidst the complexities of cybersecurity and AI, schools often overlook that their audience comprises children and parents, many of whom are not IT experts. Let’s delve into five key areas where schools need to enhance their user experience and why these lessons are critical for schools and highly relevant and applicable for businesses.
The Dreaded IT Handbook
“Intentionally or unintentionally utilizing services to circumvent network-based security is prohibited.” Having worked for twelve years in IT management, I have no idea what this sentence should mean. My best guess is that this is supposed to prohibit VPNs and proxy services. Yet, the last line of our district IT Handbook requires students, including kindergarteners, to sign that they have “read and understood the policies outlined within this handbook.”
The start of the school year already brings stress, excitement, and all the emotions of something new. Policies and handbooks that aren’t understandable for adults do not help. Policies like the above might have felt good and right for some legal councils dealing with employment law. Yet, they certainly aren’t conducive to a learning environment. At worst, parents and students might sign the documents without understanding them.
You might also find solutions like mine, which involve simply replacing the signature page with “I have no idea what any of this means.” in red ink. At least we didn’t start the school year off with a falsehood.
IT Helpdesks
Here’s a real-life example. Support: “If you click the right button, you should see some text popping up.” Kid pressing his little finger on the touch screen of the school-issued tablet: “No.”
Providing support can be frustrating for IT employees. Users often misunderstand directions, might not be versed in the terms you are using, or get the impression that you think they just don’t get it. Add some stress, and a tech support conversation will quickly go south.
Providing support is, above all else, about showing the other side that you understand their problem. Whether in schools, banks, or a call center, a script will never make someone feel like you’re working with them instead of against them. That’s why you must match the support level and availability to the individual at the other end. Plus, I don’t hope AI will understand a first-grader just yet.
Know Your Customer
The helpdesk and the IT handbook’s complexity show one critical failure: The IT leadership did not consider their target audience. Thus, both situations lead to frustration among IT professionals and customers who talk without communicating. Therefore, both sides set themselves up for disappointment.
IT promised the wonders of technology, a metaverse of connections, and the miracle of effortless learning. Yet, students and parents got frustrated trying to log in.
Ensuring your messages are appropriate for your customers can make or break the experience.
Follow Open Standards Are In
When the new school year arrives, parents often get a list of applications the students need to use for school and homework. The requirements include specific devices for compatibility, from iPads and high-end Chromebooks to sturdy laptops. That wouldn’t be a problem if the school provided the devices. However, some schools require parents to procure or rent the devices.
Apart from the economic issues that arise with schools limiting their tenders or requiring parents to pay thousands of dollars, there is also an environmental aspect. Today, many households have devices that should be perfectly capable of running video classes and most educational software. Yet compatibility lists for software instead of open standards limit these devices’ usefulness.
While web-based applications have alleviated some problems, online applications cannot deliver all learning experiences. The sooner we move to open standards, the sooner we will reduce waste and related problems.
Cybersecurity – a Core IT Metric
We have barely started the new school year, and the first cybersecurity incident has closed down a whole school district. Notifications of cybersecurity incidents and data breaches are a regular occurrence for many of us. Yet, when it hits school districts, there are two problems.
First, students are unique in terms of their data. They are future consumers with significant milestones ahead. They never check whether anyone has opened a credit card in their name, and they cannot opt out of the data collection at school.
Second, schools don’t train their students and staff nearly enough in cybersecurity practices. Thus, the number of incidents and the resulting carnage often hit educational institutions particularly hard. Add the solid push to digitalize much of the workday without any alternatives, and we get the perfect cyber nightmare.
New Risk – New Opportunities for IT
The new school year brings many new risks and opportunities to change education. However, the development of IT in schools can make one doubt whether technology will help us close the digital divide in this country or add another risk to our education sector. Unless we start making IT appropriate for parents, students, and teachers, we will continue to see cybersecurity issues in schools.