Greetings Blackboard Buds!

I am absolutely thrilled to be a guest on the Blackboard Buds blog. I think that Terry and Vicki are on the verge of breaking into the “big time” with their mix of fun and technology, and I’m not opposed to riding their coattails as they become superstars!

But you’re probably thinking, “Who is this person and more importantly, where did Terry and Vicki find her?” J Well, I’m Julie Rorabaugh and I’m the Director of Instructional Technology for Cowley College in Kansas. I’ve worked with online learning and Learning Management Systems (Blackboard, WebCT 4.1, ANGEL 7.2 & 7.4) for over ten years at a few different institutions, and during that time, I’ve trained hundreds of instructors in the finer points of teaching online. I’ve also handled my share of HELP! phone calls, emails, and tickets, and have talked many instructors (and students) off the virtual “ledge” when they were stressing over technology problems.

I’m also a very new member of a Blackboard group called “Ask Dr. C,” which is a free user forum moderated by a group of experienced clients (the Dr. Cs). We answer questions, blog, discuss, and write up effective practices to assist all Blackboard users with whatever version of the product they are using.

But anyway, in July of this year, I lived it up at my first ever Blackboard World in Orlando, FL, and basked in enjoyment of my new role as a Dr. C! However, there was a tiny, dark cloud on the horizon in sunny Florida, and its name was “Semester Start-up.” I wanted to deny it, but I knew I couldn’t stop time and avoid August, traditionally the highest stress time for most folks in education. So I did what any good educator would do (eat chocolate and drink wine? Nah…) I wrote an article about it!

I thought that perhaps I could share my experiences with assisting students and faculty, and set some guidelines to help EVERYONE work together quickly and efficiently. My article was posted on the Ask Dr. C Best Practices site of Blackboard, and that’s where Terry “found” me!

My article is reproduced below. I sincerely hope that if you’re a “techie,” and you read this, that you can possibly glean some tips to give your students and faculty to make your life easier. At the very least, though, I hope you have a chuckle or two and understand that you are not alone! If you’re a student or a faculty member, please take a new understanding of your “techies” away from this article, and realize that YOU are not alone either. We are here to help you, but you have to help us do so.

Your Blackboard Bud,

Julie Rorabaugh

P.S. – Here is a special secret extra interview that wasn’t in the podcast.  You’ll want to hear it!

Julie Rorabaugh – Interview Extra

Alternative content

I think my fellow tech support peers would agree that an email or two has come across their desk like this before:

“hi! i cant get in my clas i hv a test 2nit plz hlp! hawtgrrl@mail.com”

Or even better

“Can you restore some old course content for me? I think the ones I want were from a couple of years ago, in the fall…or maybe spring. No rush…classes don’t start for two days! Luv ya!”

These are just a couple of examples of some of the requests for assistance that have come across my virtual desk at one time or another over the years.  As August looms, signaling the beginning of fall classes for many institutions in North America, I thought it might be helpful to share some tips to help YOU help your support personnel (i.e. “The Techies”) and to expedite your assistance from such with minimal loss of life, limb, and sanity on everyone’s part.

Information Overload…Please!

Though the first example above is from a desperate student (is there ever any other kind?), and the second is from a faculty member, they both have something in common. It’s going to take more than one simple email or phone call to solve their problems.

Let’s start with the first one, shall we? Although undoubtedly she IS a “hawt grrl,” she has neglected to give me some basic information so that I can proceed. Hmmm…a name would be a good start! First and Last…maybe even a Student ID number? How about a course title or even an instructor’s name? Ironically, this came to me on a Help Desk Ticket, where she indicated that she’d prefer to be contacted by phone, but you guessed it, she didn’t enter her phone number. Though I would have loved to help, the lack of information made it impossible. A quick summary of the problem with your contact information is essential to helping your Tech Support diagnose the problem. The small steps you can take upfront can save you a lot of time and heartache later on.

On to the second example, faculty and support personnel often have a kind of symbiotic relationship. We’ve been in the academic trenches together, shared tips, techniques, and snacks at Professional Development workshops, migrated to different Learning Management Systems (LMS) together, and normally we feel cheerful camaraderie when communicating by phone, email, or in-person. All of this, however, is subject to change during the months of August and January. Your usually jovial Techie may display the less endearing characteristics of an attack trained Rottweiler due to the stresses involved in their job. The faculty member in the above example, while thoughtfully stating that there is “no rush” and warmly declaring their “luv” for me, has just raised my stress level with this last minute request which additionally is lacking in essential information.

Instead of sending me a list containing specific course and term numbers, and doing so even one or two weeks in advance of semester start-up, they have now made it necessary for me to send a return email, asking for more information. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking away. One email usually leads to two and two leads to a BAZILLION (ok, maybe that is a slight exaggeration), but you get the point. The first day of classes rolls around and there is a potential we’ll have some angry students who have eagerly entered the class only to find it unprepared.  And no amount of “luv” is going to move this instructor ahead in the queue of teachers who asked for their courses to be restored in a timely manner. (Note: It is rumored that gifts of dark chocolate “anything” have been known to secure preferential treatment with support personnel. I cannot and will not speak to this!)

Help us Help you better and give your Tech Support a break. Send them the complete information, the sooner the better.

Pictures Good…Videos Even Better!

Countless times I’ve received a phone call or an email from a student or an instructor, saying that they attempted to do something on their computer or in their course and got an error. Euphemisms for getting an error could be phrases like: kicked me out, went wonky, freaked out, crashed, Fatal Error…is that bad?, stalled out, hung up, etc. While these descriptions are quite charming, they really don’t tell me anything about what happened and what the user was doing at the time.

The old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words, well it’s TRUE! Learn how to take screen captures of abnormalities that may occur. Is it an error that you keep getting consistently? Make a short video of your actions, including narration. You don’t need special software to capture a basic image, just your PC keyboard’s “PrtScn” or “Prt Sc” (Print Screen) button and an image editing program. On a Mac, you just need to know the correct keystrokes, you don’t even need the image editing software. To make videos, a handy little FREE program to have is Jing by TechSmith, which is available for Windows and Mac OS X. Jing also captures screen shots like a champ, and has some wonderful interfaces for sharing your images instantly using email or even social networking sites. And let me reiterate, it’s FREE!

Sending pictures or videos has a double benefit. First, they will help your Techie to quickly zero in on your problem. Second, they will serve as evidence that you’re not crazy, when the aforementioned Techie cannot get the error to replicate and they start muttering things like “PICNIC” (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer) under their breaths. Even better, you don’t have to re-explain yourself if the Techie has to pass along the issue to another member of the team.

Once you master this, teach your students (especially online students) to do the same! There’s a good chance that your support personnel will be so pleased with you, that maybe they will bring YOU something dark chocolate-y!

20-Minute Rule

I can usually count on one topic coming up consistently during any conversation that I have with faculty members – that is time or the lack thereof. So why waste your precious time? That time could be put towards educating students instead of trying to figure out how to do something that has you stymied. Are you afraid we’ll laugh at you? Ok, we might but that’s what we’re here for…not to laugh but to HELP you!

If you can’t figure out how to do something (create an announcement, change a font, zip a file, etc.) in 20 minutes, get help and email or call your expert. Your stress level is only going to rise as you see the minutes tick by on your clock while you fruitlessly look around for an answer! Many are the times that I’ve answered the phone only to hear a frazzled faculty member say, “I’ve been trying to do this for two hours, HELP!” It really doesn’t make things better when I give them a quick or simple solution, and a rapid reinforcement of the tenets of the 20-Minute Rule. Just think – if they’d have called one hour and forty minutes earlier, they would have had that much more time to spend on other pursuits and been in a better mood.

That said, however, please understand that your Techies may have lives of their own and they may not be available on a 24/7 basis. It has been my experience that there is a relationship between the urgency of the “educational emergency” and the time of day or day of the week, i.e. the importance and frequency seems to escalate after 5PM from Monday-Friday, and on every weekend.

The 20-Minute Rule is still applicable after hours (and no, I’m not giving out my home phone number)! There are many resources that you can turn to when your personal Techies have are off-duty. Most software applications and LMSs have robust knowledge bases built right in, but if I were in charge of dusting their virtual bookshelves, I’d be sneezing and covered with grime. These resources are terribly underutilized! In most cases, a quick click of the “Help” button will get you to the right place. What do you think your experts do when they say they’ll call you right back with an answer? They look it up!

Many institutions also have after-hours Help Desks. Try them out and direct your students to do so, too. Finally, why not post a question to the appropriate forum at Ask Dr. C? Your friendly and knowledgeable Doctors are located all over the globe, encompassing a plethora of time zones and they are not averse to making online house calls.

Bottom line

Semester start-ups can be challenging times for EVERYONE involved. A bit of understanding, respect, and patience goes a long way to ensuring a productive and happy semester. Use these tips not only during peak stress times, but throughout the rest of the year, and…

Help Us Help YOU

They’ll be dog-gone glad you did!

No, I am not above going for the cheap pun, and also inserting a cute puppy picture.

Peace,
Dr. C Julie