3.5 Basic Troubleshooting
Candidates troubleshoot basic software and hardware problems common in digital learning environments.
Candidates troubleshoot basic software and hardware problems common in digital learning environments.
For ITEC 7460, I had to document instances when I engaged in troubleshooting on my job. As a media specialist and blooming instructional technology coach, troubleshooting is an activity in which I engage on a frequent basis. In addition to constantly maintaining the equipment and computers in the media center and responding to teachers asking my help in troubleshooting their classroom technology, I am in charge of keeping our auditorium and gymnasium sound and projection systems working.
For this assignment, I documented my work fixing problems with the sound systems in both our auditorium and gymnasium. There are often problems with the images installed on our school computers. Drivers are missing, certain software won't run or runs slowly, and valuable educational sites are blocked to name a few. Last year, we got a new image which had synchronization issues for user profiles as well. This issue was very apparent when utilizing the laptop that is used for projection in our auditoriums for student, parent, and faculty meetings. With the new image, administrators and teachers experienced problems connecting to the wireless hotspot, though I had no problem doing so. After much experimentation and research, I found that only those who had previously used the computer while connected by an Ethernet cable to the network (me, for example) could connect to the hotspot. Once this was apparent, the fix was easy, simply getting anyone wanting to use the hotspot to log in on that computer while connected to the network before attempting to connect wirelessly.
We also had issues with the gymnasium sound system, getting shrieking feedback when we used the microphone jacks in the floor of the gym. Troubleshooting this problem was a two-person job as the head end unit was in a closet on a side hall, out of earshot of the gymnasium. I partnered with my school technologist and via walkie-talkie we adjusted the sound board and solved the problem. By troubleshooting the audio in the auditorium and gymnasium I helped improve communication among our stakeholders.
By troubleshooting these sound and wireless problems, I learned a lot about both the new image on our computers and the audio system in our gymnasium. This knowledge later let me to discover the underlying problems in my media center computers which were giving me issues. Windows 7 synchronizes or loads the profiles of every student and teacher who logs on. This leads to insufficient space on the hard drives which creates problems with students not being able to log on because the hard drive is full and can’t load any more profiles. Students who had previously logged onto a particular computer would have not problem logging on, but a student who had never logged on to that same computer would not be allowed to log on. In future troubleshooting, I will seek out the knowledge of our local school technologist at the beginning of a problem instead of waiting until I was extremely frustrated to do so. His input caused me to look at the problem from a different angle and together we solved the issue.
The work that went into this artifact impacted school improvement by facilitating communication among all stakeholders. It impacted student learning by shedding light on a systemic problem we had with our computer network. I eventually ordered 1TB hard drives for all my media center computers in order to eliminate this problem which facilitated student learning through digital information systems.
For this assignment, I documented my work fixing problems with the sound systems in both our auditorium and gymnasium. There are often problems with the images installed on our school computers. Drivers are missing, certain software won't run or runs slowly, and valuable educational sites are blocked to name a few. Last year, we got a new image which had synchronization issues for user profiles as well. This issue was very apparent when utilizing the laptop that is used for projection in our auditoriums for student, parent, and faculty meetings. With the new image, administrators and teachers experienced problems connecting to the wireless hotspot, though I had no problem doing so. After much experimentation and research, I found that only those who had previously used the computer while connected by an Ethernet cable to the network (me, for example) could connect to the hotspot. Once this was apparent, the fix was easy, simply getting anyone wanting to use the hotspot to log in on that computer while connected to the network before attempting to connect wirelessly.
We also had issues with the gymnasium sound system, getting shrieking feedback when we used the microphone jacks in the floor of the gym. Troubleshooting this problem was a two-person job as the head end unit was in a closet on a side hall, out of earshot of the gymnasium. I partnered with my school technologist and via walkie-talkie we adjusted the sound board and solved the problem. By troubleshooting the audio in the auditorium and gymnasium I helped improve communication among our stakeholders.
By troubleshooting these sound and wireless problems, I learned a lot about both the new image on our computers and the audio system in our gymnasium. This knowledge later let me to discover the underlying problems in my media center computers which were giving me issues. Windows 7 synchronizes or loads the profiles of every student and teacher who logs on. This leads to insufficient space on the hard drives which creates problems with students not being able to log on because the hard drive is full and can’t load any more profiles. Students who had previously logged onto a particular computer would have not problem logging on, but a student who had never logged on to that same computer would not be allowed to log on. In future troubleshooting, I will seek out the knowledge of our local school technologist at the beginning of a problem instead of waiting until I was extremely frustrated to do so. His input caused me to look at the problem from a different angle and together we solved the issue.
The work that went into this artifact impacted school improvement by facilitating communication among all stakeholders. It impacted student learning by shedding light on a systemic problem we had with our computer network. I eventually ordered 1TB hard drives for all my media center computers in order to eliminate this problem which facilitated student learning through digital information systems.