Guidelines for Technology Support of Heartland AEA Employees Who Work in District Buildings

The below information was communicated to all district technology coordinators earlier this summer.

There has been considerable confusion in the past about how to provide tech support to Heartland AEA employees while they are working in school districts. Over this past year, Heartland AEA has been working with technology directors to develop some guidelines that will help to clear up this confusion:

• Heartland employees will be provided with access to the building wireless network as it is available. If wireless is not available, access should be provided via hard-wired connection. Heartland employees are expected to provide their own Ethernet cable in those situations. All passwords provided by school districts will be treated confidentially. Heartland employees are expected to use bandwidth responsibly and will check ahead of time to see if the district blocks sites they wish to use.

• Heartland employees can setup or request assistance to access building printers if the district provides him/her with building printer maps and/or IP addresses. If there is concern about excessive printing by Heartland employees, school districts should contact their Regional Director or Lance Wilhelm, Director of Technology.

• If Heartland employees occasionally need phone access, districts should make reasonable accommodations to provide that access.

• Districts will provide basic information such as network passwords or printer IP numbers, as appropriate, but troubleshooting problems for Heartland employees should be done by Heartland AEA tech support. Heartland AEA uses iChat extensively for resolving tech support issues, and we would greatly appreciate it if that feature is not blocked at the district level.

• Heartland AEA will provide districts with lists of Heartland employees who will be working in their buildings. If requested, Heartland AEA will provide technology directors key information (such as MAC addresses) about the AEA computers that will be used in their school buildings.
  

We are hopeful these guidelines will help provide reasonable access for Heartland AEA staff, as well as minimize the work of technology directors who already have a great deal of responsibility in terms of supporting their district employees.

We will evaluate these guidelines in the spring of 2012 to see what changes (if any) need to be made for the coming school year. If you have comments/concerns/suggestions, please contact Lance Wilhelm at lwilhelm@aea11.k12.ia.us.