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TL11.4FALL2004_singles Part A - Moving Forward Responding to student requests for com-puter help and trying to track why somesoftware misbehaves can eat up an extraordinary amount of valuable time in the school library day. Within the Learning Commons area of the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board - the core library, semi- nar rooms and attached computer lab(s) - our staff routinely spend time dealing with the technology, assisting the students with the use of standard educational software, searching strategies for online databases, and demon- strating the operation and use of peripheral equipment. When technology problems arise, they perform checks of the software and hard- ware, reporting noted problems to HELPDESK - our IT department's online reporting and sup- port request application. With the proliferation of computers in the Learning Commons area, it had often seemed that a cheatsheet was needed, detailing specifics like which workstations had certain software titles installed or which computers did not handle multimedia; a lot of time was being wasted. In an effort to improve the learn- ing environment for the students and reduce the level of technical support requests, we held several discussion groups and identified the key changes needed. Life is becoming a little saner for the school library staff and the IT support technicians. The Learning Commons and lab computers have all been changed to a common computer model, all computers are being loaded with a standard image and software, and computers are secured against tampering and change. Though these three changes sound simple enough, they actually took a fair amount of work. The pay off has been more than worth it. What did we do? First, of course, we talked about it. Discussion groups included a good mix of viewpoints… principals, early literacy staff, curriculum con- sultants, library staff, IT support technicians, classroom teachers… We talked about what was working and what wasn't, what was core technology to support student learning, what needed more in-service, what we had the dol- lars to do… and came up with a plan. Step One: computer labs have all been moved to a common model. We have a minimum com- puter standard, reviewed annually, which iden- tifies equipment that can still run the provided educational Ontario Educational Software Service/OSAPAC software. Additionally, the IT department identifies equipment that needs a high level of repairs or software support. Based on this we have a regular replacement of the older equipment with newer models - this year, for example, we have removed all of the P1s (Pentium One chip equipment) from our schools. We have standardized all computer purchases centrally and maintain inventory database of hardware across our school board, so we could identify with fairly good accuracy, which make and model we could assume as a base model. What we found, however, was that as new equipment was rolled out to the schools, it was not always being deployed in consistent man- ner, leading to some labs containing a real mix of equipment. With some creative switching and trading around, all the computers (library pods and labs) were grouped in common. 28 Ontario School Library Association MMoovviinngg FFoorrwwaarrdd,, LLooookkiinngg BBaacckk Diane Bédard Information TechnologyTL