Teaching How to Troubleshoot

Spring semester is over. I've turned in the grades for the graduate technology course I teach to school library certification students. The padawans are starting up summer project work.

There's one project we do annually for the Physical Therapy department. The PT students take 9 medical conditions for which quality of life can be improved with strength-building exercises. Here are some of the topics: End-stage Renal Disease, Cancer-related Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Childhood Obesity, Down Syndrome, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. The PT students present current research and exercise strategies to 2 audiences respectively, professional and consumer.

The basic strategy is to videotape the speakers presenting off of paper notes. With accompanying PowerPoint slide durations timed simultaneously, we can then synchronize the slides to the speakers. Videotaping the speakers away from the project slide presentation allows us to avoid lighting problems. We then composite the videos together with the slide shows. I manage the instructional technology padawans from videotaping through to the video creation in Flash format. We post the videos for Arcadia University-affiliated clinical instructors to learn from and recommend to patients. We replace them every year with new presentations created by the next year's student class.

We just finished videotaping the presentations for 2010. We'll create the final 18 presentations throughout the summer. Every year we improve on the videos with more streamlined procedures, better quality, faster throughput. And every year we have to troubleshoot the new procedures.

In 2008, we composited the final presentations using QuickTime Pro. A related problem is that we had to use the videos with the exact original videotaped dimensions. QT Pro isn't flexible enough to zoom in or otherwise alter the video's appearance. For instance, if we didn't zoom in enough on presenters of smaller stature, we ended up with videos of mostly background. Also, if the video file sizes got too big, e.g., much larger than 1 Gb (or some 20 minutes of presentation), QT Pro was unable to process a final video image. We had to turn large .avi files into more modest .dv files or even smaller .mov files to be able to accomplish the compositing.

In 2009, we began using Final Cut Pro. Because our processing skills were so elementary, we synthesized clunky techniques through sophisticated software. More specifically, we turned PowerPoint presentations with timed slides into video files to composite with the speaker videos. Whenever we found timing errors, we had to program in the new slide durations in PowerPoint, create new slide videos, then composite them together again with the speaker videos. I won't go into how drop-frame time coding (a default setting in FCP that we didn't even learn about for another year) made those slide videos unpredictable in length thus further complicating the composition process.

This year, we finished videotaping on Monday and Wednesday and already had trouble that we didn't have last year simply downloading the video files from the digital camera's memory cards. The file formats are .mod. Last year we learned how to convert them to .mov files that FCP could handle. This year 25% of the files could not download without error messages.

Guessing that those files were unlikely to have been corrupted over the 2 days it took to bring them from the video site to computer lab, I guessed that the operating system on our iMac simply couldn't manage those few files. I wondered if Windows XP could do any better on a pc. And indeed it could; we downloaded the 4 troublesome files to a pc, transferred them to the server, then transferred those files to the iMac. No problem. Best of all, the downloads that took multiple hours to the iMac (alright, no doubt there are other issues with our OS) became file transfers lasting 15 minutes total. (Fine, if we worked at it, we could probably fix all the issues with the iMac, but why? This system worked fine and didn't make the process that much more difficult.)

My issue over these 3 years has been that I've been the sole person able to identify the problems and conceive of solutions. Sure I manage the lab, but I am not a computer superhero. I'm a reference librarian who has learned technology from padawans who have graduated and moved on, by experimentation, by googling effectively for solutions, and by standing back and considering the bigger issues. I suspected this year that the iMac's OS couldn't handle some otherwise perfectly decent video files. I considered another OS, albeit on a different platform. And then I tried out a hunch that worked out.

If I had left the file downloading to the padawans, they would never have completed the task. They might even have attempted to re-videotape the speakers with no guarantees the resultant files would have downloaded any more successfully.

If I have no fantastic technology skills, I often wonder whence comes any problem-solving abilities I have. Maybe fantastic technology skills come less from mastery of the technology and more from the ability simply to stand back and think, to see the picture from a little bigger perspective.

I talked through my entire thought process with the 2 padawans to help them think more. The challenge is to help them learn how to problem solve, too. Just.

What Makes a Good Supervisor?

When I started supervising the instructional technology lab a year ago, I was eager for a new kind of challenge. As a reference librarian, I'd been working professionally for 3 years. Experience in several different jobs told me that 3 years working is about when the learning curve starts to level off and the urge for new responsibilities starts. I'd been looking for a chance to develop some supervisory skills. At that same time, Arcadia University finished its newest academic building, Easton Hall, and the instructional technologist with whom the librarians had developed some overlapping skills moved over to that building. This left her office in the library next to the 8 computer lab vacant and the then sole student without supervision. Since she'd heard me express a desire to do some supervising, she endorsed me to the library director as her surrogate.

This was not my first time supervising, but the previous experience was 20 years ago when I was fresh out of college supervising 13 reserve desk students as a library technician at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Main Library. I was a lot greener in those days--i.e., inexperienced, instead of more environmentally conscious. I did okay, but one does think quite differently as a new college grad from the way one does as an adult professional.

That one work/study student is now 4 students. Once Fall starts and those students fall under federal work/study guidelines which limit them to about 7 hours/week, the number will likely increase to 10.

The one student I hired to supplement the efforts of that summer student is the only one that's ever left me. It wasn't my fault. She'd stepped on her glasses and ended up straining her eyes doing the computer work I had for her. The 5 or so students I've had since then seem to enjoy working in the lab.

What should a supervisor offer to attract subordinates to stay? I have some ideas.

(1) Open-mindedness: When I interview students, I ask questions that help me identify personal styles but don't accept disclosures as any more than facts to help me figure out the best way to use that person. I make it clear that I'm not trying to judge, just gather information. It does help that a request for students who know something about computer technology seems to draw candidates who fall on the compulsive side.

(2) Communicativeness: I tell students that there is a bilateral evaluation period then I make clear what they do well and what I wish for them to change. I don't hold secret my sense of what's working and not.

(3) Light-heartedness: I like to rib students once I get to know them a little. But I only do this with unambiguous affectation so they can't misunderstand efforts to be good-natured. I'm not afraid to tease myself and accept counter-ribbings equanimously. I call my students padawans which always makes new workers laugh knowingly. (See my previous post about how Star Wars has replaced Mother Goose in this generation's literacy.) I quote Princess Bride in Chinese.

(4) Empathy: Not all students are equal when it comes to technological aptitude, but I remember what it was like to feel insecure about myself. When students are happy, I celebrate their accomplishments. When they're frustrated, I feel with them then coax them forward.

(5) Flexibility: While I train students to be budding professionals, I remember that they are not professionals yet. Social plans take place. People oversleep. I'm not hard-nosed, but I let them know where they need to improve.

We have a lot of work to do to make the lab the technology tutoring space and project lab that it needs to be, but if I can succeed as a supervisor, the goal is an eventuality, not simply a possibility.

Taking One on the Chin

I'd like to make it clear that I'm fortunate to have the boss I have. JB's a wise gal who knows how to use the strengths of us her subordinates. She began working for Library and Information Technology at Arcadia University in February 2008. I had high hopes for her from the start. She brought more than a few years of professional experience to the position. More importantly, she brought an amiable, warm personality that held high promise for bringing the reference librarians and instructional technologist into authentic synergism. Myself an aspiring manager (I also applied for the director's position she ultimately filled), I hoped to learn much by observing her.

I've paid attention to the suggestions JB's made for addressing various tasks and issues and I've valued each of her insights. A particularly thought-provoking lesson materialized today, though, and at my expense!

The library underwrote a number of information literacy grants that would pair teaching faculty members with faculty librarians to introduce IL to their individual courses. Three of us librarians paired up with faculty members for 7 courses. I had 2 courses, one in public health and one from among our first-year seminar courses.

My FYS professor is actually one I began work with this past fall. His grant would allow the course to incorporate IL even more fully. We met several times for the class last Fall. He already had numerous thoughts on how he could refine the course for next year.

The biggest hinderance to me and FYS prof working effectively together on this grant is that we're a bit too much birds of a feather. If I'm an idea person, he's an ideas person. We can come up with a lot by talking together, but I see him having difficulty nailing down all his ideas into a definitive few. And I was not the best partner to help him with the nailing.

With a major grant implementation deadline coming up at the end of June, JB told me she had spoken with him about his progress. She made an executive decision to switch collaborating librarians. I got benched for a nimble, more step-wise librarian.

Several factors came together to make this a good decision, though. My reliever is a hyperactive-type pseudo-ADHD librarian who has the best chance of fixing idea to paper by tirelessly interacting. For my part, I'm a pretty objective person who doesn't easily take things personally, so I was not offended by JB's decision. In fact, while she normally would go to great pains to make decisions like this with as much buy-in as time permits, she didn't even bother getting mine. She knew I wouldn't have a problem with it. And she was right.

Something I learned early about JB is that she values people's strengths and maximizes on them. Among the librarians, I'm probably the most willing and able to flex with the need of the moment. FYS prof needs a more step-wise collaborator? Give one to him. Even if it's not me.

For my part I did have a misgiving. I felt like I could have done a little better proceeding with my prof in a step-wise fashion. Here's what I learned from JB. When I shared this misgiving, she said, "Maybe you could have, but this is too small an issue to try to improve for. Let's save the effort for something more substantial."

I once heard a wise person say, "Pick your battles." This is what JB was saying to me: "Pick your battles against your own weaknesses. And I don't think this one is the one you should be picking."

Will I manage someone someday who also struggles with weaknesses? Sure. And I expect to draw upon this lesson when I do.