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Week 7 - Customer Service from the Fischbowl

Last week, I talked about the article from the Fishbowl blog on why there is little to no excuse as to why a teacher should be what is considered "Computer Illiterate" in 2008. I read through several of the Fischbowl articles looking for a "good one" for me to blog about for this assignment. Well, most of the articles were a little to technically oriented for me (but were right up the alley for my husband who is an IT Manager). There was one article I could relate to, the May 16, 2007 blog on Customer Service. After watching the YouTube video on HP's customer service (or lack of), I was reminded of the same level of customer service I received from a "technician" when my AT&T DSL at home went down and my husband was too busy at work to help me. I was treated far worse then the poor HP customer on the video. My husband has had similar experiences with higher level technical support (especially the "outsourced to a foreign country kind"). The level o f phone support these days is just horrible.

The Fischbowl blog touched on two levels of understanding for me; his view of "customer service" and how my future profession directly relates to being a "customer service rep" to my students. On one level, there is a problem with many people today not being versed in computer operation on basic levels, as touched on by last weeks blog. I know that I must have a firm grasp on computer technology at a good enough level not only help myself become a better teacher, and therefor better service my students using all the modern tools, but to become what my husband calls a "Power User;" someone who can help themselves most of the time with computer operations and only call on support for the really big problems. The better I understand computers, the better support I can be to my students. On the other level, I must be able to better serve my students no matter how busy I might be during the week. The better prepared I am by being more "computer literate" (or a Power User), the better I can help students solve problems by not just solving a problem for them, but showing them how I got to the solution and therefore giving them a deeper understanding of the problem. "Give a man a fish; you feed him for a day...teach that man how to fish; you feed him for a lifetime"