The Tech Corps meets the growing demand for full-time technology support for teachers and students in the School District of Philadelphia schools. Through mentoring and training, this specially designed fellowship program offers recent high school graduates the opportunity to gain new skills in Information Technology (IT) while providing just-in-time technology support to schools and teachers, as well as after school technology clubs for students.
Based on the Digital Service Fellows program operated by the School District and EducationWorks for four years, the Tech Corps is in its second year with members serving in 15 schools managed by Edison Learning.
How It Works
Corpsmembers are assigned to schools to:
• Provide first level support to schools and teachers on hardware and software issues;
• Assist users with instruction in use of computer software and hardware; and
• Perform special projects, PC/Mac setup/assembly, server management, and placing safeguards on all computer lab equipment to prevent them from being rendered unusable.
The members fill the role of "troubleshooter" within their assigned schools. Everyday, assignments vary depending on the immediate as well as planned needs of the school. Four days a week, fellows provide direct IT service and one day a week, they engage in training and technical study preparing for industry-standard certifications such as CompTIA’s A+, Net+, and Security+.
Corpsmembers also conduct special projects to support student work and learning:
Afterschool programs: Members are now in the shoes of "trainer/mentor" passing on their knowledge and skills. Students meet weekly in the year long program to learn new software applications, the basics of computer operation, standard computer troubleshooting techniques, and how to access and work with web sites for school research. These students then become a resource to their schools to troubleshoot basic software and hardware problems.
Lab updates: The 450+ computers in the 15 computer labs are out-of-date. To bring them up-to-date and state-of-the-art, the members will be setting up, networking and configuring testing software on 35 new systems for each lab.
