Day 10 – Office 365 HELP

09/26/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 10

We live in a world of constant change. This is particularly true in the field of educational technology where there are continual updates and improvements on both the hardware and software side of things.

Most users of technology look to their technical people for answers, and rightly so. It takes a great deal of technical expertise to keep a modern organization running smoothly. What others often overlook is that the technical folks are learning right along with other faculty and staff. Becoming proficient with using Help to find answers is a critical skill for teachers and students. 

Office 365 is brand new to all of us here at EIU. I have used many other systems and a lot of that prior knowledge will translate to this new system, but not all of it. There is a learning curve for any new system and this is one of the reasons I started this “30 Days with Office 365” series so I could help document the processes and issues I have had as a new user. If you are reading this blog you have hopefully learned a few new things along with me on this journey.

One of the things most faculty strive to instill in their students is the will of learning how to learn. Technical staff must be continual learners, we need to be able to stay one step ahead of our user base. This is not a magical exercise but rather one of constant learning, and re-learning.

I encourage others to be their own problem solvers as technical support is not always immediately available. This is not because I do not want to help, I do, but I am not always around and it is frankly better when you do not have to depend upon others for every little problem. I approach teaching the same way, I want to empower my students to be problem solvers and own their learning.

Here are a few strategies to help you begin to get yourself unstuck from whatever has you baffled. Try these basic steps first before contacting technical support staff.

1) 

Nearly all programs today have a help feature. Newsfeeds in Office 365 was a topic that was new to me so I thought I would share some of the steps I went through myself to get a better grasp on this topic. To access Help in Office 365 simply click on the question mark (?) located in the upper-right corner of the browser next to the Gear icon and select Help from the pull-down menu.

The Help information you will be given is “context sensitive” meaning that if you are on the Newsfeed page you will receive help about how to use the Newsfeed feature. If you are on the Calendar page you will receive information about the Calendar feature when you click on the ? and then select Help, and so on... 

As bad as I hate to admit it, reading the Help files will often quickly answer a question I have about a particular feature. Sometimes videos are even embedded within the help system that you can watch to get more familiar with a task.

There is a saying in the tech community known as RTFM - “Read the Fine Manual” that is often mentioned tongue-in-cheek when we begin looking for answers. Help is often just a click away in Office 365.

Most people, myself included, go to the manual as a last resort. Online help systems have greatly improved over the years but technical documentation still suffers from the bad reputation of being long-winded and confusing. That is why most people prefer just to go to an expert that knows the answer. Alas, experts are not always immediately available so you will need to take charge of your learning and press forward with problem solving.

2)
If reading the HELP section does not answer my question I will next go to Google or Bing and do a search for my particular issue. Google and Bing are your friends. 

3) 
If it is an issue that I think that someone else may have already made a video tutorial of I will go to YouTube and search for the particular issue using keywords like, Office 365 Newsfeeds Documents.

4)

If none of the above strategies work then I will send out a message to my Professional Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter to see if anyone in my PLN has a solution. If you carefully groom your PLN with experts from diverse backgrounds you will be amazed by how helpful Twitter can be.

5)
Finally, I will seek out the expertise of someone that I know to be an expert, either F2F or send a detailed email describing the situation.

Notice that in the examples above I begin with myself by using the built-in Help System, next I go to Google or Bing and do a Search, then I go to YouTube, and finally as a last resort I go to my PLN or ask an expert for help. I want to exhaust as many possibilities myself before I take the valuable time away from a colleague.

Having said that, there comes a point to where it is better to seek help than to waste your time fumbling for answers. You have to use your judgement and common sense to know when to seek additional help. 

Office 365 and Cloud computing are new paradigms for all of us and major adjustments will need to be made regarding the new and exciting possibilities that this new form of computing offers. I am finding that sometimes we have to throw away the old paradigms of computing and embrace the new with Office 365. There are many new features in Office 365 to explore. 

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Twitter: @tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc