Keeping students and staff connected

Feb 17, 2011

Photo: IT technician Darren Asselstine

Many may not know him but they should. Darren Asselstine works hard to keep students and staff at area schools connected - to their school computers, that is. Darren works full-time as an Information Technology Services technician for the Limestone District School Board and spreads out his working hours between Land O'Lakes PS in Mountain Grove, Clarendon Central PS in Plevna, Arden Court in Arden, and NAEC in Cloyne.

Darren graduated from a two-year program in Computer Networking and Technical Support at St. Lawrence College in 2001 and was hired by the LDSB in February 2009.

His job entails maintaining and updating all the computers and technology devices at those sites as well as ensuring that everything on each of their networks is working properly. “I also assist teachers who want to connect their laptops to the school networks so that they can do the work they have to do on their own computers.”

Darren looks after close to 250 computers and by far the largest network he maintains are the 100 computers at NAEC.

Darren makes regular routine visits to the area schools, which he finds is the best way to a manage things. “That way if students or staff at a certain school are having specific issues- they know where to reach me and can contact me in advance.”

In the not so distant future at Land O’ Lakes Public School, Darren will be configuring five brand new Netbooks that will function as mobile mini labs for students. Darren also configures smartboards, an interactive type of chalkboard for different area schools.

Every job has its challenges and Darren says that keeping up with the problems that need attention can be difficult. To make things easier each school has one staff member who is in charge of reporting and placing orders for work that needs doing at each site. “That way I can keep track of what needs doing where and when, which can save me a lot of time.”

Each school has its own individual labs and each lab has at least 30 systems in it. “I have one lab at a site which tends to have a little bit more intensive work going on and there is always something there that needs tending to.”

Asked about available jobs in his field Darren said, “There are not a lot of permanent positions out there right now, which is really just a result of the nature of the market. People are usually hired for a fixed period of time and there's not a lot of turnover.” He's grateful to have a full-time job with benefits and says that the only drawback is traveling from Kingston in the winter months - he is thankful to his parents who gave him a brand new set of winter tires, which he says “help him to get his job done.”