Simplify Your Advising Flow with This Equipment Management System

When I started advising a billion and a half years ago, I had one camera: a Sony Mavica. It wasn’t hard to manage–it resided in my bottom desk drawer, and I had one floppy disk that stayed in it unless I was transferring the files to my computer.

Times have changed, and EVERY year, equipment management has become harder. I need to keep track of who has each piece of equipment, and I need to make sure the equipment secure yet accessible to my editors because–face it–none of us can be available all day, every day. And the day that I’m out at a conference is most likely the day with the biggest news opportunity of the year, right?

I’ve tried a variety of equipment management options, from a piece of paper to keep track of dates and names to a barcode scanning system that integrated with our school library’s database.

The thing is that technology fails. Ultimately, if all the equipment is behind a locked door that only I have the key for, that equipment is useless because no one can get to it.

Setting up

We have evolved. This year, we’re working with an old set of lockers we’ve been storing odds and ends in over the last several years. Here’s what I used:

  • combination luggage locks
  • lockers
  • vinyl numbers
  • library book pockets and cards

Each locker is numbered. That number corresponds with the number on the camera and camera bag. Inside the door to each locker is a library card pocket with a library card.

In use

When a student needs a camera, our editors know the combination to the locks. Each combination is the same, so they don’t need to memorize a lot of combinations.

The editors access the cameras, check them over and have the staffer sign and date the library card. When the camera returns, the editors cross off the name on the library card and return the camera to the correct locker and lock it back up.

We use library cards for tripods and SD cards, as well.

Easy peasy. I love that it puts the onus and freedom on the editors, and I can keep teaching instead of playing equipment guard. Plus, it’s uncomplicated and doesn’t rely on technology that doesn’t always work.

Do you have any equipment management tips? Leave a comment below–we’d love to hear what you do!

Julie Tiedens

Julie Tiedens is a high school journalism and English teacher at Black River Falls High School, a school of 500 students in rural Wisconsin. She advises the student online newspaper, a daily announcements show, the yearbook and a PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs school site. Over the last two decades, one of her biggest goals has been to make her students better media consumers and creators. Another goal? Raise a son who loves the news just as much as she does.

Julie Tiedens has 15 posts and counting. See all posts by Julie Tiedens

One thought on “Simplify Your Advising Flow with This Equipment Management System

  • August 28, 2019 at 7:37 am
    Permalink

    Julie – this is great! I was thinking of lockers last year, but this is proof they can work!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.