New Staff & Student Induction

[pete]

What do people have in place for training new staff and pupils with regard to using the network effectively?

Things like.....

Computing basics (email, office apps, web)
Where and what things are
What they can do
What they can't do
Who to contact regarding / division of responsibilities
How to report problems
How to use non-obvious systems

etc

Here, its too often a case of learning "on the job" and one-on-one sessions for specific things (SIMS). Kids are taught how to do things incorrectly by teachers and then everything gets terribly recursive. I'd like to prevent this cycle.

On the staff side, I have got tentative support from SMT about formal inductions for staff, but kids.......?

[mark]

That's a great idea Pete. Here we have several teachers preaching several wats of doing things, as well as pressganged staff who have no idea - and that's just taught IT. Other staff usually wing it.
Would be so good to get in there and set everyone off properly. A staff induction pack would be great. Like you say - how do you get access to the pupils/ y7's?

[Snuffkins]

I suppose it would be too much too ask for them to take the training they've been given and use it to update what they are teaching the pupils ...

I know this may seem a bit harsh, but i don't think new staff should be given access to the system until they have demonstrated at least basic IT skills and have gone through some sort of induction as you say.

What I would like to see here is an area where staff have access to training materials for various applications and can develop their skills at their own pace as well as regular development sessions, which could either be booked by who ever wishes to take part or organised on a regular basis department by department or both.

I'd really like to see them develop reasonable skills and not be so afraid of the technology they're using and finally start understanding what it is they are doing.

It just creating the training material that might take some time

[beeswax]

At my last school all the training materials were on the staff intranet, and the staff intranet was the default home page for all staff. it may have changed since I left.
beeswax

[TechMonkey]

Network manager here takes the first Y7 class they ever have so he can explain all the rules very clearly, hand out passwords and usernames, make sure everyone can logon and navigate the intranet and shared areas. Means nearly anyone busted for doing something wrong can't use the excuse of not knowing the rules and consequences. Students also get an info sheet with their user name on that covers all the rules so even if they arrive late they are shown the rules, as wella s rules being up on the wall in every IT area.

Staff have to come to us to get logons where they are told about security measures, given a sheet with a some information they need and a quick brief on security and asked if they want to know anything. We also have an IT Support page on the intranet, spelling out our times and areas of responsibilites along with other areas and the people actually responsible (our pass the buck area). An igorned FAQ is there that we have built up over time.

We are considering doing some forced Inset training to cover the basics and some interesting things they can do, though this will be easier come September when we are going for a PC for staff in every room to do electronic registration. As ever though time is always the problem and teachers tend not to worry about what they are missing, only wanting to know when they need to.