Improve staff ict literacy

[Liam]

Just wondering how you all actively promote staff ict training. We often offer it and staff are reluctant to attend.

I fear that their priorities just don't include 'effective management of your mailbox' as an example. "

 

What are your views?

 

Liam

[Marc_EduTech]

Morning @Liam,

 

I've always found our most effective method is to make the training about things the staff are interested about, rather than identifying the need for them.

Quite often when we identify the need, it's because it would make our life easier in terms of support, but they see little benefit.

 

I recently conducted a training session that was all about "How can we help you?", and the aim was to open the the floor to staff, and allow them to guide the session.

 

It was amazing how by following this method, the staff were more open to attending, and also more open to discuss their issues.

I found that often other staff already had answers to the questions that were asked, and it made us all realise just what a wealth of knowledge was readily available throughout the school.

 

Since, we've had far fewer training requests for the day-to-day things, and we're able to focus our attention on things that we were previously distracted by due to insufficient staff knowledge.

 

Hope this answers your question at least a little [emoji4]

 

Marc_EduTech

[elsiegee40]

SLT support / three line whip is most effective

 

My governor school had a line in it's Good Ofsted report about making more effective use of IT in teaching.

 

SLT grabbed this and made it a SIP )School Improvement Plan) action point. Staff appraisals all contained one IT related target. As if by magic, training suddenly got attended!

[MatthewL]

Ask the question what are you wanting to achieve rather than what are you trying to do. Gets you further I find.

[Iain.Faulkner]

I like the idea of a "How can we help you?" Session and get people to come and discuss their issues with you.

 

We've only ever run either SLT supported "You must attend this" type training sessions (when we replaced the whole network one summer for example) or have run sessions based on what people have specifically asked for...we ran one on "the basics of Twitter" for example. Both of these types of training have been well attended. I do find that anything in between is poorly attended.

[strawberry]

We find there is a gulf inbetween what we want to train and what staff think they want to learn. All they are interested in is quick solutions around buzzwords ( Can you upgrade my pc to web 2.0, can you should me how I can teach with my Ipad in 5 minutes whilst I eat a sandwhich please?)

 

We found the best way to get training across is speak to union reps and make them think its their idea.

[rickjames]

90% of the time I just give up ever achieving such a thing.

[Duranis]

Quick slightly off topic question (but still in the same theme). Do any of you have a knowledge base for the staff with general IT info on (i.e. how do you open X file, Where do I find X folders, etc) and if you do does any of the staff use it?

 

Having explained how to change the default program for opening images to pretty much every member of staff, and then printing out a step by step guide, with pictures, and putting it up in the staff room (which nobody seems to ever look at) I was thinking about setting up an FAQ/Knowledge base for staff that covers the computer basics. I'm fairly sure it would go completely unused though.

[halbaradkenafin]

We have some help videos we've made for various things and remind staff about them every few months and ask for suggestions on more to create.

 

We've ran training sessions in the past on Impero (only 1 attendee but it's intuitive enough that it doesn't need much training) and on using our RDS setup. I'll probably send a few emails out in the next few weeks asking if staff would like help with anything once exams are over as it's probably the only quiet time of year for most of our teachers.

[rom1984]

We tend to get a better turn out if we call them "drop in sessions" and don't really set an agenda. I try to do them every 2-3 weeks and just basically say I'm in the IT Suite between 2-4 if you need help with anything, questions, how to's etc then just pop in. Sometimes no one turns up other times 2-3 people.

[bossman]

@Liam

 

I used to run a coffee and cake meeting for staff to drop in and voice their opinions as to what would make their use of IT more valuable, I found that if you offer the staff something for nothing then they will attend if it is to their benefit.

 

It worked very well and we followed this up with video helpdesk outlining various IT activities which Staff felt they needed more help with. Once this was in place it seemed to take root and the Staff just pass on the learning to new members of Staff as they come in which is very effective.

 

If we come across a certain problem which has been replicated in a few requests we make a video which covers this and how to overcome this and Staff love it.

 

Inevitably you get the few members of Staff who don't attend any meetings at all even SLT ones as they feel they know everything! (Poor souls)

 

P.S. Marks and Spencer's do a great line in Cakes and Coffee which the staff love.

 

Good luck

[Liam]

Ironic, one of my techies is a ex student