![]() Students may only just be back at school but for me, the school year began at the end of July. Actually no, new teacher orientation began for us back in June, when we added all new faculty to a new teacher bootcamp, giving them the option to start digging around in our most frequently used systems. As a team, one of our goals is to empower users, that means developing systems and processes that allow them to help themselves. The bootcamp is housed in our LMS, Schoology, and was put together by the cross river tech team 2 years ago, with updates and revisions made in the Spring. It’s a bit of a labor of love, particularly when interfaces change so frequently. Actually, scratch that, it’s a labor of love and an endless source of frustration. In previous years, teachers have then had a face to face session for one hour in a conference room at a hotel on The Bund. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great hotel but not the ideal environment when you have a bunch of jet lagged, punch drunk adults who just want to walk around and enjoy the view. This year, we upgraded the process for our newbies with a 3 hour session hosted at each campus. In addition to being able to hand out laptops, connect to wifi, and change passwords more efficiently, we were able to host short (20- 30minute) mini sessions around major systems:
![]() I ran the Schoolgy session and in addition to orienting them to the bootcamp, because let’s face it, uprooting your entire life doesn’t leave a huge amount of time available, I created a sandbox in which they could practice their skills by completing a series of challenges. For us, as a Tech Team, it was a long, tiring day as we started at one campus in the morning then piled into a car for the sprint across the city to present on the other campus, all done against the clock. The payoff came a couple of days later when one of our new elementary teachers found me and gave me a big thumbs up- she needed to print a receipt for her flight and was able to do it independently using the ‘how to’ guides posted in the bootcamp.
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About the AuthorPassionate about learning, creativity, innovation and tech. Brit Abroad keen to work with others to make the world a little kinder. Archives
April 2019
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