BFTP: Who are we missing when doing tech training?

For years I simply shook my head and sighed because our district-level secretaries insisted on using WordPerfect or MicrosoftWorks long after the rest of the district, including students, had moved on to Microsoft Office.

"Some people just can't change," I concluded.

It was only while moving our staff and students from Office to GoogleDocs that it dawned on me that our district office clerical staff, unlike our building secretaries, has never had the opportunity to participate in any technology training opportunities.

I revised my conclusion to "People can't be expected to change if they aren't helped with the process."

This year our department is offering regularly scheduled training opportunities for these secretaries. So it only took me 20 years to figure this out - better late than never.

What I've been wondering about lately, however, is how many other groups I've neglected as Tech Director in planning training in our organization. If we truly want to move to a more paperless, collaborative and transparent workplace, might these work groups also need some help with some tech skills?

• Custodial and maintenance staff
• Community education workers
• Paraprofessionals and aides
• District administrators/directors
• School board members
• Parent/community volunteers

I can certainly see the need to do training for all these folks in e-mail, online calendars, and GoogleDocs (as we use it for an increasing number of templates replacing paper forms). How many may need real basic kinds of skill in using a browser? How many could use more information on policies related to Internet use in the district? How to use our VOIP phone systems?

When teachers and building administrators comprise the bulk of your staff, you tend to focus on their training needs. But we've got to start thinking about everyone.

How does your district address the tech training needs for these important, but too often overlooked, workers?

Original post Nov 28, 2011

Encouraging autodidacts

I ran across this wonderful work in a reading not long ago. To tell the truth, I had to look up its meaning since I don't see the term often enough to have its definition firmly implanted in my weak brain. Learning the definition make me think I about my left thumb.

The nail is nearly grown out after whacking it with a hammer pretty good a couple months ago. I was trying to loosen a firmly stuck faucet cartridge that needed replacement in my bathtub. Using YouTube as my guide, I pretty much knew what I was doing with the plumbing. Well, except for the pounding my thumb bit.

YouTube has become my go-to teacher for a lot of stuff - hanging blinds, figuring out water filter cartridges in my fridge, eliminating garage door squeaks, and other small repair stuff. No class or classroom. No F2F human teacher. Project-based learning and competency-based assessment. All good.

Autodidactic learning is not just for the person too cheap to hire a repair person. I've needed to learn, of course, for my job over the years - computer programs, educational theories, new technologies, teaching strategies, etc. and few competencies have come as a result of traditional classes.

The true autodidact is intrinsically motivated. Self-assessing. Needs driven. What I would consider qualities of the ideal employee (or entrepreneur).

Our students are entering a workforce in which one will be increasingly expected to be self-taught. I hope we are encouraging, not discouraging autodidacticism in our classrooms.