os4_defender

Conveners, you (or your designee) should update your wiki page with:

Training your Constituents - how do you get your parents/teachers invested in the software?
 * How do you train your faculty/staff, parents, etc to utilize the new Podium tools?
 * Jacqui Wishart - WhippleHill Software Consultant
 * names of the participants
 * and a high-level summary and sharing of resources

Schools have done the following that have been successful in training **FACULTY**:


 * Divided teachers into two sessions based on skill level so tech savvy people could be together and not get bored or frustrated with the users who needed more detailed instruction (40-45 faculty members)
 * Divided teachers by division due to comfort levels working with their own immediate colleagues regardless of skill level (75 faculty members)
 * Set up small class rotation with a mentor in each group. Made sure no more than one of the least tech savvy/complainers were together. Made sure there was one positive, tech savvy person. Played on personality matches.
 * Hands-on learning/training. They each got their own laptop so they could learn as they did.
 * Allowed 1st semester for faculty to optionally post assignments (then answer those questions and get people invested) and then make it mandatory for 2nd semester

Schools have done the following that were not successful in training FACULTY:
 * Split up by grade level - that proved to not be as effective. Most pre-school teachers were lost when it came to technology.

What they would change about their own training process:

Change the time length of training sessions for teachers - give more time to the people who are not as tech savvy or as eager to learn.

Videos - tend to be too long to watch if they are anything over 5 mins - difficult to make and upload

Hands on Training for **Parents**:

Set up time slots for parents to sign up (set a max number of parents per session) and then someone from the school would train them very hands-on. Would sit the parents down and have them log in.

Difficulty to make parents want to log in - they find it easier to just call the school and ask for a phone number vs visit the site/mobile site to find the directory information - the problem stems from Head of School/authority not making it a strict policy.

Need to have a consistent policy plan for all school levels and set expectations for what parents and teachers are expected to do and how to contribute to the site population.

New parents vs parents who will soon be past parents - new parents tend to be more eager and willing to attend training sessions.

Is it worth not allowing information to be accessible any other way? This may force the parents to log in (ex: not mailing report cards anymore).

High School - having difficulty getting students to log in and not having any success in making them. - May be due to spotty use of assignments by faculty - never mandated from top that assignments need to be posted, so no real need for students to login.

Second Baptist - for older, less tech-savvy faculty members, the school bookmarked the mobile version so that is the first thing they see - less options and make it easier for them to find what they need for important tasks.

Build in training every year in the faculty orientation. Sometimes the administration doesn't realize how time consuming learning and maintaining knowledge of the tools is and it needs to be recognized.

PDFs with helpful information is a good approach - make these available at back-to-school events when a group of parents/teachers are going to be all in the same room.

Better to make the information available and run the risk of some not reading it.

Get people to buy in to the system and have it mentioned in as many different school events, from all different people to help encourage the use.

Need to account for learning loss over the summer - Summit School offers optional training a few weeks prior to the start of the school year for faculty to refresh their memory and ask their questions before the back to school rush.

What could WhippleHill do differently to help more?

- Would like videos to show parents/teachers quick video snippets that admins could use to show people and then elaborate on - Create video scripts with some basic lingo and the school can customize - Send more examples of schools that have created resources - File that all schools can contribute to with a list of 'what I wish I had known' for launch stuff so they can share the knowledge and experiences - send it early enough to really have a good idea of what they may want to know (this can be related to design and training)

New Hampton School has a good help wiki

With the new release - WhippleHill will be working on providing more tools and documentation to help train the school's customers (parents/teachers/students). It's always been focused on the manager/admin people but we will shift training documentation to focus on how parents/teacher/students will be learning what to do.