P.O.C. Piece of cake. It’s my Dad’s favorite saying. One of my favorite sayings is: the more difficult it is to do, the more you’ll appreciate it in the end. And I, personally, found it true for the training portion of the LMS conversion process.
We were certainly prepared. As Natalie mentioned last week, we went to great lengths to make sure that there were tutorials available on every conceivable section of Sakai that usability testers indicated might be trouble. Or that we though might need further explanation. That helped us prepare for the actual training itself.
The training came in waves. The first wave of training was for us, the online course development team. By the time we attended the virtual training session with our rSmart representative, though, we were already very familiar with Sakai. But that time going through the training allowed us to pinpoint areas that we thought might be troublesome for our course mentors and facilitators. Subsequently, we were able to focus on those problem areas during course mentor and facilitator training sessions.
IT and administrators were trained on how to use Sakai next. As their training had a different flavor than ours, I won’t go into detail about it.
Right on the heels of that came the training for the fall field test facilitators. This training was a basic walk through, each facilitator with a course developer. For example, I shared my screen with Alison, our Infusing Arts into the Curriculum facilitator, and briefly described the tools she would be using in Sakai. Since she is fairly tech savvy, this went rather well. She did ask for some specific information, particularly the reports tool, and we went over that in more detail. Alison actually had a pretty good handle on it and I didn’t hear too much from her during the field test.
This was actually good practice for us, the online course development team, since the next wave of training was for the course mentors. We had originally planned to only do one live virtual session but ended up doing two since the first went over the time limit. This training was coupled with practice courses. Each mentor was given a set of tasks to complete with a practice course. They also had access to the facilitator and student tutorials that we developed as part of the Orientation week. The online course development team was present at each of the sessions to help clarify information about Sakai as well as act as tech support for Adobe Connect.
And, if that wasn’t enough training, we had one final wave to go through: facilitator training. The facilitators actually had three sessions to choose from, depending on their schedules. During a two hour live virtual session, our rSmart rep walked them through all the features of Sakai. Additionally, each facilitator was given a set of tasks to complete within a practice course. They also had access to the tutorials developed for Orientation. There was at least two course developers at each session to help answer questions and to act as tech support for Adobe Connect.
It seems pretty repetitive doesn’t it? For the course designers it was but it helped us find out what course mentors and facilitators needed in the way of additional training. We actually added on several tutorials in response to questions asked at the training sessions! For those who were participating in the training for the first time, these training sessions introduced them to Sakai. Overall, the course mentor’s and facilitator’s training was well received.
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What percentage of respondents found each part of the training somewhat or extremely helpful? |
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| 1. Sakai Tutorials (Student and Instructor) |
95.7% |
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| 2. Documents |
100.0% |
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| 3. Live Training Session with Kara |
87.0% |
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| 4. Practice Course |
91.3% |
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| 5. Mentor Support |
73.9% |
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From here on out the Developing Online Facilitation Skills course replaces the training sessions that we held for current course mentors and facilitators. Couple with the facilitator and student tutorials available through the Help menu, it is a very well rounded training experience.
The virtual training, both live sessions and asynchronous tutorials, were an essential part of the conversion process. They have laid the groundwork necessary for our course mentors and facilitators to use Sakai to the maximum benefit of our students.
The next step, at least for the course developers, was course conversion. Join us next week as Christy walks you through that phase of the LMS conversion process!
