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Tag: Training

SLS Request, Reflect and Record

Training on the new SLS* process for requesting and recording staff development which is built on the back of a new ‘system’, which is actually just some customised JIRA forms and dashboards. It’s nice to see a reflection element build into the system. After a staff development session you need to go back into the system and fill out a self-reflection form which goes to your line manager. If you don’t complete this within five days then you and your line manager get a prompt via email.

* SLS – Student and Learning Support, the service department to which WaLTS belongs.

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Information Governance

A whistle-stop tour covering all aspects of information governance, including the Data Protection Act, the Freedom of Information Act, information assurance, information security, copyright and intellectual property, records management and IT security. The training also covered how these inform the development of the University’s policies and procedures.

After the session I collared the trainers to suggest turning their training materials into a self-contained online course which could be made available for all staff to complete in their own time, an idea which went down very well.

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Certified ScrumMaster

Attended a two-day Certified ScrumMaster training course delivered by David Hicks of Agil8 and the ScrumAlliance, one of the country’s leading and most highly respected trainers on Agile and Scrum.

The course was extremely informative and useful and I learned a great deal about Agile and Scrum. The two methodologies were treated almost as one, except where clarification was required on exactly what would come up on the exam. This was also true of some examples of common, but useful practice which are not ‘pure Scrum’, such as having a hardening sprint to move product backlog items from ‘done’ to ‘done, done’. It was also excellent for networking, learning from real-world examples and getting ideas on how Scrum can be applied to learning materials development rather than software development, which is obviously my area of interest.

Finally, the course either introduced or expanded my knowledge of a number of other development methodologies including Waterfall (and in particular the philosophical differences between Waterfall and Agile), Kanban and Extreme Programming (XP), and related business practices such as Kaizen and Muda.

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eRecruitment System (Stonefish)

Training on all stages of the University’s recruitment and selection process, and how the eRecruitment system Stonefish has been adopted and integrated to support stages 3-6:

  1. Establish the need for the vacancy
  2. Identify the requirement
  3. Executive authorisation
  4. Attraction strategy
  5. Shortlisting
  6. Selection
  7. Appointment
  8. Integration

The training also demonstrated the process for applicants and explained how this has been significantly improved by, for example, allowing people to store details for future applications.

https://jobs.sunderland.ac.uk

http://uk.linkedin.com/company/university-of-sunderland/careers?trk=careers_promo_module

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Technology Bytes, Semester 1

Back in late September / early October I was asked by a colleague in our Academic Development Unit to develop a series of sessions on learning technology to plug into their CPD plan, the result was Technology Bytes! Six sessions running every week starting in late October covering:

  • SunSpace and ClassLive
  • Solar (Equella) and Articulate Storyline
  • Turnitin and Prezi
  • ePortfolio (Mahara) and Thing Link
  • Streaming Service (Helix Media Library) and PowToon
  • SMART Boards and Audio / Video Feedback and Marking

My intention had been for each session to briefly demonstrate one of the University’s core learning technology tools alongside something new, funky and maybe even just a little bit sexy, then to have a discussion on what has been demonstrated and an open Q&A. Once the sessions were going however, I quickly learned that our academic community were expecting more formal planned training which went into depth on each topic.

Now, as I am busy planning the second series to run throughout semester 2, this is a key lesson which I am taking on board and will stick to one system or tool in each session, but will be including a dedicated session on external presentation tools which will cover Storyline, Prezi, PowToon and Thing Link together, and another new one dedicated to mobile apps. Audio and video feedback and marking I want to expand out to a session on its own as there is a great deal of potential here to enhance the student experience and some of the work I have seen where this has been used has had fantastic results.

A further improvement which I will be making is to re-word the titles and descriptions to bring the pedagogy to the fore, rather than the tool itself, in an attempt to reach more people and increase participation in the sessions.

I am reliably informed that the programme as a whole has been very well received by ‘higher-ups’ and that they feature prominently in all of the new Faculty development plans, with strong encouragement for staff to attend. Very encouraging.

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Recruitment and Selection

Attended a one day training course run by our Human Resources department which covered all aspects of the University’s policies and legal obligations in regards to the entire recruitment and selection process, from identifying the need for a new post, to advertisement, shortlisting, interviewing and following through to appointment, induction, probation and long term embedding into the team and the University.

It was a very illuminating session where I learned more about the University’s ‘Two Tick’ guaranteed interview scheme for anyone who has declared a disability and meets the essential criteria for the position, the circumstances in which recruitment can be extended abroad and market uplifts can be applied, about a range of services HR offers to assist such as providing psychometric and personality tests for applicable roles, and much more.

This was a following on from my involvement with recruiting our new intern. For that I had a very quick informal run through of everything but with emphasis on the interview as that was what was immediately required. The session today has given me a lot to think about in terms of how to make our new team member fit in and happy to work with us.

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Handover Documentation

One of my first projects after being seconded to TEL Support was writing procedure notes for my colleagues on the Senior Helpline covering all of the customer support I provide for Blackboard, PebblePad and associated systems. When I was offered the position at the University of Sunderland only a little later this became a much bigger job. Thus to date I have now written or updated some 61 procedures, mostly for the Helpline, a 5,000 word handover document which covers everything else and for which TEL Support will be responsible going forward, compiled a small knowledgebase gathering together every piece of documentation I have on supporting PebblePad, delivered four training sessions to the Helpline, spent an entire afternoon training a willing and brave volunteer on everything to do with PebblePad, and finally delivered a whole day of training to members of the TEL Support team covering absolutely everything I could think of and the aforementioned handover document. And this is just the ‘official’ work, the amount of informal training I have given in the form of additional assistance to individual queries would total days.

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PebblePad Training and Submission Fault

Delivered a training session to a cohort of around a dozen nursing students today who had been having multiple problems completing and submitting a particular portfolio. I had been working with one of their tutors on this for some time but wasn’t really getting anywhere as the portfolio was set up correctly and working for a test student account I put on the Gateway. In the end it was, essentially, a training issues as the student’s didn’t realise that they couldn’t just upload a Word document and submit to the Gateway, but had to complete the portfolio or copy and paste anything they had written in Word into it, and it was then the portfolio itself which has to be submitted to the Gateway.

It was a very useful and successful session. I not only cleared this long-outstanding problem, resolving three calls in the process, but was able to fix a number of more general issues too.

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