Technical outreach

Abstract

Grinnell College is a small, liberal arts college in the Midwest with a student population of approximately 1400. As technology pervaded classrooms and all faculty and staff members acquired their own computers, the Information Technology Services (ITS) division found ourselves wishing for a magical spell to impart users with knowledge and training. Accordingly, the department developed training classes. What a concept that was! For a while, there were many topics offered at varying times to accommodate differences in participants' schedules. Unfortunately, this just didn't work, and the magic was still missing To make matters worse, the ITS staff began especially wishing for a magic charm that would lead participants out of their offices and in to the classrooms for computer-related training and application courses.There are two main problems with offering training to faculty and staff members. The first, is for some reason they just don't attend. Faculty members especially appear to be above sitting in a technology training class with other people, even though the information they would obtain would assist them in their daily work. The second problem is training sessions tend to be too comprehensive. While it is nice to spend three hours learning Microsoft Outlook for example, sometimes all the new skills aren't retained long enough that they can be utilized. That being the case, it is frustrating to teach or participate in training sessions that lead to poor retention due to extended times (sometimes as long as weeks or months), between learning the skill or application and then implementing new skills in a productive manner.In response, one academic support team decided to provide Desktop Outreach training for their constituents. The training sessions were designed as customized training lessons to be provided in the offices of trainees for 30-60 minutes. They were goal-focused, and at the end of the sessions, tangible skills or documents were produced. Topics ranged from Creating a CD to sessions like Using Outlook with my Palm Pilot. The training sessions were held at convenient times for the faculty or staff members and they were interactive. The sessions turned out to be valuable. Taking the time to spend with faculty and staff was also a great customer service tool that helped to develop positive relationships with the faculty and staff members for the future.