. I offered many "Orientation" sessions. I was very clear about this- if yo=
u did not know how to print with Office 2003 entering the room, you would n=
ot know how to print with Office 2007 when you exited the room. It was simp=
ly 1 hour of where everything went and of course, how to use the extensive =
help feature included in MS Office. These were voluntary and many attended.=
I even had 1 who attended 4 times but that is another story.
Now, as this was optional and I did not want lack of attendance to be an is=
sue when people had problems. So, I also created a series of videos and pos=
ted them on Youtube. These covered many of the main areas that would be imp=
ortant to getting quickly acquainted with Office 2007. I had many who did n=
ot come to the sessions but used the videos. I did not provide sessions to =
the students but did supply them with links to the videos and made myself a=
vailable at the start of school. It was amazing how easily they adapted to =
the new environment.
There is a third group- those who just figured it out on their own then cam=
e to me with questions that would have been beyond where the rest of the fa=
culty and staff were and would not have been covered in the orientation ses=
sion. The final group were those who shared a specific job function where t=
heir use of the tools required a special session. These were individuals wh=
o performed tasks that most in the school did not need to worry about. This=
mix of approaches worked well as everyone could select the method the met =
their specific needs.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the videos are still online so feel free to=
use them. I have been surprised by the wide viewing these videos have rece=
ived global. One of them even has over 11,000 views-not viral but give a gu=
y a break, it is a video about Office 2007 :). Now there are many other vid=
eos out there as well so you might search for skills that you will need tha=
t are not covered in this collection.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3DF8D7ABA905A4B2B6
Cheers,
Chris Bigenho
Dir. of Ed. Tech
Greenhill School
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