Reducing staff stress by improving workflows

The company uses office procedures based on traditional office software. But, examining those procedures shows that there are significantly better ways of handling the tasks, with the potential to reduce staff time and stress (amongst other things).

The guiding principle is that the status of any activity in the workflow should be obvious. Implementations that follow from this principle involve all aspects of workflow. The key (at least to the IT aspect!) is to utilize software that can underpin the workflow, generating documents as required and reporting on stages in the workflow.

There is a natural reluctance to making drastic changes for fear of disrupting normal operations, so improving the procedures must take place incrementally and over a long period, building confidence as we go. It is occurring.

Of course, the benefits go far beyond reducing staff stress!

Developing IT procedures

Most day-to-day IT procedures are very straighforward, involving only single applications, e.g. Microsoft Word.

However, some operations, especially those to do with graphics, can have many steps, involving several computer programs with a range of possible solutions.

Developing the most suitable operational procedures demands knowledge of a wide range of programs and the different ways in which these might be utilized to achieve the end.

Documentation and training must then be provided.

It's about using IT powerfully!

Upgrading a company's network

The company is highly IT-savvy and is a wholly Macintosh operation.

The initial brief was to upgrade equipment as required to provide better operational performance. This was achieved rapidly and with significant economy.

The ongoing brief is to provide IT support including maintaining the equipment, providing hardware and software support, identifying and correcting workflow bottlenecks with IT solutions and providing training as required.

This has been manifestly achieved: IT performace has been measurably improved and support requirements have been reduced to about 1 day per week.

Upgrading the computer facilities of a school

The school had $50,000 to spend on upgrading its technology. This included computers, software, other in-class technologies and professional development of teachers.

Prior to speaking to me, the ICT Committee had earmarked $30,000 for the computers and software. After our first meeting, we determined that the requirements could be greatly exceeded with a significantly lower budget. Eventually, the computers and software came to $12,000.

By this saving, we almost doubled the school's budget for in-class technologies and professional development.

Climbing Google's hit-list

Since the inception of the World Wide Web, web-page creators have tried to elevate their web pages on the hit lists of the search engines. In turn, the search engines have tried to identify manipulative practices.

Google (by far the predominant search engine) is designed to give the best results possible to the searcher (not necessarily the web-page creator) and the algorithms it uses to calculate its hit list are strongly focused on that requirement. Attempts to manipulate web pages in order to bias Google's assessments can result in Google taking drastic action. For example, in 2006, BMW Germany was delisted by Google for some time!

BMW has a high profile so that most people who might have been interested in their products already knew about BMW and could find the company without Google (the URL is obvious). Accordingly, the bottom-line implications for BMW were slight.

However, if a company relied on attracting customers via Google, the impact would be severe.

My project used entirely legitimate methods to elevate web pages. In all cases, the pages moved to the first page of Google's hit list.

There were no 'tricks' involved. Although software can assist the process, it depends principally on better business strategies and training.

Formal training

Formal training is provided in various settings for a wide range of applications on Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Experience ranges from teaching school children through company inductees to retirees; from raw beginners needing courses that start with the basics to experienced users seeking brief, specialized upskilling.

On-site professional development for teachers

The school's computers and network were upgraded and it was time to upskill the teachers in the technology.

Training was provided in accessing the network, file management, &c. Teachers were trained in the use of various applications. Ways of using them in the classroom were discussed.

The success of this led to a 10-week professional development programme.

The aim was to provide individualized professional development in IT for the teaching staff with preference for professional development that would have direct application in the classroom. Each teacher had an individual professional development plan.

Although classroom activities were targeted, the objective was to not skew the learning objectives of students towards IT but, rather, to augment the programme and better support the prevailing learning objectives. This dictated that the tools to be used should (for the most part) be those that were available to the students, i.e. on the networked computers.

It was anticipated that, because of the diversity of IT skills amongst the staff, the requirements would vary considerably between teachers. So, it was expected that the type of support would range from fundamental aspects of the operating system to using advanced applications and that the support required delivery would range from individuals to level groups to the entire teaching staff.

Not only were teachers starting from different points, they would also heading in different directions: so a variety of activities was anticipated, broadening the knowledge base of the staff as a whole.

The range of areas covered included movie-making, desktop publishing, using science simulation software in the classroom, developing proficiency with Excel, web searching strategies, desktop videoconferencing, website development.

Because the professional development was happening throughout the teaching term, organizing convenient session times was expected to be a significant challenge. However, teachers enthusiastically arranged sessions before school, at lunchtime and after school - the times being determined by the teachers. There was also extensive dialogue via email.

Outcomes were excellent with staff meeting their aims in breadth and depth, also commenting very positively on the process.

Apart from the explicit, curriculum-focused outcomes, there was a clearly observable increase in the willingness to 'have a go' and some staff actually identified their improved confidence in formal feedback comments. This was especially observable in staff who had previously identified themselves as being poor at IT.

More information

Fast-tracking primary school students to rich learning

Sessions were held with classes of primary-school students to fast-track them into authentic and rich learning tasks.

Particular emphasis was placed on Inspiration (and Kidspiration), iStopMotion, iPhoto and AppleWorks.

More information

The diversity of life

Background and objectives

This unit provides an introduction to biological diversity and ecology for students undertaking their first semester of degree-level biology in diverse courses, e.g. environmental science and nursing.

It is based on a unit that had already run for many years and the primary institutional objective of this development was to make the unit/subject suitable for distance education (with no attendance component).

Early discussions showed that it was possible to achieve this and, at the same time, improve the on-campus experience.

Although it was not an objective to reduce teaching loads of the four lecturers involved, it was important that these should not be increased.

The result is a unit that has been radically transformed:

• enhancing the staff-student learning collaboration

• promoting dialogue rather than lectures

• contextualizing materials to overcome some of the abstraction of the material

• engaging students through a range of media to gain and maintain interest

• presenting challenges to develop higher-order thinking

• developing appropriate literacy along with broadly-applicable tools and strategies for better learning

• respecting diversity of performance, background and time available.

The product

Weekly learning objectives were formally identified and strong guidance was provided through weekly topic outlines that also summarized the sources of materials. Primary knowledge (information) was acquired independently by students (rather than by lectures).

Each week's topic comprised many (short) readings from the prescribed textbook, linked by text materials written by the lecturers, on the CD-ROM. Aspects that were not appropriately covered by the textbook were dealt with in fact sheets, many of which were written by the lecturers.

About 2.5 hours of movies, ranging in duration from 10 seconds to a few minutes and much of it shot in-house, augmented those materials, providing 'live' examples, contextualization and case study materials. Web links further enriched the topics.

Work sheets were used in a range of ways: guiding the students to the important points of movies and reading; pulling together concepts; extending the learners to higher-order thinking. Answers were provided for many of the work sheets - some students preferred to go directly to these rather than undertaking the exercises.

Although some interactive materials are provided on the CD-ROM, most of the content does not readily lend itself to the intense interactions of simulation. Interpersonal, individualized interaction was most favoured, either via the discussion board or in weekly workshops. The quality of Internet access precluded full web-delivery; this was confined to less bandwidth-intensive modalities.

The workshops were loosely structured and were conducted differently by the different lecturers. The objective was to provide discussion around the topic areas, contextualizing, enhancing, remediating but not for delivering more primary material.

Practical exercises could be carried out in the laboratories or at home.

Assessment was by weekly quizzes (online), assignments and examination.

Outcomes

In comparison with the previous year, the class results showed a greatly increased number of high-performing students with no detriment to the pass-level students.

Feedback from focus meetings with students was impressively positive.

Formal contact time for staff was decreased but this was offset by increased engagement in the online discussions, although these could now be conducted at the convenience of the staff.

This is a flagship development for the institution.

Detailed presentations and discussions of the philosophy, design and implementation of this unit to biology teaching staff at 10 Australian institutions have drawn comments ranging from high praise to superlatives.

This project was conducted for a university client. I headed the development team (academic staff and technical support), guided the pedagogy, provided professional development to the staff, created the template, wrote some of the content, wrote and assembled paper-based materials, formatted the content, shot and edited movies, created the graphics and assembled the final product.

The biology of plant production

A large and complex project developing a semester-long subject for multimodal (blended) delivery to students in the first semester of applied science courses in agriculture, horticulture, natural resource management.

Most of the students were on-campus for the semester but some had only a mid-semester residential session. This project involved six staff teaching across two courses at three campuses; these staff had no prior experience of online delivery.

Funding requirements were determined, the funding proposal written and steered through the various assessment processes until it was granted. A strong and strategic client-outcome focus was essential to justifying the time and money involved. A thorough analysis established the content to be delivered and the needs of the students and industry. Fall-back strategies were identified in case they were needed.

The diversity of potential media for content delivery and the freedom of students to move between them allowed the teaching staff the opportunity to utilize the best materials, rather than being confined to a particular medium. Flexibility was further enhanced by moving from lecture-based teaching to a facilitated learning model.

In the final product, a comprehensive learning guide outlines each week’s material including the learning objectives, a clearly-structured pathway through the content, the sources of each piece of information (e.g. computer-based video, online, textbook or laboratory) and how the components are connected to form a cohesive picture.

The primary information was delivered via guided reading from prescribed textbooks, computer-based video, online simulation and online guide questions undertaken by the students in their homes (via a learning management system). These were followed up with face-to-face sessions that were reserved (primarily) for loosely-structured workshop discussions and laboratory classes (these dynamic and highly interactive aspects generally being best handled by direct contact).

Most of the online materials were created especially for the project. However, where high quality materials were already available online (anywhere in the world), they were contextualized and utilized, rather than reinventing them.

The workshops were vital to integrating the new content with prior learning and experience as well as engaging the students and conveying the excitement of the new material. Furthermore, there was opportunity for staff to receive quick feedback on materials and to cater for different learning styles.

An important part of the assessments was testing application of knowledge (rather than just the fundamental information), with students being asked to bring knowledge to bear on new situations.

One of the vital requirements of the development was to have transparent technology, so that students could concentrate on the learning rather than dealing with technical problems. This requirement was complicated by technical considerations with a substantial cohort of students being located rurally (with inherent communication problems) or working on older computers. A consistent and obvious interface was employed to aid novice web users.

Despite these potential problems and the initial apprehension of some students, online support and a couple of personal discussions with a handful of students resolved all problems rapidly. Personal and formal reports evidenced the increased ICT literacy of the students generally and, for some, the conquest of fears.

The design and presentation of the subject was assessed by informal discussion, focus groups, interview and anonymous questionnaire with subsequent detailed analysis. Because of the short development time, online materials were being produced just in time; perhaps the single benefit of this was the ability to use informal feedback to improve subsequent materials.

The students’ responses were extraordinarily positive (both verbally and in the formal quality of teaching questionnaires): most students’ quickly grasped the power of the multimodality so that motivation was high, with performance in summative assessments exceeding that of prior years. The staff, too, were motivated by the opportunities to have dialogue in the classroom rather than the one-way transfer of information that typifies the lecture. It was reported that a high-level meeting had hailed the subject as the best in the Faculty's new courses.

The success of this subject demonstrated to staff and students the effectiveness of powerfully using ICT, a message that could be taken into other subjects and into more general life.

Although the development timeline was halved due to administrative delays, the product was delivered on time and under budget.

Apart from my role in chairing the content development, I created most of the resulting online materials, the study guides and CD-based videos. I also co-ordinated aspects of the project that required a graphic artist and programmer and directed a team of research assistants who handled some major copyright issues. Towards the end of the semester, I oversaw the devising of a questionnaire (separate from the quality of teaching questionnaires) to examine many aspects of the subjects; I analyzed all of the resulting data.

I delivered this subject at my campus and co-ordinated the multicampus subjects. Prior to and throughout the development and delivery, I coached the other staff. At the same time, I co-ordinated, delivered and assessed five other Higher Education subjects (two by distance education) and one in TAFE, as well as supervising student projects and working on another large project ('The Burnley Plant Directory'). I also held the role of laboratory manager with its associated organizational, budgetary, safety and personnel responsibilities.

Whaling into essays

'Whaling Into Essays' uses animations, humour and serious materials to teach the principles of writing a structured essay.

This module was created for a corporate client for use in teaching general study skills.

The client provided all content expertise. Our team provided creative ideas and guidance in the teaching methodology, then built the vehicle for delivering the content via the web.

Management for middle managers

A consortium of corporate trainers is contemplating online fee-for-service short courses for middle managers. Although experienced at face-to-face training, this group had no knowledge of what was involved in developing and delivering online materials.

Each person was taken through the process in the context of their particular expertise, with discussion of the advantages and challenges for them.

'Growing Awareness’ is a 13-episode series made for broadcast television by the ABC in conjunction with Open Learning Australia and presented by Raelene Boyle. The series has been screened many times throughout Australia as well as into South-East Asia and the Pacific.

I headed the team of content experts that outlined the series, then led the script-development team (of non-scientists) that developed the storylines and wrote the scripts.

In the first phase, each specialist considered their particular area of interest to be more important than the others and, therefore, deserving of closer examination; it was my task to find the appropriate pathway through the information while managing the personalities.

In the second phase, the script-writer needed to be given the freedom to express ideas in his words but those words needed to correctly convey the concepts without either oversimplification or extraneous detail; it was my task to apply rigour while maintaining the style of the product.

During production, I was a member of the team, presenting some materials and working with the director, camera and sound crew.

The entire production schedule depended on timely development of the scripts and, after shooting and rough editing, timely feedback on the rough edit. The timing of this latter stage in particular was often unreasonable, with timeframes of an hour or two, but my team completed the task regardless, ensuring that the episodes went to air on schedule.

The television series is the basis of a full distance-education subject. I oversaw the production of the paper-based materials for the subject and co-ordinated the subject.

The series is sold commercially on video and is used by schools, universities and TAFE.

I received the faculty's Distance Education Award.