I am developing an IT induction course to include email, our companyd desktop and basic IT tools etc. As part of this, I need to introduce / explain / share our IT guidelines with new starters ie
- appropriate use of email and web
- using correct drives on machine
- not installing unsupported s/w
Does anyone have any experience on this? I'd like to incorporate it into a team work exercise or ice-breaker. I want it to be fun and meaningful, but not patronising?
Has anyone done something similar they'd like to share? Or does anyone have any good ideas to get me started?
Many Thanks :-)
Helen Palmer
Helen Palmer
4 Responses
IT Guidelines
Yes I have quite a bit of experience of this sort of thing.
If you have a company IT policy thats a useful starting point. Then I would get the people together, run through the basics of the policy, explaining how and why etc (with hands on learning examples) then … the fun bit.
Get them to come up with a design for a company poster that illustrates all of the main points made in the training session. In this way they have to recall all of the learning from the session and re form it into something that is visually interesting.
Do this in teams if you have a large group.
I have done this several times over and it really works, provide the delegates with large peices of paper and coloured pens, glue, paper, magazines etc. Its great fun. Set a time limit though !!!!
Just one more thing …
Just one more thought to add to Angela’s excellent suggestions – how about getting the inductees to split into groups and write their own guidelines on various elements of the policy as though writing for the NEXT generation of inductees.
Then have them come together and do presentations so that they can share their information – and you can quietly check that they’ve understood everything correctly.
Then put everything together from the various groups and make it into a handbook given out to all participants for future reference.
IT – interesting
How about encouraging the participants to find amusing anecdotes about:
email abuse/sent in error
installing 3rd party software etc.
The web is full of amusing but actually quite serious anecdotes based around IT and this would also help the participants to understand how different word combinations in search engines will yield different results
e.g.
One day at work a few of us started writing limericks on e-mail. One lad came up with a corker about our receptionist, a loud American with a backside the size of Texas. Somehow the offensive limerick found its way to our boss’s computer. He dragged us in for a roasting after finding that 19 working hours had been wasted on the pursuit of poetry
(source: hrmguide.co.uk)
well thats my thoughts on your problem, hope it helps
How to make IT guidelines interesting! Or Not?
This will probably be a bit of a downer compared to some of the good answers you have received.
From a business aspect: email and the web need to be dealt with as they are an important function of a business as a communication tool. Beware Viruses and stray email.
Saying that there are enough help desk howlers around to provide the fun stuff to get the message across.
Using correct drives: I assume you have no security in place as access to drive, files and installing software should be limited to Administrators. (I also assume that you are using WinNT or Win2000 as I realise that this cannot be done on previous versions of windows.
To simplify the solution. If a person does not have the authority to do somethng they should not be taught how to do it, but at the same time an individual should have sufficient knowledge to perform the job as is required.
Summary: Your employees need to be taught enough to achieve there job function or in other words basic IT literacy eg ECDL, CLAIT or IC3 and no more.
Apart from that use previous suggestions to entertain your students.