WIWOW – Walk In Walk Out Wednesdays

Posted on May 21, 2008
Filed under ePlanks

As part of our ePlanks project, Anne and I have started a Wednesday afternoon session called Walk In Walk Out Wednesday. The idea is that staff can come in and ask for help with anything ICT related they like. Anne and I both often get asked to help people out with technical questions which we really don’t mind answering. But I found that people didn’t really want to seem like they were bothering us. Also, we had a staff meeting that talked about our future direction with ICT and it came out from a few people that they just didn’t know how to use things in order to get started and feel as though they were advancing their ICT skills. I remembered reading on Kim Cofino’s blog that at her school they had started having sessions where teachers could just come in and ask for help with whatever they needed and come and go as they pleased. I suggested this at our meeting and it seemed to be a popular idea.

We have had about 3 WIWOW sessions now and here are some examples of the things we have been asked to help with

how to:

insert images in a blog
make folders in Microsoft Outlook to manage email better
create distribution lists in Outlook

start a blog
batch convert of photos using IrfanView
insert photos into PowerPoint

start a wiki
add voices to a Voicethread
write blog posts

and sit there playing around with 2 different computers at once! Wendy!

It seems to be working really well. We’ve had 3-6 people at each session. The ‘come and ask whatever you like’ approach works and hopefully it will continue to grow.

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5 Responses to “WIWOW – Walk In Walk Out Wednesdays”

Jenny Luca on May 21st, 2008 7:25 pm

You’re doing great things at your school. The idea of being there for support is empowering for staff who often don’t want to admit that they’re a bit behind the eight ball. I’m doing Maximise your Mondays, but I’m teaching a new Web 2.0 tool each week. Perhaps taking a leaf out of your book would be more beneficial for my staff? Might give it a go. Thanks Jess.
Jenny Luca.
Sue Wyatt on May 21st, 2008 8:14 pm

Great ideas from you and Anne. I am doing blogging on Mondays after school and having about 5 people each session. Also involving the students of my class.

Finally got my principal to make a comment in a blog today after showing him how easy it was. Maye all this comment challenge has made me realise there are some people out there who are scared of putting fingers to keyboard – not like me who was brought up with computers to know they won’t explode if you do something wrong.
Michelle on May 22nd, 2008 10:35 am

I think you’re right, generally speaking, that people are reluctant to bother you or ask for help if they don’t know what you are doing, or, if you don’t seem obviously approachable. Having specific times where people can ask for help assists not only with peoples’ productivity, but with workplace culture.
Kim Cofino on May 29th, 2008 2:00 pm

Love the WiWo shorthand! We might have to “borrow” that for next year

In addition to knowing that teachers can be reluctant to bother you while you’re working, I think it’s also good to send a clear message that your time is valuable too and that you have clearly scheduled in “help time” so that you are conscious of helping others without sacrificing your professional productivity.

It looks like next year we’ll have three sessions every week: our WiWo (or whatever we decide to call it), Wired Wednesday (where we focus on the “why” and show thought provoking movies to kickstart a philisophical discussion), and Tech Thurs to focus on specific tools (for those teachers that might need to be told what they “don’t know”).
jessmcculloch on June 2nd, 2008 12:56 pm

@Kim those sessions that you are planning sound great! If you use the WiWo shorthand, then Anne and I will just have to come across and run one or two for you. It would only be right…

@Jenny love the ‘Maximise Your Mondays’ title! I reckon we could come up with a groovy name for each day of the week. Oh, if only there was the time to run that many sessions! Have you tried the Walk in Walk out thing yet? Let us know how it goes if you do!

@Sue blogging on a Monday arvo is a great plan. We get quite a few blogging questions at our sessions. Building it all up bit by bit!

@Michelle hopefully it’s changing a few attitudes a bit – people complain about never having time to just sit and play so that is what I am trying to create for them. No excuses! Only thing is that being after school, people are dead keen to flee as quickly as possible. So, if they don’t make the time, when will they learn?