So, with Teams now being rolled out, I’m seeing lots of people getting all excited about it - staff people, more than cadet types! BUT, I wondered what/how people are actually delivering training, what subjects you’re rolling on, whether you are focusing more on classification training, or whether you are looking at other things too.
Are you producing a “Virtual Training Program”? Have you got one member of staff leading on it, or are you spreading the load across as many staff as are willing? Are your Wg or Rg supporting any of the training delivery? Are they running specific courses via Teams as well, or supporting you in producing anything to go alongside the training?
Finally, how are you doing the training? Is it simply a screen share with audio over the top, with demos of stuff from your kitchen/living room etc to underline key concepts, or are you doing other stuff too???
Given that this looks to be a 6 month project, keen to see how people are doing it, share some best practice and see how we, as a community, can come together and support each other.
We aren’t doing anything with Teams, we haven’t messaged the Cadet’s once since our last official parade night. I’m wanting to do something to show we are still here but we have a power hungry OC who doesn’t like to say anything but no. I’ve suggested looking into Teams and what other Sqn’s are doing but I’ve had no feedback. Of all our staff there is me and another staff member who could get something up and running between us but no one has heard from her in months.
So I’m guessing we are going to have to wait this out and hope we have Cadet’s turn up when we are back up and running. Unless OC Stroppy Pant’s changes his attitude and lets us get on with things in the current climate #NotHoldingMyBreath
From a sector commander perspective, I’m using teams to get the OCs together, and to formulate a plan. We are going to share out different academic training lessons, so that cadets from across the sector can join.
I suspect, from the various contributions on the other threads that OC Wgs are very, VERY keen to see participation with Teams, so if sqns don’t show as using it, I bet that a few missives will come whistling down in a couple of weeks.
Personally, I would message (if you have Fb group or similar?) something to the effect of:
Thanks for waiting patiently; we are working with the RAFAC IT wizards to use a new (to us) function called Teams that will allow us to have “virtual” parade nights. Also, we hope to ensure that classification trg can continue along with other areas such as setting up eDofE accounts for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, working on CVQO BTEC qualifications & Silver Cyber badge work.
Whilst we are trying to get this all put together, this activity can be used (only £3 contribution) towards your DofE skills:
I’m looking at this in 2 ways:
What we need to do now, and can be done quickly, to maintain cadet interest. That need not be our material (there’s some good RAF material out there)
What we can develop and might have a life beyond Covid-19. This might be remote training we continue after Sept, or use to create blended training where we do some prep work online and practicals face to face.
I anticipate pressure on the defence training estate come the autumn so #2 is a way to maximise use of resources as well as to give better access to SMEs.
Luckily for my staff team we all seem to be in positions where we still have jobs and are working (some even harder than before) unlike a lot of poor souls. Plus our own families need us more than before
Therefore, I think it is very unlikely that any of us will find the time or the energy to find a new way to engage what is an unknown number of cadets when we have our own issues to deal with.
Also, we are fortunate to have completed all our classification training for this year so struggling to find something we could do that would be meaningful. Don’t want to spend a lot of effort for something that exponentially tails off after a couple of sessions
I’d be pumping stuff out like cyber, FA, presentation skills, the free sign language course, keeping in touch with DofE particpants.
We’re viewing what we’re doing as a “lifeline” as well - a taste of normality, a little bit social, and a break from whatever else they’ve been doing - mostly gaming for my lot, it seems.
If time is a struggle, there’s no harm putting stuff on Cadet Portal and running a weekly “check-in” for whoever wants to join it on Teams - you can catch up on whatever was set and/or generally just have a “how are you doing, do you need anything” kind of chat.
Our RFAO has just put out a FA session (so there’s no reason why someone else couldn’t do something similar or aren’t planning it). Also, why not ask other units (they don’t even need to be local!) when they might be running non classification sessions and if your cadets can join in as well…
Having spent the past two days playing with it I am thus far somewhat unimpressed with Teams.
It’s kind of “lowest common denominator” stuff.
The Sharepoint site that I had previously been working on before the teams roll out has far more options but even that suffers from the “Microsoft approach”.
Teams just seems to be a cluttered way of communicating and a hugely inefficient way of working with files.
I will continue to explore but it seems a bit “shallow” to me.
I played with a meeting earlier. Sure, I can see how we can use that to get us through the next few months. Though the audio and video quality were shocking. Audio didn’t improve at all even when I turned the video off. I can’t imagine we’ll miss it when the time comes.
My feeling is Teams, although clunky, is suitable enough for what we need to do, although lacking for what we might want to do.
To work long term, we need the personal staff accounts. There’s no reason why you can’t have at least a Sqn folder in your Wing’s SharePoint if not a full site.
I would prefer using Teams to our Sqn Closed Facebook for comms, too, due to the channels functionality, but it would require auth for guest access INCLUDING PARENTS.
I don’t know if a way around security concerns would be if there was some way of tying authorised guests into the email addresses on SMS.
personal, physical and mental health and then launching a sports and physical challenge. 25 cadets attended.
shoe bulling, lead by a cadet, and faq answered by staff. 17 cadets attended.
Next week we are doing DofE and cyber awareness and safety followed by a night of lessons. Then it’s climatic injuries and flight sim and flight training.
I put it on Portal. Why would he set it as a bidding event?
I’m hearing a few rumblings regarding FA and different people taking different interpretations. One RFAO has openly encouraged use of BHF and SJA online resources (with a caveat that no quals can be delivered) and then a WFAO in that region saying not to use the SJA DofE self teach workbook as it’s “not a cadet thing” despite it being SJA and what the RFAO has said.
I don’t think anyone is arguing about trying to qualify anyone this way.
and run it with better numbers from September.