See you at Program Conference!
I can't believe Program Conference is already next week! Ready or not!
We're so looking forward to seeing all of you who can make it in St. Paul!
I can't believe Program Conference is already next week! Ready or not!
We're so looking forward to seeing all of you who can make it in St. Paul!
OK, raise your hand if you've heard of informal learning.
I just went to a seminar on this, and I had no idea what it was. In fact, I wonder what made me sign up for it in the first place? Anyway. It was a good idea. Although honestly, don't you hate it when something they could have said in an hour takes all day? Geez.
The gist of it was that you can do formal education/training, and people forget 91% of the information within 7 days. Or something like that. I forgot to bring pen and paper. So I forgot 91% of his info. But if you give someone informal learning, which it turns out is usually a JOB AID that you use as a cheat sheet, people remember better. Well DUH! But I say DUH but do I have any job aids for you? Um. Not really.
So the presenter shared a lot of really nice, successful job aids and I am inspired to create them as the need arises in the PRU. I figure the next one we'll probably need is for grants (from the new grants manager). But are there any other ideas?
He also had an example of a successful online training--it used all kinds of little tricks (I mean that in a good way) to help you remember the info. Graphics, tag lines, stuff like that. It was neat.
Perhaps the best part of the seminar was sitting next to a woman from General Mills who does a lot of staff training. She told me about her super cool idea of giving every new employee in her unit (which is humongous) an iPod pre-loaded with podcasts by her and other key people, as well as a grocery store walk-through on there too. I told you it was super cool! And with the Pillsbury Doughboy just walking around and the free yogurt parfaits and granola bars, I have three words for you. Employer. Of. Choice.

So we have sealed the deal with the Crowne Plaza in St. Paul! It seems like a nice hotel and the saleswoman offered me anything we wanted from the snack bar (I chose lemonade--didn't want to seem greedy with a extra grande mocha frappucino), so I'm pretty much a fan for life. Also, it was Al Franken's venue of choice. If it's good enough for Al.... right?
We are hammering out the mini-tours and concurrent sessions. The survey we just did asking your opinions on these items was helpful. Except I did have to laugh when I first prepared the results and the average for EVERYTHING was "May or May not attend." You guys don't like to commit, I take it. Or maybe it was the options given. As one commenter said:
"Anything more interesting than fees, grantwriting, reporting and evaluation would be great. These are the four worst/most boring aspects of our jobs. Could there be any sessions that deal with some of the positive aspects of our work?"
That is such an excellent point. I wonder how many educators/faculty share this point of view? Probably lots! We need to do our very best to make this conference positive and energizing, and not drudgery. Any ideas how best this can be accomplished? Specifically?
Thanks!
Last month Mike and I went to a meeting with Amanda Rondeau and Bob Rubinyi to discuss the Workforce Investment Act (or "WIA"). I had never heard of this and maybe you haven't either. It is a program where people can obtain tuition vouchers as part of a federal act to improve the workforce. Here's a page that explains it better than me: http://iseek.org/education/wia.html
WIA could be important to Extension because the U has recently been approved to be able to accept these tuition vouchers on eligible programs. Each program must apply individually, though, to be accepted as WIA Certified. The U would like all these applications to originate and funnel through Amanda. As you can read from the page above, the best candidates for acceptance as WIA Certified are programs that end in some type of certificate or licensure.
I am really unsure what this means for Extension programs. Is it a huge opportunity? Or a lot of unnecessary paperwork? What do you think? Any takers?
The PRU is busy helping out with Fall Program Conference planning. We've been to a few hotels and I think we are going to sign the contract with the Crowne Plaza in St. Paul. It is a very nice looking hotel and the staff is great to work with. The only bad part so far is that my rockin' minivan won't fit in the parking ramp! I wonder if that means I can valet? I hope so!
The planning committee is listed below. If you have any suggestions for the conference this year, please pass them along to someone on the committee!
What would be the best use of your time at Fall Conference?
The Extension 2.0 blog is back in action. So if you want to walk through the materials on your own or just go back over something you read while taking the course, help yourself!
Welcome to the new Program Resource Unit blog! I love the easy format and quick feedback of a blog, so this seems like a great way to keep connected with Extension program teams. I hope you'll take a second to add this blog to your feedreader to make it easy peasy to remember to read it.
Extension 2.0 was an idea featured at the U's annual Quality Fair! Here is the poster we presented and received a lot of feedback from: (and bonus--you can see my breakfast on the table too)
The Extension Program Resource Unit has developed an online course called Grantsmanship Fundamentals for Extension. Most of Extension's programmatic staff were automatically enrolled in this course in December 2008. If you are an Extension Educator, a Center Associate Dean, or an Area Program Leader, you are required to take the course and can access it by visiting your MyU courses page. Preferably, the course should be completed by July 1, 2009.
Just try it, you'll like it! I wrote it myself (with lots of help from experts!) so it's not even too dry and boring. And it includes my trademark educational tool, video tutorials! It only takes about an hour and a half and you can do it from the comfort of your office. Topics covered include finding grants, writing proposals, and correctly submitting a grant at the University. An archive of the information that is in the course can be found on your MyU website, under Program Resources.
All Extension departmental faculty, Program Coordinators, Regional Directors, and Program Directors were also automatically enrolled in the course. These groups are not required, but are strongly encouraged, to complete the course.
If you were not automatically enrolled but would like to take the course, just email the Grants team at the address below. It was very difficult to enroll all the right people using the U's auto enroll thing. We basically had to build a new tool, because, as we know, Extension is different than the rest of the U.
We very much welcome your questions or feedback about this course. Please email the Extension Grants Team at ExtGrants@umn.edu.
Program Resource Unit Goal: To improve Extension’s ability to design, deliver, and evaluate programs by providing necessary resources and increasing employee skill levels.
This blog is a way to communicate with staff and open dialog on programming-related topics. Please feel free to comment on any post!
PRU Leader: Mike Schmitt, Senior Associate Dean, 612-626-4021
Program Resource Director: Amy Baker, 612-626-2897