The iTeam – Students Help Train the UW Community
Catalyst student employees have been offering regularly scheduled computer workshops free of charge to the UW community since 2002. The course offerings are varied, including everything from computing survival skills to PHP with MySQL and a variety of topics in between. (See: http://catalyst.washington.edu/workshops/index.html) The student instructors publish their own workshop curriculum, create how-to guides, research new software, and structure their own teaching schedules.
Detecting a need to offer on-campus computer expertise to UW students at little or no cost, Karalee Woody, Director of Catalyst Client Services, thought the logical thing to do was to recruit Catalyst student consultants from the Computing Resource Center on the first floor of Mary Gates Hall and the Odegaard Undergraduate Library Computing Commons. These students were the most knowledgeable and versed in all the software available on the lab's computers.
The effort gained momentum when Greg Koester was put in charge of creating the student-run workshop program and making it a permanent feature of the Catalyst suite of services. The Catalyst Instructor Team, also known as the iTeam, has since developed into an excellent campus resource for free instruction, all the while developing the student-instructors' skills in public speaking, time-management, and teamwork. The iTeam has won many awards for their online curriculum, (http://catalyst.washington.edu/about/awards.html) and Koester has been invited to speak about the iTeam at the upcoming SIGUCCS Management Symposium. (http://www.siguccs.org/Conference/Spring2008/sessions/leaders.html)
In addition to regularly scheduled classes and workshops, the students also teach customized courses. Collin Monda, the resident expert on Final Cut Pro, taught a series of video editing classes for a professor who had assigned a video project to his class. When the University of Washington payroll office switched from paper to online check advices, the students of the iTeam were called upon to help teach campus employees (those who don't use computers in their day-to-day work) how to find their information on the Employee Self Services website. The iTeam has also traveled to Toppenish, Washington to teach software classes to members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation at the Nation's Cultural Center.
The students on the current iTeam come from a number of departments on campus. For example, Computer Science is represented by Ryan Timmons, Patrick Lo is studying Geography, and Byron McMullin is considering switching his major from Business to Informatics. Like Monda, who is looking forward to creating and editing films after graduation, each student is able to channel his or her interests and specialties into the classes they enjoy teaching.
"Working for the iTeam is very much like what a real job will be," said Jacob Morris, an iTeam alum who now works full-time for Catalyst Client Services. "You learn what it's like to be an employee." Current iTeam member Lo added: "They expect more, so you give more. This job also allows you to be creative." Timmons said he enjoys teaching the advanced PHP classes because those who attend these classes are very interested in PHP and ask challenging questions. All students agreed that teaching forces them to learn the software more thoroughly and to look at the interface through different eyes. Some teaching props they have employed include a Mr. Potato Head to help explicate Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and a Lego set to help illustrate HTML.
The team is involed in much more than instruction. They are integral to answering questions sent to help@catalyst.edu and are often called upon to aid in marketing, publishing, or the occasional Power Point emergency. Monda has used his skills to create professional quality photographs of the Catalyst Learning Spaces for several publications, Lo has been asked to aid staff with errant Power Point presentations, and Janice Hudson has been gracious enough to lend her expertise to students navigating the complex Digital Audio Workspace with only a day's notice.
If you are interested in learning more about the iTeam, the classes they teach, the online curriculum, customized workshops, or even becoming a member of the team, please visit:http://catalyst.washington.edu