Arch-Techs: Israel Butler, Reginald China, Marvin McClean, Jean Pesce Evaluation The Plato Learning Environment (PLE)

found at https://ple.platoweb.com is primarily a web portal which instructors were taught to use through this training program, Plato in 3P, for directing students to complete coursework in or out of class settings. As a supplement to class work, this tool allows students to work at their own pace and access their work from virtually anywhere internet access is available. In these first stages instruction covered familiarization with the PLE interface and screens, and the steps to enrolling fellow instructors and students. Our work here provided a trainer or local system administrator for instruction; however, the ultimate goal was to design this program to be used independently with support personnel available virtually for further consultation. This would reduce the cost of manpower and eliminate restrictions of time and place for the instruction to occur. According to the 3 Phase ADDIE model for the design of this intended training program, Phase II: Enhancement is for formative evaluation. At this point both trainers and trainees (instructors at the institution) have been consulted for input on the success or limitations of the instruction provided. The surveys conducted are available as follows:

Trainers: Teach PLATO at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GXSM2M5 Trainees: PLATO in 3P at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y9TMY96.

This in turn has provided the catalyst for improvement and support in Phase III: Maintenance. Unforeseen factors requiring revisions indicated by the evaluations and newly evolved technology solutions can be incorporated into this viable plan by a continuing support team. The fluid nature of technology and education development must and can easily be accommodated by changes in the instructive materials, such as this for Plato Web training. This program provided instruction through various means. PLE tutorials were included for settings involving remote viewing or, as used here, on campus with an instructor. These began with introductory material and progressed into those topics necessary to get a class up and running in Plato. We have created training videos to take on these sections of the training which were found to be useful. We conveniently embedded them as links on the distributed training documentations or provided links to the videos hosted on YouTube. Considerations for Phase III: Maintenance include several improvements and/or additions. To get a better sense of the needs of our trainee instructors, we would

conduct a pre-survey that would indicate how familiar they are initially with the program. This could allow us to indicate to them where they might need to begin this instruction other than the basics in the introduction to the interface, for instance, and further training materials could be developed for beginner, intermediate and advanced users in the future. We could also possibly introduce a connected collaborative system, like Adobe Connect, to do a live group class with instructors, for their convenience, in remote locations. Other considerations are that the ongoing support design of training could involve creating brief additional instructional videos or podcasts to give users visual guidance to work independently based on follow up survey information, feedback and support requests as [now trained] instructors move into more advanced stages of PlatoWeb use. Such examples to date are requests for direction using other parts of the reporting section, cleanup/archiving on past classes from the working section of the portal without deleting them (for ongoing assessment purposes) or affecting student accounts, and changing due dates when extenuating circumstances present themselves. We can set up message boards, a frequently-asked questions and answers Help page, and an email support account(s) to address concerns. We can also set up live online training sessions where trainers are available to answer questions via discussion (possibly monthly, since evaluation of the training program also accounts for available training personnel who should not be overwhelmed). The overall findings of the program were that, while more support documents and videos should be added for additional objectives of the trainees as they got comfortable with the portal, the training materials provided and the instruction session itself were clear and comprehensive enough that the objectives covered were successfully delivered and trainees-turned-trained-PlatoWeb-instructors could implement each stage. The documents were considered invaluable for trainees who recognize that some steps may need to be refreshed in such cases where from semester to semester fewer sections of classes may be offered and on return to increased sections returning instructors familiarity with procedures may be lessened.