Online training sessions held for the staff of SXBA

Online training sessions held for the staff of SXBA on 1^st, 3^rd, 7^th, 9^th and 10^th June 2021

Mr. Neil D’Souza conducted online training sessions for the pre-primary, primary and secondary staff of St. Xavier’s Boys’ Academy over a week of five 1-hour slots. He instructed the staff on the utilization of the Google Classroom interface, Microsoft Office online, Google Meet changes over the past year and troubleshooting internet network issues.

Google Classroom interface: Mr. Neil demonstrated archiving of old classes, creating new ones by copying previous classes and suggested utilizing a chrome browser over Firefox or Internet explorer. He highlighted the method of posting new links or material, creating topics, modifying access of students to post or comment, defining a rubric system and selectively posting content to a specific student group. He also emphasized the need for continuing to take manual attendance. New classrooms would also be created as general assembly classes for group activities or meetings in the new year.

Microsoft Office Online: A Microsoft package has been obtained for the use of the school teaching staff and students who may not have access to MS. Office. The individuals desiring to avail of this facility may request the administrators to create MS office school accounts which would provide them access to MS office online anywhere and on any device.

Google Meet: This year the necessity of making a new meet link daily per class would be done away with and instead each classroom would generate a permanent link visible to the students. This visibility can be toggled on and off for security purposes. Students this year would be provided by email ids within the school domain and therefore only those and no external accounts would be permitted to enter the meet. Mr. Neil also demonstrated how to screen videos and display pdfs via the browser. He also showed how videos on YouTube could be manipulated to reduce speed, add captions and changing the video quality.

Troubleshooting network issues: In case of network issues, Mr. Neil suggested downloading the speedtestapp or using the browser to test the speed of the internet connection utilized by the teachers and accordingly reposition themselves at a location with the best speed.

The staff found the training sessions helpful in getting them ready for the new academic year online.

Ms.Marilyn Rebello

Class Teacher -Std.6