How Plast improves the educational process for educators: Implementation of a new learning system
Nowadays, no one would be surprised to hear that the latest technologies help educate young people. And if we complicate the thesis and combine it: the latest technology and a traditional scouting organization where children are taught the conditions of survival in nature. These worlds turned out to be not as far apart as it might seem at first glance.
Plast, our favorite Ukrainian scouting organization, decided to take a bold step and implement an e-learning system. Our team is happy to cooperate with Plast as part of our volunteer project LMS Collaborator for 4.5.0. We were sincerely impressed by their initiative, values, and mission. And of course, we are happy to implement and support such an interesting and important project for our country.
What was the impetus for implementing the distance learning system? How was the LMS implemented and how is the training of Plast volunteer educators going now?
We talked about all of this with Anna Kolycheva, a Plast senior member and manager of the Plast Knowledge Base project.
About Plast. Their mission and values
Plast is a Ukrainian scouting organization whose mission is to educate young people in a patriotic way. To achieve this goal, the organization uses the scouting method – outdoor life, self-education and education in small groups.
Anna Kolycheva, Plast senior member, manager of the Plast Knowledge Base project
«We want to raise a generation of new leaders for our country with pro-Ukrainian values. Sounds relevant, doesn’t it?
To do this, we need to be a capable organization, to be evenly represented throughout the country. Through our value-based approach, we create qualitative changes at the country and community levels, do socially useful things, and be part of the global scouting movement and a center of expertise for the global Plast».
The full-scale war has renewed interest in patriotic organizations, including Plast. Every day, more and more people realize the value of such projects and want to join them. Therefore, Plast now faces the task of scaling up and actively developing to create even more active citizens in society.
Plast is a volunteer organization, and almost all initiatives are implemented on a volunteer basis. This is both an advantage and a challenge, as the number of volunteers is limited, and each volunteer has other activities in their lives. Therefore, the level of satisfaction, involvement, and happiness of each participant directly affects the success of the organization and the realization of its mission.
Switching to a distance learning system
The Plast training system has been developing along with the organization for over 100 years. During this time, a huge amount of materials and knowledge for volunteer educators has been accumulated. This required new approaches that would allow the organization to scale its experience and train more people.
«We looked at different systems. Some of them have already been used for online training and knowledge base. Some remained at the testing stage. However, no system covered the entire process, which created inconveniences».
When new volunteers join Plast, they learn a lot of new information, but they also had to learn different systems. For example, some of the training materials were delivered in Google Classroom, while others were delivered via YouTube, Zoom, etc. It was not very convenient.
It was necessary to have a system that combines different types of activities: watching video lectures, taking tests and detailed correspondence courses, publishing materials for self-study. It also has all the necessary tools to track the learning process. This was not possible in the systems that were used, so there was no way to know whether people were completing the courses and whether they were having problems.
«In addition, we had high requirements for product safety. We understand that in a full-scale war, every member of the organization is in the crosshairs of our enemy. We are very attentive to security. And it is important for us that the system guarantees data privacy and that it is not shared anywhere. Therefore, we were pleasantly surprised by the compliance with the highest security standards in LMS Collaborator».
Implementation of LMS Collaborator
Plast began implementing e-learning by prioritizing learning activities. To do this, they chose the audience of the pilot project, which consisted of volunteers working with children aged 6 to 10. The processes of this project included the automation of training materials for conducting classes with children and training volunteers.
«We were impressed by the activity of the LMS Collaborator team, who helped us deploy the system, advised us on the product and optimized the learning process. This is very valuable and in-depth knowledge that is now helping us to develop our training direction qualitatively».
At first, Plast started by designing the Knowledge Base: defining the types of materials, their classification, and content. After testing the format of the materials, they gradually began to fill the system with resources. Creating content takes a lot of time, so the working group has also prioritized it and is now at the stage of filling the system with critical information.
The next step was to roll out training courses. Currently, the system has developed a course for which the team conducted 4 training groups in the spring. The peculiarity of training at Plast is its seasonal cyclicality, meaning that there are courses that are held only in the fall or spring.
In the near future, the team plans to expand training courses, in particular for beginner volunteers.
Currently, 131 users are registered on the learning portal.
According to Anna, getting to know the main functions of the system is quite easy, as the system is intuitive. Volunteers are satisfied with the speed of learning to use the system and the ability to track their progress.
Readers and students familiarized themselves with the LMS functionality on their own. A short training was held for tutors who develop materials for training courses and knowledge bases.
Video guides on how to use the most popular features: how to take a course, a test, create material, etc. were useful.
Specifics of training volunteer educators using LMS technologies
In general, Plast volunteer educators undergo various training courses. For example, one of them lasts for four full days. For people who are volunteers, it is difficult to allocate 4 full days for offline training. Therefore, the Plast team decided to divide this information into two blocks.
The first is the theoretical part, which takes place online.
The second is the practical part, when volunteers can come to the training center and use the knowledge they have gained.
The LMS has become the tool that helped automate online classes and organize a single standard of learning. And, of course, to unify different materials and place them in one place with 24/7 access.
Volunteer tutors are trained using videos, quizzes, and extended tests where they can write extensive answers. The training portal makes it easy to track results and progress. Administrators and tutors regularly review pass rates and error analysis.
In addition, Plast actively maintains a Knowledge Base, which publishes materials for activities with children: stories, songs, games, crafts, etc. For easy searching, they are divided into separate categories and ages of children.
Plast knowledge base on the LMS Collaborator portal
Create a knowledge repository and store all important information in one place. Structure your materials and organize easy-to-understand navigation with LMS Collaborator tools. We provide free access to our platform as part of the LMS Collaborator for 4.5.0 initiative. Fill out the form and learn more about the project here.
Now the Plast team is actively working on creating materials for new groups of children joining the organization. Plans for the next school year include adding materials for practical skills training, guidelines and policies.
«LMS Collaborator is a tool where we create content for our organization together. The ability to interact, modify and improve materials is very convenient. Articles published in the Knowledge Base regularly receive responses and comments from our readers. Based on them, we improve the educational content. Synergy was, in fact, our goal. It is very valuable to us that we have such a tool with which we can develop the knowledge of our organization».
As a conclusion
LMS has become for Plast the platform that helps participants to be in the same information space, work together and create a common unified product.
It is still too early to evaluate such a large-scale project as the LMS for Plast, but LMS Collaborator has already:
1. Helps us to scale our work, which is extremely important right now.
2. Improves and equalizes the level of knowledge in different locations.
3. Helps preserve developments and ensure the continuity of the organization’s knowledge.
4. Gathers dozens of enthusiastic reviews from novice volunteersWe are happy with our cooperation with the LMS Collaborator team.
We are sincerely grateful for the company’s proactive position!».
