WACC Students Learning Technology Through Co-Ops, Internships
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
Warsaw Schools is preparing students for those fields in part by offering internships and co-ops in its technology department.
Justin Weaver, WCS level 1 technician, explained its programs.
“We actually have two programs that we run at the same time,” Weaver said. “The technology internship is a class offered through the (Warsaw Area) Career Center. They take one period per day of class with me. They go through the interview process for that and if they’re accepted in they’re put on the schedule. Right now I think we have seven interns. Then we also have the co-op program.”
The co-op program also is run through the Career Center, he said. It is a three-hour per-day shift. The two co-op students work the whole school year and get paid for it. Interns are not paid. It is more difficult to get a co-op position with the technology department.
“They actually have a harder (interview process) because they have to go through the co-op program interview process before they come to me. So then we have Brad and I sit down and they do an interview,” Weaver explained.
He said when they’re selecting students for the program they’re looking for students who are either self-taught in technology, software or hardware, or who have been through some of the classes offered by the WACC.
“We look at the whole person and decide are they going to be a good fit,” Weaver said.
The duties of an intern versus a co-op student are very similar.
“The internship class is a little more structured in terms of having assignments they have to complete and get graded on,” Weaver said. “The first quarter we wanted to produce a video that could help train next year’s interns during the first week. So they actually looked through some tutorials and we showed them how to do the things and they actually produced a video.
“Whereas the co-ops actually started working in the summer this year and by the time the school year started, they were already ready to go and they were working on ‘tickets’ from day one,” he said.
Tickets are a help desk request someone like a teacher or principal puts in for technology support.
“That’s a tweak that we did for this year,” Hagg noted. “We actually retained the co-op student that was with us last year and he worked through the summer. And these guys (WACC seniors and co-op students Anthony Hendrickson and Doug Powell) started early and worked through the summer with him. We find that as our biggest campus, the high school just has a crush of needs at the very beginning of the year and so having fully trained co-op students ready to go really makes a big difference from the first day of school. So that’s been very successful, that’s been a good change. We’ll probably continue that one, as long as one of these guys are willing to hang around for a little while.”
Powell works in the afternoon and Hendrickson works in the morning.
“With the co-op there is one class that all the students take and that’s fourth period,” Powell said. “I feel we have a bit more freedom than the interns do because we have more experience, we can handle more.”
The co-op students also have a greater variety of duties, he said, from handling tickets to helping out the interns.
Hendrickson said they know the technology pretty well.
“We know it. It’s one of those things that if we’re sketchy on or skeptical about we’ll go ask Justin for helpful hints on what we can do next or have him watch over us or walk us through it,” Hendrickson said.
Hagg said the students are good at self-troubleshooting. To find a solution, he said the co-op students probably use Google a lot to find the answer on their own. If the students ask Weaver for help, one of the first questions he asks them is if they’ve used Google yet.
Weaver said the co-op jobs are very independent by design. “We want to help them become better technicians when they leave here and the best way to do that is to allow them to fail sometimes,” he said.
Hagg stated, “That’s why the interview process is so extensive because their character and decision-making capability is almost every bit as important, probably more important, than their technology skills just because we need to have people that we can trust – ladies and gentlemen that are filled with integrity and that will make good choices. They have a lot of responsibility vested in them. We don’t hold much back from them during the course of their training. They know how to do everything.”
When the students are done with the internship or co-op, they are expected to have met certain goals.
“For the interns I actually put together a list, I actually had my last year’s co-op students put a spreadsheet together and I asked them what did they learn this year,” Weaver said. “And then I gave that spreadsheet to the new interns and I said, ‘OK, here’s your goal for the end of the year. It’s an independent study learning grid. Put a 10 down if you think you couldn’t learn anything more about this topic. Or put a 5 down if there’s some room to grow. It’s up to you then to ask me to help you grow that point.’”
During the first quarter the interns had to give Weaver that spreadsheet weekly to show where they were. That’s been spread out more now so the interns are more like co-op students since they have a full semester under their belt.
“I think they could be very marketable at any of the businesses in our community,” said Hagg. “I think they could step up and instantly take a job at their help desk or as a member of their support team and fit right in. They’ve had those experiences, they’ve built that capacity. It’s kind of a mentality once you build those skills and flow-charting through problems, those skills are heavily sought after.”
He continued, “We had our technology advisory group in which was the biggest (chief technology officers) from the biggest employers from the county. They said that the number one skill to have was that ability to flow-chart through a problem and that was highly sought after. And if you can get someone who has that skill and some communication and some customer service skills and that type of thing, that’s somebody that’s going to advance pretty quickly in their department.”
Weaver added there are very few enterprise level kinds of products and tools that aren’t been used by the WCS.
Hendrickson and Powell reported they feel very confident in their co-op positions now.
Hendrickson said he was skeptical of being able to do the work when he first walked into it. Now, when Weaver hands him a ticket, he said he’s ready to go and get the job done. “I guess our confidence level is pretty high,” he said.
“A lot more than towards the beginning; we’ve grown a lot,” Powell said.
Both seniors said they like the variety of stuff they get to do on the job.
“No day is the same. There’s always new things to do,” Hendrickson stated.[[In-content Ad]]
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Warsaw Schools is preparing students for those fields in part by offering internships and co-ops in its technology department.
Justin Weaver, WCS level 1 technician, explained its programs.
“We actually have two programs that we run at the same time,” Weaver said. “The technology internship is a class offered through the (Warsaw Area) Career Center. They take one period per day of class with me. They go through the interview process for that and if they’re accepted in they’re put on the schedule. Right now I think we have seven interns. Then we also have the co-op program.”
The co-op program also is run through the Career Center, he said. It is a three-hour per-day shift. The two co-op students work the whole school year and get paid for it. Interns are not paid. It is more difficult to get a co-op position with the technology department.
“They actually have a harder (interview process) because they have to go through the co-op program interview process before they come to me. So then we have Brad and I sit down and they do an interview,” Weaver explained.
He said when they’re selecting students for the program they’re looking for students who are either self-taught in technology, software or hardware, or who have been through some of the classes offered by the WACC.
“We look at the whole person and decide are they going to be a good fit,” Weaver said.
The duties of an intern versus a co-op student are very similar.
“The internship class is a little more structured in terms of having assignments they have to complete and get graded on,” Weaver said. “The first quarter we wanted to produce a video that could help train next year’s interns during the first week. So they actually looked through some tutorials and we showed them how to do the things and they actually produced a video.
“Whereas the co-ops actually started working in the summer this year and by the time the school year started, they were already ready to go and they were working on ‘tickets’ from day one,” he said.
Tickets are a help desk request someone like a teacher or principal puts in for technology support.
“That’s a tweak that we did for this year,” Hagg noted. “We actually retained the co-op student that was with us last year and he worked through the summer. And these guys (WACC seniors and co-op students Anthony Hendrickson and Doug Powell) started early and worked through the summer with him. We find that as our biggest campus, the high school just has a crush of needs at the very beginning of the year and so having fully trained co-op students ready to go really makes a big difference from the first day of school. So that’s been very successful, that’s been a good change. We’ll probably continue that one, as long as one of these guys are willing to hang around for a little while.”
Powell works in the afternoon and Hendrickson works in the morning.
“With the co-op there is one class that all the students take and that’s fourth period,” Powell said. “I feel we have a bit more freedom than the interns do because we have more experience, we can handle more.”
The co-op students also have a greater variety of duties, he said, from handling tickets to helping out the interns.
Hendrickson said they know the technology pretty well.
“We know it. It’s one of those things that if we’re sketchy on or skeptical about we’ll go ask Justin for helpful hints on what we can do next or have him watch over us or walk us through it,” Hendrickson said.
Hagg said the students are good at self-troubleshooting. To find a solution, he said the co-op students probably use Google a lot to find the answer on their own. If the students ask Weaver for help, one of the first questions he asks them is if they’ve used Google yet.
Weaver said the co-op jobs are very independent by design. “We want to help them become better technicians when they leave here and the best way to do that is to allow them to fail sometimes,” he said.
Hagg stated, “That’s why the interview process is so extensive because their character and decision-making capability is almost every bit as important, probably more important, than their technology skills just because we need to have people that we can trust – ladies and gentlemen that are filled with integrity and that will make good choices. They have a lot of responsibility vested in them. We don’t hold much back from them during the course of their training. They know how to do everything.”
When the students are done with the internship or co-op, they are expected to have met certain goals.
“For the interns I actually put together a list, I actually had my last year’s co-op students put a spreadsheet together and I asked them what did they learn this year,” Weaver said. “And then I gave that spreadsheet to the new interns and I said, ‘OK, here’s your goal for the end of the year. It’s an independent study learning grid. Put a 10 down if you think you couldn’t learn anything more about this topic. Or put a 5 down if there’s some room to grow. It’s up to you then to ask me to help you grow that point.’”
During the first quarter the interns had to give Weaver that spreadsheet weekly to show where they were. That’s been spread out more now so the interns are more like co-op students since they have a full semester under their belt.
“I think they could be very marketable at any of the businesses in our community,” said Hagg. “I think they could step up and instantly take a job at their help desk or as a member of their support team and fit right in. They’ve had those experiences, they’ve built that capacity. It’s kind of a mentality once you build those skills and flow-charting through problems, those skills are heavily sought after.”
He continued, “We had our technology advisory group in which was the biggest (chief technology officers) from the biggest employers from the county. They said that the number one skill to have was that ability to flow-chart through a problem and that was highly sought after. And if you can get someone who has that skill and some communication and some customer service skills and that type of thing, that’s somebody that’s going to advance pretty quickly in their department.”
Weaver added there are very few enterprise level kinds of products and tools that aren’t been used by the WCS.
Hendrickson and Powell reported they feel very confident in their co-op positions now.
Hendrickson said he was skeptical of being able to do the work when he first walked into it. Now, when Weaver hands him a ticket, he said he’s ready to go and get the job done. “I guess our confidence level is pretty high,” he said.
“A lot more than towards the beginning; we’ve grown a lot,” Powell said.
Both seniors said they like the variety of stuff they get to do on the job.
“No day is the same. There’s always new things to do,” Hendrickson stated.[[In-content Ad]]
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