It’s critically important to us that civil servants have the best tools to do their jobs. It is equally important that our technology is based around user needs. We know this isn’t the case now, as demonstrated by comments from civil servants to Sir Bob Kerslake's blog in January. So we have organised the inaugural Technology Workshop taking place on Friday 25th April. It’s an opportunity to contribute ideas to help improve government technology.
The Departmental Technology Leaders who will be hosting this workshop include:
- Denise Mcdonagh, Home Office. @kdmcdonagh
- James Findlay, Dept of Transports. @GoAgileGov
- Ian Sayer, Ministry of Justice
Workshop Details
Date: Friday 25th April, 2014
Time: 10am-12 noon
Where: Ministry of Justice, 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AJ.
(Nearest Tube: St. James Park; nearest Train Station: Victoria).
Please note, this is the first of potentially several workshops which will be held around the country depending on demand. If you are unable to attend this one, you may be able attend one at a later date.
Follow Alex on Twitter.
2 comments
Comment by simonfj posted on
Alex,
Would you consider a different approach to running these workshops. One of the problems with trying to institute digital skills is that .gov doesn't use the kind of education approach that is increasingly used in educational institutions.
So could you "flip the classroom". i.e. put up the lectures as videos prior to the event, and run a online learning environment so people could ask question before, during and after the class/conference. We do need a cyber-place which (at least) attempts to include non attendees, and leaves a record of the meetings, so we can begin to bring together interested peers.
We are trying to encourage a new culture here, and the old routines, and lack of digital tools, are starting to be a look embarrassing to a new generation.
Comment by Alex Holmes posted on
Hi Simon,
Thanks for your comment. You are right that events such as our recent Technology Workshop should be as digital as possible and we're keen to generally use modern educational approaches such as Massive Open Online Courses. However, the workshops are more about sharing than education and although we're looking into streaming them, for now we'll continue to blog about the Workshops and progress being made in Departments with regards to fixing civil servants' technology.
Alex