This summer, the IT Learning Centre went out on the road, bringing ‘pop-up’ IT courses to new venues around the city. The majority of our courses are held in our dedicated teaching rooms in the Thames Suite at 13 Banbury Road but a trial of bringing ‘courses in a box’ to meeting rooms across the University has proved popular.
Two venues were piloted: the Statistics Department and Student Welfare. Thanks to both our host departments, and to their staff who made us welcome. Meeting rooms with basic equipment and WiFi were provided, and the teaching team brought along any equipment required for the course. As the courses were held in meeting rooms, courses were run on a BYOD basis (Bring Your Own Device). The team have a few laptops available to lend but many people prefer to bring their own computers.
A range of popular courses were made available and comments from attendees included:
- “I really appreciated that the course was held in another part of town that is closer to my workplace.”
- “This is a superb course with a well-structured lesson plan that was equally well executed … highly applicable to anyone. Will definitely recommend to fellow students and colleagues.”
- “I very much appreciate being able to do the course outside the Oxford term - thank you.”
The team are already planning more courses for next summer. If you are interested in hosting a course in your building they would love to hear from you. Venue requirements are a meeting room with projectors, tables and Wi-Fi, and your staff and students can usually have first refusal for courses held in your venue. Email: courses@it.ox.ac.uk for details.
Further information about upcoming pop-up courses will be circulated nearer the time. Meanwhile, the current course schedule is available.
