Many of our training programs begin with a refresher on the Mission Statement of the Maryland Park Service.
The mission of the Maryland Park Service is to manage the natural, cultural, historical and recreational resources to provide for wise stewardship and enjoyment by people.
Looking to the Future
We have listened to your concerns regarding the needs for quick easy access to information. We know and understand your time is valuable, so we constantly look for ways to bring training to you in a more convenient manner. We do, however, have limitations, as the Maryland Park Service works to channel as much of our funding as possible to the operations of our State Parks. We must be resourceful in how we deliver our support/training resources to our staff. Google has become a key resource for communication within our organization. We use it to share documents, plan events, communicate daily via e-mail, etc. We have only just scraped the surface of what Google Apps is capable of within our organization. As a training unit we hope to capitalize on currently available resources to bring greater efficiency to the training and resources we provide. How are we doing this?
We are using Google Calendar as a primary tool for course registration, providing you access not only through this website, but in your Google Calendar, shared calendars. An add-on in Google Forms provides for auto-population of the course guest list and for a confirmation e-mail. Please note: Add-ons are often works in progress, so they are not perfect - we will monitor the add-ons we choose to make the process as efficient as possible. Please communicate with us if something does not work as we have said it should, so we can improve, and make sure you are properly registered for classes.
This website is another example of moving forward. We have unique challenges. Not only do our employees need to access this site, but so do our volunteers. We want this website to be a one-stop-shop for many of the day to day resources you need. So once again, we are tapping into the power of Google Apps. This website will have sections that link to Google Sites, and this is where we will store information that is only available and needed by employees. Through Google Sites, we will be able to link to Google Drive files, so you will constantly have access to the most up to date information.
Volunteers - the information that you will need will be available on pages within this site. We have worked hard to find a solution that both supports our employees and our valuable volunteers. To that end, we encourage our volunteers to establish a gmail address, to allow for ease of access to the calendar, and other resources on this site. The site will be a work in progress for the next several months, as you can imagine it takes time to gather resources, build out our content, link to resources, ensure efficiency of access, and make everything look good too!
We have some limitations - we can't link to the Intranet (yet), and we continue to work on a more automated way to complete out-service training forms. (A challenge due to all the required signatures and the need for a hard copy to attach to credit card statements with those signatures.) Ideas and suggestions are always welcome.
On-line learning is here to stay, but never fear the nature of our jobs will always keep field and classroom training as a necessary part of our training menu. We have only begun to tap the potential of both our Learning Management Systems. The Hub has a huge amount of resources available within the system. Because our seasonal personnel cannot access this system, for efficiency we limit how we use the Hub. For now it will remain the primary portal for on-line education for classified and long-term contractual staff only.
The DNR Learning Center (Moodle site) is available for our seasonal employees and our volunteers. Currently we are just housing our on-line training on this site. We have not yet tapped the full potential of Moodle! Do you have site specific training, employee manuals, or employee newsletters that you would like your seasonal employees and volunteers to access electronically? Think about becoming a Moodle instructor. We can help you with training, and we can provide you with your own little section on Moodle, just for your staff resources. The beauty of Moodle is that any e-mail address works for access.
We invite you to check out the site, and apologize in advance if a link takes you to a page under construction. Just know that we are working hard to complete the construction. Is there something you would like to see on this site? Let us know. Is there training or training help we could offer, and currently aren't - let us know. We will do our best to make this site a useful tool for everyone.
The Maryland Park Service Training Division Staff
