Education News & Notes
The Education Committee / training team has been hard at work since the annual conference juggling several projects.
NACVSO 2023 Annual Conference Content- the software developers are still working on resolving the issue that connects the conference content (video and presentations) to the “member compass” sections of those that attended. We are confident that this will be resolved but are not sure of a timeline. I think it could be fixed any day, but two weeks to a month might be optimistic/ more realistic.
Basic Benefits Course: August 21-25th using new Learning Management System (LMS)- Mike Farmer lead the training team that consisted of Jesus Pereira (MA), David West (CA), Zach Migura (OH), Karen Smietanski (IL), and Karylin Clevenger (IL), in executing the first Basic Benefits course using the Freestone LMS last week. This webinar was broadcast through each member’s NACVSO website “Member Compass”. It was a success as students and trainers were pleased with the system’s capabilities and user friendliness for only using it for the first time. Those that took the course knew instantly once they took the accreditation exam if they passed or failed. Congratulations to all 106 that took and passed the exam and can now apply for NACVSO accreditation! At the end of the last day of training, once the end of course survey was complete, each attendee’s Basic Benefits certificate was instantly accessible via each member’s Member Compass. This LMS is a webinar format which means that we lost some interaction capabilities with the class. Camera and microphone are not an option for students but there is a section to field “Questions & Answers”. We also created a “Student Engagement” (chat) section during the week to get student interaction once the content heavy classes had been covered. We received great feedback from students taking the course that the change removed a lot of class distractions and it made for a better student experience. The LMS will allow our training team a streamlined method of containing and delivering our Basic Benefits courses consistently from course to course. The potential is exciting as we will continue to develop and improve our training with this software. Thank you to Heroes with Hearing Loss for sponsoring Basic Benefits.
Advanced Appeals and CVA- the Advanced Appeals and Certified Veterans Advocate courses will still be delivered using the Zoom platform. Registration will open once the successful and complete integration happens between the LMS and the NACVSO website. You can find more information about both of these courses at https://www.nacvso.org/advanced-appeals & https://www.nacvso.org/certified-veterans-advocate.
Assessing NACVSO’s future of in-person training- we are working to identify a time for a meeting with the training team, delegates, and state/ tribal association leadership to start the assessment and discussion of NACVSO’s future in-person training offerings.
Intro to VA Benefits- a non-CVSO/ GVSO course is being created for those interested in learning about the main veterans’ benefits. This course is for those that are not seeking VA accreditation. It’s scheduled for mid-December, stay tuned by visiting the NACVSO website.
Are you interested in serving on the Education Committee? If you are interested and have skills useful to a training team, please reach out- zmigura@nacvso.org.