Recorded September 10, 2021

It's the season finale of Off the Rails! We did it— an entire year of shows… and no on air fights. A lot of swearing by text (Chris), complaining about things (Chris), and getting frustrated at people not reading emails (Chris). Wait a minute… For Season 2, starting in a few weeks, or whenever we get around to it (Chris says "the first week of October"), we'll have more topics to discuss, more news, and more technology! And we might even get around to new commercials (which are already written but have been sitting since December).

The AV news article discussed on this episode comes from the world of K-12 (because Chris didn't read the headline closely enough) but is quite relevant to colleges and universities in that it's about talking with users to determine needs and tasks long before selecting technologies. I think we all recognized it as best practice and wish it happened more often.

Then, we again break format and stay on a single topic for the entire show— this time on the challenges, processes, and frustrations with hiring AV staff at our institutions. Jamie is in the middle of it right now and he shares some of the issues he's run into, especially with candidates who don't read job requirements and standardized interview questions. Is it best to hire someone with a solid technical background, or focus on the person and train them up to the position? All this and more!

Article discussed: https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2021/09/how-choose-k-12-educational-technology-intentionally