With the amount of technology available to the world today and with it's applications increasing by geometric proportions, I have chosen the design of a Technology Training Program for use in the Immigration Courts as my topic for the National Center for State Courts, Phase III paper. It comes at a time when training for the entire staff of the Executive Office for Immigration Review is being reviewed and revised by the Senior Trainer under the direction of the Office of the Director.

With the many changes in Immigration Law facing the Courts it is imperative that we work smarter, not harder and make use of the technology that is available. We must also plan for the improvements that are becoming available even as I write. There are over six-hundred employees affiliated with the Office of the Chief Judge and they are diverse in age, background, education, race, ethnicity, and most importantly for this paper, technological expertise. Where do we start?

This is a concept paper which will address a new collaborative system to introduce, explain and train employees in the use of the computer or any technological advancement introduced into the Immigration Courts. This system of training will combine the traditional in-person trainer with a method that continues to teach and reinforce, provide practice and self testing right at the PC. In actuality, once the in-person, or video trainer finishes their part of each phase, the employee will be using the technology as he/she learns it during the computer- based phase in a multi- step set of courses, tests and/or projects. The material presented to the employees will be court related in nature, and increasingly applicable to their own job.

Since everyone will be expected to participate in at least the first two "core" sets of instructions, no one will be singled out as being "computer illiterate" and the information used in the following programs will build on what was included in the core course(s). It should not overly challenge anyone, but rather tie together and organize the bits and pieces of instructional information they have already accumulated.


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