CC-BY-NC-SA 2025 New Language Solutions Avenue Program Standards for Technology-Enhanced Language Learning, version 1.2 Standard 5: Digital literacy for administrators and staff. Programs ensure that administrators and staff have the digital literacy needed to be competent users of technology, and that administrators are supported in becoming leaders and change agents with technology. • TIES LINC staff are equipped with the digital skills needed to successfully run a LINC program. The administration utilizes shared documents through SharePoint, works within both internal and government systems, and has plans to explore how AI can be of use for our program delivery. • We certainly recognize the need to run more PD around technology and digital tools, and will continue to work on that in the future. • Before the pandemic, we were a very paper-heavy program. We had filing cabinets everywhere, with colored stickers on files to represent different things. At the start of the pandemic, we began to use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of things, but keeping them up to date was timeconsuming. Within the LINC program, we soon learned how to use OneDrive for centralized document management, version control, online forms, enrollment tracking, digital portfolio submissions, and other functions. • In 2024, the whole organization moved to a more formal system based on Microsoft SharePoint, with each group within the program having its own pillar. TIES received funding to hire a contractor to provide SharePoint training to our IT team and teaching staff, as well as assistance to individual instructors in setting up their computers to operate in the new environment. Today, as new people arrive, our IT team brings them up to speed. • All of our coordinators use School Sense, an all-in-one, customizable software package tailored to the needs of LINC program managers. We use it, among other things, to maintain our enrollment and wait list information. As it houses all of our enrolment data, we can quickly access client and instructor data and easily generate program status reports. • We also use iCare, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s secure online data entry system. iCare is designed for organizations like ours that are funded by IRCC to manage and report on settlement and resettlement services. In our case, it is used to record and track information on the language training services we provide. 38
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