Pawsey Training Goes Remote: Experiences and Best Practices
Event Type
Workshop
Education, Training and Outreach
HPC Training and Education
SIGHPC
W
TimeWednesday, 11 November 202012pm - 12:15pm EDT
LocationTrack 6
DescriptionThe Pawsey Supercomputing Centre has offered a variety of education, training and outreach activities for a number of years, most of which has been face-to-face or in-person. As with other training providers, the global pandemic has forced us to look afresh at our offerings. We faced two main challenges, moving all learning activities online and doing so with a team of scientists and computer specialists for whom training is an added passion/responsibility, rather than their "day job". We have trialled a number of techniques and approaches. Based on user feedback, we have developed a scaffolded approach that seeks to move the learner up the learning curve from awareness to guided use to adoption (where appropriate). The outcomes are a more purposeful and creative approach to training, more inclusive outreach and unexpected partnerships. We are expanding our open repository of materials covering different aspects of HPC systems usage, parallel programming techniques as well as cloud, visualization, and data resources’ usage. Training programs developed at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre over the last few years are globally recognized and used for various training, hack-a-thon and tutorial events as well as educational courses. In this paper, we will share our experience in using different virtual training techniques and tools to address specific learning outcomes. The overall goal is to emphasize that there is no universal, one-size-fits-all learning solution, but instead, various solutions and platforms that need to be carefully selected for different groups of interest.
