Sometimes I teach at a training centre, and there is a wide range of courses taught there, from Word introduction , to CCNA, ITIL and Prince Project Management.... etc etc. So, you can imagine all the different types of people in the coffee area, waiting to go into the training room.
I have this little game I play, and I look around and try to see or guess ( or figure out ) which students are mine, and I get it right quite often.
Now, there is a receptionist who greets the delegates when they arrive, and she has a clear view of them, all the way from the lift. So I said to her one day :
"I bet you can tell quite well which course someone is here for, just by looking at them coming out of the lift?" and she says, yes, she often can.
So I ask, (foolishly!) : "If you'd never seen me before, and I was dressed like this, (I motion to my clothes) and came out of the lift, which course would you say I was here for?"
She "I'd tell you where the nearest Oxfam charity shop is!"
All I could do was laugh !
Monday 13 August 2007
Monday 18 June 2007
Give the trainer a break!
It's amazing...
If you are ever on training, PLEASE dont bombard the trainer with questions during lunch and breaks!
This week I had 7 delegates, some of them fairly new to what I teach. So, it happened a few times - we break for tea, and leave the room, and we went to sit in a kind of coffee area. I try to steer the conversation to small talk. Some delegates start asking questions about the product we are learning. Some of the questions would be good to discuss in the room with everyone there. But, really, at that moment, the trainer was hoping for a break, too. Dont get me wrong, I dont mind one or two questions, but when it takes the whole break...... Well, I had these same students for 5 days, and on only the 2nd day, I had to change my approach:
During a break, I would leave the room, go sit somewhere on my own, or even outside ! Its a pity - I like people, and its interesting to talk to my delegates about their interests, their lives, etc. So I apologise if you were my delegate this week, and I disappeared every break, and even at lunch time - but I need a break from the technical stuff!
I think maybe I will change my approach - in future if someone asks me a question in a break I will say: "you know, thats a really interesting question, that your colleagues could benefit from, so can you ask me again when we resume the training?"
What do you think?
If you are ever on training, PLEASE dont bombard the trainer with questions during lunch and breaks!
This week I had 7 delegates, some of them fairly new to what I teach. So, it happened a few times - we break for tea, and leave the room, and we went to sit in a kind of coffee area. I try to steer the conversation to small talk. Some delegates start asking questions about the product we are learning. Some of the questions would be good to discuss in the room with everyone there. But, really, at that moment, the trainer was hoping for a break, too. Dont get me wrong, I dont mind one or two questions, but when it takes the whole break...... Well, I had these same students for 5 days, and on only the 2nd day, I had to change my approach:
During a break, I would leave the room, go sit somewhere on my own, or even outside ! Its a pity - I like people, and its interesting to talk to my delegates about their interests, their lives, etc. So I apologise if you were my delegate this week, and I disappeared every break, and even at lunch time - but I need a break from the technical stuff!
I think maybe I will change my approach - in future if someone asks me a question in a break I will say: "you know, thats a really interesting question, that your colleagues could benefit from, so can you ask me again when we resume the training?"
What do you think?
Thursday 7 June 2007
New friends… and death by PowerPoint!
Travelled to Brussels from London on Eurostar, and I made 12 new friends! I taught them for 3 days. Though I taught in English, they all spoke Flemish or French. Luckily, though, their English was pretty good, and we had very few communication problems. Apart from the manuals, that is. My subject is a fairly technical server, and the course runs 3 days. The manuals are written in North America, and are full of what you would expect - long names for simple things, collapsed into acronyms. The students have to write a test, too. Though its open book, they struggle with double negatives, such as "which of the following are not true?".. followed by possible answers such as, "to disable the do not send feature...."... Can you see how confusing that could be to someone who does not speak English as their first language? My course writers don’t, and I have given up trying to convince them that this kind of thing does our company no good.
Anyway, the Belgian people are really really friendly, and they have a fantastic sense of humour! For instance, at one point I made one or two mistakes in my presentation (followed by the correct information of course ) , and I teach a Server where users are added to this server. So of course, when I made my mistake/s, they asked "where is the Server setting to REPLACE INSTRUCTOR!"
We had a good laugh over the 3days, I really believe it keeps them interested , and they learn more if some humour is about . They also relax, and they feel at ease to contribute. (I hope)
Slides galore - Do you hate powerpoint? ... me too. I kid you not, my North American writers sometimes make 140 slides for one day's training. ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY ! These slides are mostly text, too. Not many are diagrams. So I teach like this: Present the topic in my style, (animated and interactive), they get given some stuff to do on their PCs, about the topic I am teaching, we might do a flip chart or White board diagram, and THEN we zoom through the slides to see if we missed anything, or to look at diagrams that confirm what we have learned. I have heard a saying before: "death by PowerPoint", and I try to avoid that. Many people make the mistake of taking "preparing their presentation" to mean "spend hours on your slideshow". Well, the training or the presentation is NOT about the slideshow, its about the SPEAKER, and how they lead the audience to a point or a discovery.
The following are great speakers:
Bill Clinton
Nelson Mandela
Adolf Hitler
Did you ever see any of them using Powerpoint?
Travelled to Brussels from London on Eurostar, and I made 12 new friends! I taught them for 3 days. Though I taught in English, they all spoke Flemish or French. Luckily, though, their English was pretty good, and we had very few communication problems. Apart from the manuals, that is. My subject is a fairly technical server, and the course runs 3 days. The manuals are written in North America, and are full of what you would expect - long names for simple things, collapsed into acronyms. The students have to write a test, too. Though its open book, they struggle with double negatives, such as "which of the following are not true?".. followed by possible answers such as, "to disable the do not send feature...."... Can you see how confusing that could be to someone who does not speak English as their first language? My course writers don’t, and I have given up trying to convince them that this kind of thing does our company no good.
Anyway, the Belgian people are really really friendly, and they have a fantastic sense of humour! For instance, at one point I made one or two mistakes in my presentation (followed by the correct information of course ) , and I teach a Server where users are added to this server. So of course, when I made my mistake/s, they asked "where is the Server setting to REPLACE INSTRUCTOR!"
We had a good laugh over the 3days, I really believe it keeps them interested , and they learn more if some humour is about . They also relax, and they feel at ease to contribute. (I hope)
Slides galore - Do you hate powerpoint? ... me too. I kid you not, my North American writers sometimes make 140 slides for one day's training. ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY ! These slides are mostly text, too. Not many are diagrams. So I teach like this: Present the topic in my style, (animated and interactive), they get given some stuff to do on their PCs, about the topic I am teaching, we might do a flip chart or White board diagram, and THEN we zoom through the slides to see if we missed anything, or to look at diagrams that confirm what we have learned. I have heard a saying before: "death by PowerPoint", and I try to avoid that. Many people make the mistake of taking "preparing their presentation" to mean "spend hours on your slideshow". Well, the training or the presentation is NOT about the slideshow, its about the SPEAKER, and how they lead the audience to a point or a discovery.
The following are great speakers:
Bill Clinton
Nelson Mandela
Adolf Hitler
Did you ever see any of them using Powerpoint?
Friday 25 May 2007
Webinar training
Impersonal, but practical.
Today I conducted a web based training session. It was weird, and completely different from a classroom based session.
Weird because, most trainers will tell you, they thrive on people inter-action, and its especially rewarding to watch your delegate do something they werent able to do before, and this is easy to check in the classroom, but its real difficult to do it over the phone. My session didnt have any camera, so the only interaction I get is from the phone. Even thats really limited, 12 people on the call, and I have to do most of the talking. There is a little bit they can do, the screen lets them put up a hand, applaud, show a smily, etc.
No body language at all - this is weird, too. Without being concious of it (sometimes), a delegate's body languge tells you what's going on with that person, and you can adjust accordingly, --- if you see they are felling left out, for example, you can ask them a question, smile at them, etc. But with only a phone and no screen, this makes it really difficult to tell wether people are listening, surfing the web, or even gone away to make tea!
By the same token, I can't use MY body langauge, either! So everything I do has to be communicated by the phone and on the screen. So I have to be very aware of speaking slowly and clearly.
Anyway, it went well, I think, there's no way to really gather feedback, evaluations are not really practical, though I suppose a system could be setup to gather them on-line somehow.
I try to make my classroom training fun, with lots of interaction between the students and me, but this was really difficult to do in this case. All I could do, really, was pop a few questions down the phone, and try and get some interaction that way. Even that's a challenge, they all seemed to wait for someone else to answer if I did that.
My next class, in a classroom, is in 2 weeks time, and I will be in Brussels, (I am currently near London).
Today I conducted a web based training session. It was weird, and completely different from a classroom based session.
Weird because, most trainers will tell you, they thrive on people inter-action, and its especially rewarding to watch your delegate do something they werent able to do before, and this is easy to check in the classroom, but its real difficult to do it over the phone. My session didnt have any camera, so the only interaction I get is from the phone. Even thats really limited, 12 people on the call, and I have to do most of the talking. There is a little bit they can do, the screen lets them put up a hand, applaud, show a smily, etc.
No body language at all - this is weird, too. Without being concious of it (sometimes), a delegate's body languge tells you what's going on with that person, and you can adjust accordingly, --- if you see they are felling left out, for example, you can ask them a question, smile at them, etc. But with only a phone and no screen, this makes it really difficult to tell wether people are listening, surfing the web, or even gone away to make tea!
By the same token, I can't use MY body langauge, either! So everything I do has to be communicated by the phone and on the screen. So I have to be very aware of speaking slowly and clearly.
Anyway, it went well, I think, there's no way to really gather feedback, evaluations are not really practical, though I suppose a system could be setup to gather them on-line somehow.
I try to make my classroom training fun, with lots of interaction between the students and me, but this was really difficult to do in this case. All I could do, really, was pop a few questions down the phone, and try and get some interaction that way. Even that's a challenge, they all seemed to wait for someone else to answer if I did that.
My next class, in a classroom, is in 2 weeks time, and I will be in Brussels, (I am currently near London).
Sunday 20 May 2007
I.T. Classes - who's the trainer?
Short "whats this blog about?"
Well, I teach in IT. And it occured to me that many of you out there would like a laugh! Well, my classes are fun, and I want to show you here, the kind of thing that goes on, and what it's like from the trainer's perspective.
I will share with you the frustrations/egos/techniques/problems, and all the onther things that make a Training session errrrr...... errr INTERESTING, shall we say?
Jumping topic here...
Well, thanks Microsoft, (again!)
So I am busy typing up my blog, and I am installing Front Page at the same time, and I click the option to check for updates, and... It takes over my blog window ( What? -, it cant open a new window?) My blog I was typing is gone, and I have to start again... oh well....
Well, I teach in IT. And it occured to me that many of you out there would like a laugh! Well, my classes are fun, and I want to show you here, the kind of thing that goes on, and what it's like from the trainer's perspective.
I will share with you the frustrations/egos/techniques/problems, and all the onther things that make a Training session errrrr...... errr INTERESTING, shall we say?
Jumping topic here...
Well, thanks Microsoft, (again!)
So I am busy typing up my blog, and I am installing Front Page at the same time, and I click the option to check for updates, and... It takes over my blog window ( What? -, it cant open a new window?) My blog I was typing is gone, and I have to start again... oh well....
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