Training Talk: Hard-Hitting Articles on Computer Training, Management, and IT-related Issues.

This might seem pretty obvious, but let me tell you, I have had so many nightmares trying to teach courses where not all the computers work properly, with either hardware, software or even overhead projector glitches. This situation, quite simply, ruins a class. When things work for half the students, and others are madly trying to catch up because their computer froze and has to reboot, or they have a different version of the software (yes this has happened), or they have a different OPERATING SYSTEM than me (yes, this has happened too!), the class falls to pieces.

And you know what? It’s damn embarrassing, because I’m the one in front supposedly “in charge” of everything, but rarely do I ever get a say in or a chance to test the class computers beforehand. Usually a company’s IT department handles that and I’m lucky if I can even get some tech support when needed. Often I am not even allowed into a classroom until just a few minutes before the class is supposed to start.

True story, once I was teaching a class with some antiquated portable computers we called “lunch boxes.” Think of them as mildly portable computers about half the size and weight of a desktop, with a monitor and keyboard and mouse. They were still friggin’ heavy though! Especially carrying 14 of them across a plaza, up 2 flights of stairs (no elevator!)…but I digress.

So I get all the lunchboxes setup, and about 20 minutes into class, 4 of them decide to break. Rebooting didn’t help, and while I stepped outside to call my company to try to fix them, the class went to pot. I think I never sweated so much in my life!

I realize this point may seem pretty obvious, but judging from the sheer number of ruined courses due to hardware/software problems, it is worth mentioning. Make sure your computer systems are up to par, with the exact same software versions, prior to the training!

This category encompasses a number of things, such as…

Prior to the ubiquity of the overhead, I used to have to DRAW what students were supposed to be seeing, on a whiteboard. Or DESCRIBE it really well. Or, go to EACH student and point out what they were supposed to be doing, one by one. Can you imagine how rough, and looong, those courses were? And I was good at it too! Yet the onset of the overhead made my and my students’ lives much easier in the classroom. Make sure you have an overhead, that it works, and it does not shine RIGHT into the instructor’s eyes—please!

I have taught in rooms that were super skinny and very long side to side, which meant I had to literally run from one part of the room to another, and yell to be heard. Believe it or not, true story, I was asked to teach a course at a company where there was no training room at all, and I stood in the middle of an office while students had their backs to me—no overhead—and I shouted out commands, while other students in adjacent offices—I am absolutely NOT kidding you!—listened and tried to follow along on their computers. What a nightmare! I should have walked out! But I was working for a training company and had not been the one to setup the course; I was just the one to force those poor students through their paces in learning Excel in this atrocious setup. Wow, that one took a chunk out of me!

Bottom line here, is you want a classroom that is well laid-out, with plenty of room between aisles (for both convenience and fire safety reasons), a good working overhead, a whiteboard with working markers, and access to tech support for the inevitable glitch (such as all the computers have a password but no one bothered to tell the instructor!).

Although this is rarer these days, I have taught quite a few courses with too many students. Once I had 36+ students in a course, and it was absolute mayhem. Class size should be limited to no more than 12 students. You could go 16 if you absolutely had to, but that is truly the absolute limit. Even with an extra teaching assistant, often the venues for large courses are so huge that I have to literally yell to be heard above all the noise of the computers, talking, and air conditioner, and just absolutely forget about quality teaching. There’s just no way one instructor can keep a large group like this together.

So, don’t do it!

Conclusion

Am I bitter about these experiences? You bet! When they could have been prevented with better planning and a little thought, and when I and my students had to suffer greatly due to the mishaps. But thanks to this handy little article, you won’t be making these course-destroying mistakes now, will you?

Computer and soft-skills training can be a blast if managers and HR personnel would take into account students’ and instructor basic needs. You might want to check out a couple of related articles, 9 Tips to Ensure Your Next Rollout Fails, and Are You Making These 5 Rookie Scheduling Blunders?

 Hopefully you found these tips helpful, and please share your best ideas in the comments section below. Until next time, we’ll solve our problems Bit by Bit.