One Development

Part of the reason I got into training in the first place is because I love the interaction with people. And I think there is no better way of developing quality training and coaching than face to face. However, with transport costs, fuel costs and the environmental costs, alternatives have to be found. I have been working on and developing online training modules for parts of courses - these work very well to add another dimension to face to face sessions. And they are useful for academic, quantifiable lessons, especially where assessment is needed. But there seemed little substitute for the interactive, participatory dimension: however over past months I have bee exploring the options provided by social networking sites, particularly Second Life. It was about a year ago that I got interested in the psychological aspects of virtual worlds as research suggests that in general people behave the same in virtual worlds as the would in the real world. This does not mean that they will pl

I was talking to a colleague the other day who develops in-house training. She had a new, specialist function to train a small group to operate. Out of interest, in her pre -training questionnaire she asked what type of training would they like and in what format. Universally they came back with 'classroom style, chalk and talk', rather than any form of participatory workshop or interactive training. Fundamentally what the participants were saying was they didn't want to put in any work or effort but be magically trained sitting in a room doing nothing. But, what we know from feedback, evaluations , de -briefing and ultimately performance , is that delegates in general prefer participatory training. Evaluations usually show higher levels of boredom and dissatisfaction from classroom style training. So people don't always know what's best for them in advance... but know what was best for them, after the event.