Showing posts with label BozarthZone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BozarthZone. Show all posts
Saturday, April 3, 2010
NYNP blog post 4-7-09
Free resources for creating training games
Today I attended another excellent, free lunchtime webinar hosted by InSync Training (see my prior blog post "Free resource for learning how to conduct training online" for info about these webinars). The co-facilitators were Jane Bozarth of www.bozarthzone.com and Kassy LaBorie of www.insynctraining.com, and the guest presenter was Wendy Hardman of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
The webinar was titled "BozarthZone! Games Synchronous Trainers Play with Kassy LaBorie". The facilitators argued that games are essential elements of webinar training because they break the ice, engage participants, help people think, support the transfer of learning, make the training memorable, and let the facilitators check the learners' comprehension. They shared the quote "games = seductive tests" (William Horton). They warn, however, that any games used in training must connect to the content and have a point -- random games or filler games just waste participants' time and frustrate them.
The facilitators and participants shared a few free resources for creating games and puzzles, which you might find useful in this age of doing more with less:
http://www.edhelper.com/puzzles.htm
http://itech.pjc.edu/html/powerpoint_resources.htm
http://www.quia.com/web (free with a 30-day trial, but /year after that)
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/ (there is a CD-ROM for sale here, but you can also create puzzles for free online)
Today I attended another excellent, free lunchtime webinar hosted by InSync Training (see my prior blog post "Free resource for learning how to conduct training online" for info about these webinars). The co-facilitators were Jane Bozarth of www.bozarthzone.com and Kassy LaBorie of www.insynctraining.com, and the guest presenter was Wendy Hardman of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
The webinar was titled "BozarthZone! Games Synchronous Trainers Play with Kassy LaBorie". The facilitators argued that games are essential elements of webinar training because they break the ice, engage participants, help people think, support the transfer of learning, make the training memorable, and let the facilitators check the learners' comprehension. They shared the quote "games = seductive tests" (William Horton). They warn, however, that any games used in training must connect to the content and have a point -- random games or filler games just waste participants' time and frustrate them.
The facilitators and participants shared a few free resources for creating games and puzzles, which you might find useful in this age of doing more with less:
http://www.edhelper.com/puzzles.htm
http://itech.pjc.edu/html/powerpoint_resources.htm
http://www.quia.com/web (free with a 30-day trial, but /year after that)
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/ (there is a CD-ROM for sale here, but you can also create puzzles for free online)
NYNP blog post 3-24-09
What is good training design?
Good training design = when there's nothing left to take out.
Today I attended an excellent, free lunchtime webinar hosted by InSync Training (see my prior blog post "Free resource for learning how to conduct training online" for info about these webinars). The facilitator was Jane Bozarth of www.bozarthzone.com, the co-facilitator was Kassy LaBorie of www.insynctraining.com, and the webinar shared the title of one of Bozarth's books, Better than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging E-Learning with PowerPoint.
Ms. Bozarth shared the rule of thumb above for good training design. What did she mean?
When a trainer or instructional designer (I'll just say "trainer" for simplicity) approaches material that needs to go into a training - whether e-learning, webinar, or classroom-based training - the trainer needs to start by thinking: What are the key objectives for the training? And what is extraneous information that confuses the point?
In order to keep participants focused on the learning objectives, the trainer needs to cut away all of the extraneous information, so that what's left is clearly related to the objectives. Once the material has been cut down to the essential information, the trainer needs to consider how to present the information in a way that's tied to real world behavior change on the job. Then, just as the raw material needs to be cut down to the essential, the activities and training materials must also be cut down. Irrelevant PowerPoint slides, handouts, graphics, text, colors, animations, activities, etc. must be cut away, so that the training content that's left is clearly related to the objectives.
This process can be deceptively time-consuming. For nonprofit trainers doing a lot more with a lot less right now, it can be easier to just dump everything we can think of into training, rather than taking the time to sort through the content and focus it. However, if we don't create clear and effective training the first time, we may end up having to redo it, so in the end it can save time to do this right. And, if we implement good training design that leads to quality service and performance towards our organizations' missions, our clients will be the ultimate beneficiaries.
Good training design = when there's nothing left to take out.
Today I attended an excellent, free lunchtime webinar hosted by InSync Training (see my prior blog post "Free resource for learning how to conduct training online" for info about these webinars). The facilitator was Jane Bozarth of www.bozarthzone.com, the co-facilitator was Kassy LaBorie of www.insynctraining.com, and the webinar shared the title of one of Bozarth's books, Better than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging E-Learning with PowerPoint.
Ms. Bozarth shared the rule of thumb above for good training design. What did she mean?
When a trainer or instructional designer (I'll just say "trainer" for simplicity) approaches material that needs to go into a training - whether e-learning, webinar, or classroom-based training - the trainer needs to start by thinking: What are the key objectives for the training? And what is extraneous information that confuses the point?
In order to keep participants focused on the learning objectives, the trainer needs to cut away all of the extraneous information, so that what's left is clearly related to the objectives. Once the material has been cut down to the essential information, the trainer needs to consider how to present the information in a way that's tied to real world behavior change on the job. Then, just as the raw material needs to be cut down to the essential, the activities and training materials must also be cut down. Irrelevant PowerPoint slides, handouts, graphics, text, colors, animations, activities, etc. must be cut away, so that the training content that's left is clearly related to the objectives.
This process can be deceptively time-consuming. For nonprofit trainers doing a lot more with a lot less right now, it can be easier to just dump everything we can think of into training, rather than taking the time to sort through the content and focus it. However, if we don't create clear and effective training the first time, we may end up having to redo it, so in the end it can save time to do this right. And, if we implement good training design that leads to quality service and performance towards our organizations' missions, our clients will be the ultimate beneficiaries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
A tool to examine problems, identify manager expectations, and consider issues
Jane Bozarth of www.bozarthzone.com facilitated another free lunchtime webinar today, titled "BozarthZone! Instructional Design for the Real World," with technical assistance from Kassy LaBorie of www.insynctraining.com. (See my prior blog post "Free resource for learning how to conduct training online" for info about these webinars.)
Bozarth offered practical tips for training design, and one lesson in particular stood out -- the fact that coworkers sometimes come to trainers with intense emotions like anger, frustration, desperation, avoidance, or hope. We hear "everyone needs training on X right away," "things would be so much better if everyone just knew how to X," or "please help me get my staff to X because I've tried everything and they just won't do it."
In order to deal with an emotional request for help, trainers need to respond with a systematic analysis of the problem and how to solve it. We need to listen, ask good questions, identify the actual business challenge underneath any emotional complaints, and help ease our coworkers' emotions by finding effective solutions to the challenge even when the appropriate solution is not training.
Bozarth suggested using a tool to help with this systematic analysis -- a list of "Twenty Questions You Should Always Ask Before Starting Any Training Program," created by Dr. Nanette Miner. Bozarth included the tool in her latest book From Analysis to Evaluation: Ready-to-Use Tools to Make Training More Effective, and it's downloadable as two of the pages here: http://tinyurl.com/qhgj73.