5 Responses

1. Dragons Den

   Interesting blog. There are usually 2 reasons why something doesn't exist.

   1) Nobody has thought of doing it

   2) Nobody wants it

   My guess is No 2

   Word, Post its and Excel are perfectly fine in my opinion but maybe I've been watching Dragons Den too much.

2. I’m oot!

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ICdqVbl08

    

    

3. DIGITAL TOOLS FOR PROFESSIONAL TRAINERS

   My experience is that web/software-based tools are slow and unresponsive, and trainers have their own, idiosyncratic ways of doing things (I know I do!), and also work in very different fields: inspirational / informational / instructional (across wildly differing professions and disclipines) etc. One size does not fit all.

   On the other hand, I am surprised that more options have not flowed from the development of tablets, and I think there is scope there.

   I love Evernote for cross-platform work. I am also searching for the perfect presentation tool – this has so far eluded me. I used Powerpoint for years but became disenchanted, then moved to Prezi, but it has fundamental issues about the speed at which it works, motion-sickness issues (!) and it's not quite as responsive as it should be.

   The iPad has been my favourite development as it has enabled me to present from several platforms and I see this as a useful tool to work with for the future. Moving easily from presentation platform to video to Evernote, photos and so on has enabled me to be more flexible that ever before and avoid some of the pitfalls of proprietary presentation platforms.

   A tool which combined mind-mapping, presentation and ongoing development would be interesting but I have not found one yet. CloudOn is a useful platform for mobile application.

    

   Hope this helps.

4. Too many generic tools

    

   I find it an interesting debate as I'm active in an organisation (TrainedOn) that aims to develop digital tools for educators.

   Personally I tend to be rather conservative with trying new tools, and was mostly sticking to the old combination of MS Excel, Word and Powerpoint to create training plans, write my training reports and create presentations, respectively. Of course a couple of generic online tools like online surveys did help to make parts of the pre & post training work easier, but overall the process of using these tools to organise training was a bit messy and inefficient.

    

   What I particularly noticed as working in a youth organisation with many volunteer trainers was that having all types of training plans, reports and related materials (in every possible different format and tool imaginable) from dozens of different people made the knowledge sharing so much more difficult among trainers. Having a platform and format that is more commonly accepted (and comfortable to use!) would have made it much easier.

   It's not about forcing anyone to use a particular tool, more a question of providing tools that are more intuitive and comfortable to use for professional trainers.

    

5. Training tools

   Great trainers are intuitive and learn to respond to the situations they deal with. Tools are good but you will need a very flexible one to accommodate the typical trainer's need. Unfortunately web tools are usually good at doing one or two things and not very flexible. I reckon tools for evaluation, creating training strategies and the like could be created. But will they necessary meet the need of the trainer? Maybe we need to get used to using a variety of tools. Just today I put together a learning programme for two deputy managers using a combination of email, freely available videos and survey monkey. It's all about being creative.