ASTD Austin July 21, 2006

Program: High-Tech Training for Low-Tech People
Presenter: Katrina Schold, Manager of Client Education & Support at Convio (previously at Dell, Tivoli/IBM, Hire.com, and Best Software)

Topic: How to adjust training to transfer appropriate technological information to a non-technical audience: tips for reading and managing a diverse audience, responding to signals, and explaining technology despite a student's inexperience or misgivings.

Keys for structuring/relating classroom and remote training:

• Supplement a 3-day Basics bootcamp with an extra Optional day, student-directed (addresses "didn't get what I needed!")
• Supplement with optional/advanced exercises for experienced techies
• Position e-learning as prerequisite to classroom as well as post-classroom support
• Always include downloadable student handout to go with e-learning
• Always keep e-learning to 10-minute focused topics, 15-minute max: beyond that students can't concentrate reliably

Tips for accommodating non-techies in classroom (handout available to copy)

• Physically engage: point to target before driving, talk through each click, repeat concepts with related/mnemonic gestures (visuals to improve recall), give them set of signals for Help/Done/Break/Slower
• Personally engage: use non-dominant posture (kneel/sit), give direction (where) before description (what), suppress nonverbal cues (sigh, fidget, frown)
• Personalize content: supplement step-by-step exercises and scripted demos with examples from their prior experience, models, analogies (e.g., DB = file cabinet)
• Read their cues: If glancing up and down, then slow down and repeat; if offline browsing/talking, then wind up, break, ask for student demo; if rolling eyes, then get their feedback during break
• Use fun and humor: use technology-deprecating humor (against bugs, UI quirks, progress bars), use prizes for wrong as well as right answers and "stump the instructor", substitute tossing nerf ball for question/answer/summary for oral quiz
• Accommodate both in mixed crowd: translate the techie's question for the non-techies; give real but brief answers to techies jumping ahead; give techies optional/advanced exercises and even let them present those, if willing; focus group work on business problems, not technical tasks, for co-learning