Firstly sorry for huge gap between posts, I’m going to endeavour to get act together and write more this year.Think I got into that rut where you’re busy so you don’t feel like you can blog as you suspect it might be frivolous and self-indulgent when you have lots to do.
Then there’s whole thing of what to write about and my whole anally retentive perfectionist thing, which can be my worst enemy and can paralyse and cause writer’s block.
There, I think I’ve finally written enough excuses. I’ll stop now. And as Gibbs says, apologising is a sign of weakness. (Naff reference to NCIS. Sorry. DOH.) Anyway from now on – it’s not going to be perfect (was it ever?) I’m just going write. or ramble or note down what ever occurs to me.
Right. Onwards and upwards.
So I was in London yesterday to do a user training session for researchers on Zetoc, Copac and the Archives Hub. I was pretty excited as 22 had booked on the course and sent in their research areas. I prepared what I thought were great demos relating to their subjects and I’d written some new handouts that gave the students a step by step guide of what to do during the hands on sessions. I was really pleased with what I’d done although still secretly feeling like I’d copped out a bit and hadn’t done enough to make it different or have more engagement but more on this later…
Anyway I arrived and met my contact/liaison at the Uni and went to the training room. After having scrounged up a remote for the projector, which we couldn’t get to work and had to ask for help with, we discovered that the teaching pc, the one linked to the projector wouldn’t log on. The IT guy tried to make it work but in the end they decided that the best thing to do was to decamp to another room. (with obligatory notes on room doors, natch.)
Got to the new room, I was chuffed, this looked like a much nicer room, better set out and with way fancier pcs, a proper lecturn to stand at and present from. Snazzy I thought. Way to upgrade. Silly woman. Should have kept my thoughts to myself. Or just not thought them. Students started to come in and couldn’t log in. At least 6 pcs seemed to have issues. A 2nd IT guy arrived. He managed to get all pcs working instantly and generally made us feel daft.
I obviously trotted out the cliché that you should never work with children, animals or technology.
So the IT guy is just finishing up with one of the student pcs and I turn around to go back to the teaching pc to start the session, and the PPT on the projector had disappeared…and when I say disappeared I mean the projector wasn’t working. This produced much gnashing of teeth from IT guy number 2. He tried a few things and then rang IT guy number 1.
Whilst they were fiddling with stuff I started talking in the hope that by the time I got to the demo bit it would all be sorted! Wishful thinking on my part so basically started the demo by standing in the middle of the room and telling the students what to do. (Whilst IT guy number 1 is sat on a chair on a table trying to get the projector to work) I’m now completely off script and winging it like there’s no tomorrow.
Towards the end of my Zetoc ‘demo’, IT guy number 1 fixed projector. WOOT! we can go back to the plan. (I had liked the plan) so I was able to quickly demonstrate how to add journals to a Zetoc alert. We then had a few questions and I went to have a look at a few of the students’ searches. However leaving the projector unattended in this way caused it to switch off again. (Separation anxiety obviously) and I say switch off but that suggests that you can turn it back on again.
I could have rung the IT guy again but by this point I didn’t want us to have any more disruptions, so back to winging it. And back to standing in the middle of the room to avoid the badly placed pillar and so that I can still see everyone. (I do wonder if I looked demented at this point). The students were really good natured about everything though and still really enthusiastic which was lovely and they were asking questions throughout.
I also ACTUALLY used a whiteboard marker and a pad of A4 paper to show people how to phrase search and use wild cards. I then held up the pad and showed everyone in the room. Seriously. 
A couple of things struck me afterwards, 1. if you’re training in unknown venues and if you are planning on demonstrating live sites, you really DO need to be flexible and able to think on your feet. Otherwise not only would you be unable to keep the session going but it would be unbelievably stressful! (as opposed to just stressful? ) 2. it REALLY helps if you’ve done a lot of preparation and/or you know your stuff.
Anyway we got through it, not my finest hour or slickest performance but they all seemed pretty pleased and I even got a “this was REALLY useful”… so I suppose that having understanding and kind students is also great too.
Other things that occurred to me about my actual session…
Although they were Ph.D students, international students might not have the same awareness of different forms of information so I’m going to include a more detailed section about what the difference is between journals and journals articles is. Possibly even create a jargon buster sheet as a handout. (DOH! I really should have thought of this before, especially having worked in an international context!).
I really do want to add more engagement to sessions like this, but I am a little scared of it. I’m not quite sure what to do. So possibly quite scared indeed. I think as well, that part of me feels that if I’m showing Ph.D students how to use Copac, really the best way of getting them to take the knowledge they have learnt in the session away, is by showing them how to do it and then getting them to do it on their own.
I don’t know why I’m being unusually pedestrian in my thinking about this though as I’m normally quick to embrace new training ideas but I appear to be a bit stuck.
I have been told about using ‘anti-demonstration’. (Deborah Dalley explained this to me recently so am really grateful to her for the info.) This is where you get the students to tell you exactly what to do with the website and you cannot deviate from what they’ve told you and you’re not supposed to talk whilst your doing it. (Apart from the odd, ‘What next’.)
I’m not sure I could manage the not talking bit and I think this is a really nice idea for showing the pitfalls of Google, but I think if you’re demonstrating your service, it could fall a bit flat. Essentially I think I like the idea, but am frightened of it.
Has anyone else managed to bring in elements of engagement into Database training? If you did what level were you teaching? Did it work? Did it work differently with different types of students? How far did you go?
Enquiring minds would honestly like to know what you think. I’m hoping it’ll prove to be a bit of a kick up the … erm … jacksie to change my training.
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