Comments for Coaches Corner

Comment on Office 2010 User Learning Moments: Pack Your Bag of Tricks by Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:34:41 +0000

Great first post Melany,

thanks for the tips

Comment on Virtual Classroom Success by Carolyn Humpherys

Carolyn Humpherys — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:30:15 +0000

Thanks Liz! There are several popular online meeting providers…GoToMeeting, WebEx, LiveMeeting, and Adobe Connect are the usual suspects. There are also some lesser-known vendors out there, but the price tag usually reflects the features. Which one is the best for you is something only you can answer based on your budget and what types of interactions you want to incorporate into your sessions. For instance, not all providers have emoticons or the capability to do break out sessions. Most have polling, hand-raising, chat and share-control features. Some have the ability to include class handouts, which is a feature I particularly like, but you may already have an LMS that does that for you. In the GoToMeeting product line, they also have GoToWebinar and GoToTraining. Like their names, each is designed for a certain purpose…and yes, each has a different cost reflecting the additional functionality that comes with that product. But similar to your experience with SoundPath, using a webinar or meeting product for classroom training will probably not meet your needs in the end.

Comment on Virtual Classroom Success by Liz Wilson

Liz Wilson — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:38:02 +0000

I got a lot out of the Virtual Classroom webinar last week. Thanks. In the past I have been combining Virtual and Instructor Led and I don’t believe my virtual people we’re getting enough out of the classes. Separate classes sounds like the answer. I us SoundPath which is very limiting. It provides me with more of a Webinar tool then a Virtural classroom. I noticed that you use go to meeting. Would you recommend go to meeting or any other product for the best virtual classroom?

Comment on OneNote 2010: The Ideal Note-Taking Tool for Todays Lawyer by Mark manne

Mark manne — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:07:31 +0000

it seems like no one reallyis aware of Onenote. We are using it as a great “selling point” for our conversion to Win7 Office 2010. While it wil nto be part of our standard training, we will be offering non-mandatory classes on it.
Since I discovered it, I use it almost every day.
The Dock to Desktop feature makes it invaluable.

Comment on Contextual Harassment by Michelle Spencer

Michelle Spencer — Tue, 24 May 2011 00:49:35 +0000

As soon as I saw the word “contextual,” I thought of the contextual tabs in the new Office suite. Of course, with our rollout ongoing, I could just have Office 2010 on the brain. With that being said, I think they are a really elegant way of presenting the tools you need when you need them without cluttering up your screen. They aren’t designed for learning, but they certainly assist greatly in the process, because they point you to the tools you need right then and there. They give you focus that sometimes eludes learners. As interfaces get busier and busier, we often are not able to see the tree for the forest of available options.

Another tool that I like from the Microsoft Office Lab sfolks is the Search Commands ribbon. However, I feel that it may actually impede learning a bit, because it does too much for you. By giving you the buttons right there on the Search Commands ribbon, it takes away some of the learning process, and we all know that exploring is one of the ways we learn best. Heck, I could just sit there on the Search Commands ribbon and type in commands all day, if I wanted. Maybe not too efficient, but you know there are those who would do it.

That brings me to my favorite Office learning tool, which is Ribbon Hero. The folks at Office Labs outdid themselves with it. This is a perfectly palatable way to present dry material and it plays on so many of our natural tendencies. It’s a game that’s pretty, fun, explorative in nature, and promotes competition with the Facebook linkage. I’m sure anyone who has worked with it has thought, “Just one more challenge and then I’ll quit.” I know I have.

So, to sum things up, all of these tools live in the applications themselves. I think that is one key component. The other is that they be readily accessible without being obtrusive. All of these tools are there when I need them, but not in a harassing manner like old Clippy.

Comment on Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 2 by Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 3 « Coaches Corner

Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 3 « Coaches Corner — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:51:10 +0000

[...] and see if it fits. Hurray for innovators! Take a look back at the social technologies shared in part 2 and see what you can try. For now, participate yourself and start building your own social learning [...]

Comment on Farm to Market: Moving Past the Planning-Doing Gap by Sherry

Sherry — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:11:27 +0000

A fabulous post and incredibly visual analogy, Carolyn. Thanks!

Comment on Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 2 by Maritta

Maritta — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:55:58 +0000

love your two posts on this – thank you!! awesome summary

Comment on What’s on your Bookshelf? by Jessica Griffin

Jessica Griffin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:28:20 +0000

Nice article. I also struggle with the thought of giving up the smell of the book, the tangible feel of the pages, being able to monitor my progress as I make it a third, half-way and almost through, but as I get older (imagine that), it does become more about the information than the experience. Well put. But they could at least give us some scratch and sniff e-readers, yeah?

Comment on Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 1 by Tweets that mention Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 1 « Coaches Corner -- Topsy.com

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:26:21 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Traveling Coaches, Tami Schiller. Tami Schiller said: Recapping the #iltasl experience at the Coaches Corner blog: Teaching Collaboratively with Social Media Part 1: http://t.co/BTcFUym [...]