Sometimes we all need a little inspiration in life and this kid gets the thumbs up from me. This video could be useful in a motivational training session or anywhere you'd like to add a bit of lighthearted fun and a wink to being inspired...
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Word 2007 Training Materials added to www.trainerbubble.com
We've recently added Word 2007 Foundation Training Course Materials to our website. These Microsoft Word 2007 Foundation Training Course Materials can be used either with the full training materials in a classroom environment or by individuals working from the supplied workbook.
The Word 2007 Foundation materials set out to give the participants the core knowledge required for using Microsoft Word 2007. Therefore the materials are useful for anyone with limited or basic knowledge of Word 2007.
Visit our website to view these Microsoft Word 2007 Foundation training materials.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Post Office Entry Examination 1897
I saw this Post Office Entry Examination from 1897 on a wall recently and had to share it. How well would you have done? I'm pretty sure I would have struggled to get the job!
Why not use this test as an icebreaker to your training courses and find out what your participants think? (click on the image to make it full size).
Why not use this test as an icebreaker to your training courses and find out what your participants think? (click on the image to make it full size).
Friday, 4 March 2011
Physiological find a word
This popped into my inbox lately and I thought it would make an interesting icebreaker or energiser during training. I'm not sure of the 'scientific truth' of it, but it should add a bit of fun to proceedings. I've not known anyone yet to look at it and not want to let everyone know their words! (click on the image to make it a reasonable viewing size).
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Placebo Effect - The power of the mind
This interesting video talks about the effect placebos have on us and what this means.
What's interesting for me here is that if placebos have these effects on us, then the idea of believing in yourself in order to achieve great things is supported. As Yoda once said, 'Do or do not, there is no try'.
What's interesting for me here is that if placebos have these effects on us, then the idea of believing in yourself in order to achieve great things is supported. As Yoda once said, 'Do or do not, there is no try'.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Marshmallow Challenge -- Training Game
I was recently looking through the TEDtalks website and came across this really interesting talk by Tom Wujec who uses a training game called, 'The Marshmallow Challenge', which has thrown up some interesting results for him. I recommend everyone to take the time to watch his talk as it really is quite interesting...
Further to this, Tom has set up his own website, which provides the instructions and other useful information about this training game. This can be found at http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html
I recommend you take a look.
Of course, this type of feedback will probably come as no surprise to you as it's pretty typical of all training games that you run in a training session. You can see for yourself by using some of the Trainer Bubble training games on our website. As with all of our training games, the materials are free to use.
Further to this, Tom has set up his own website, which provides the instructions and other useful information about this training game. This can be found at http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html
I recommend you take a look.
Of course, this type of feedback will probably come as no surprise to you as it's pretty typical of all training games that you run in a training session. You can see for yourself by using some of the Trainer Bubble training games on our website. As with all of our training games, the materials are free to use.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Talent Management
The concept of talent management has evolved into a common and essential management practice and what was once solely attached to recruitment now covers a multitude of areas including organisational capability, individual development, performance enhancement and succession planning
Organisations find greater value in formulating their own meaning of what talent is than accepting universal or prescribed definitions and there are considerable differences in how talent is defined across different industries and sectors. That said it is helpful to start with a working definition for both ‘talent’ and ‘talent management’:
- Talent consists of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in the longer-term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential.
- Talent management is the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, evaluation, retention and deployment of those individuals who are of particular value to an organisation, either in view of their ‘high potential’ for the future or because they are fulfilling business/operation-critical roles.
The issue with many companies today is that their organisations put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time on retaining and developing talent.
This definition underlines the importance of recognising that it is not enough to just attract individuals with high potential. Developing, managing and retaining those individuals as part of a planned strategy for talent is equally important, as is adopting systems to measure the return on this investment. More organisations are also now broadening their definitions, looking at the ‘talents’ of all their staff and working on ways to develop their strengths.
If you want to develop your staff and help them understand the implications of talent management, visit Trainer Bubble and download our Talent Management training course materials.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Equality Act 2010 - Training Materials
Trainer Bubble have just added Equality Act 2010 training materials to our portfolio.The Equality Act 2010 comes into play on the 1st October 2010 and will affect every organisation in the UK. Make sure you are ready with our half day training course materials available at www.trainerbubble.com.
Whatever our role within an organisation, we need to know about equality. An employer may be small or large - equality law still applies. Whatever the sector an organisation is in or whatever the type of systems and processes it uses, equality issues are all around.
The focus on equality issues is sharpened by the implementation of the Equality Act 2010 which is effective from 1st October 2010. All employers and employees have legal obligations under the Equality Act. Of course, embracing all of the changes brought about by the Act are employers of choice - those forward thinking businesses that recognise the benefits to everyone of showing respect and dealing with issues openly and fairly at work.
Equality Act Provisions coming into force on 1 October 2010...
Whatever our role within an organisation, we need to know about equality. An employer may be small or large - equality law still applies. Whatever the sector an organisation is in or whatever the type of systems and processes it uses, equality issues are all around.
The focus on equality issues is sharpened by the implementation of the Equality Act 2010 which is effective from 1st October 2010. All employers and employees have legal obligations under the Equality Act. Of course, embracing all of the changes brought about by the Act are employers of choice - those forward thinking businesses that recognise the benefits to everyone of showing respect and dealing with issues openly and fairly at work.
Equality Act Provisions coming into force on 1 October 2010...
- The basic framework of protection against direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation in services and public functions; premises; work; education; associations, and transport.
- Changing the definition of gender reassignment, by removing the requirement for medical supervision.
- Levelling up protection for people discriminated against because they are perceived to have, or are associated with someone who has, a protected characteristic, so providing new protection for people like carers.
- Clearer protection for breastfeeding mothers;
- Applying the European definition of indirect discrimination to all protected characteristics.
- Extending protection from indirect discrimination to disability.
- Introducing a new concept of “discrimination arising from disability”, to replace protection under previous legislation lost as a result of a legal judgment.
- Applying the detriment model to victimisation protection (aligning with the approach in employment law).
- Harmonising the thresholds for the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people.
- Extending protection from 3rd party harassment to all protected characteristics.
- Making it more difficult for disabled people to be unfairly screened out when applying for jobs, by restricting the circumstances in which employers can ask job applicants questions about disability or health.
- Allowing hypothetical comparators for direct gender pay discrimination.
- Making pay secrecy clauses unenforceable.
- Extending protection in private clubs to sex, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, and gender reassignment.
- Introducing new powers for employment tribunals to make recommendations which benefit the wider workforce.
- Harmonising provisions allowing voluntary positive action.
Monday, 23 August 2010
New iPhone App for Icebreakers, Energisers and Games!
Trainer Bubble are pleased to announce the completed development of our brand new Trainer Bubble iPhone App, which provides users with access to 100's of Icebreakers, Energisers and Training Games right in the palm of your hand.
This will save you the trouble of pre-preparing activities or using the same old icebreakers or energisers every time, as you'll have a vast resource right with you, wherever you go. Of course the icebreakers, energisers and training games can be used in any kind of event including meetings, training, teambuilding or large events. The possibilities are endless.
- Scroll through hundreds of icebreakers, energisers & training games to find the best suited to your needs
- Save favourites into groups of your choosing for easy access
- Use the Categories section to access activities by time or type
- Alter the colours of each sectionto easily identify where you are
- Shake the iPhone, iTouch, iPad for a 'Lucky Dip' activity
- Regular updates, enhancements and improvements
A few screenshots...
So, if you'd like to find out more about this fantastic new app, pop over to the Trainer Bubble website or view it directly via the iTunes website.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
PowerPoint in Training - When a good thing is not a good thing
I thought I'd write a few words about a topic that often comes up in discussions about training, and that is the use of PowerPoint slides. I have received many emails, had many discussions and attended many meetings where the subject of PowerPoint in training is raised. What is obvious is that there are those that are strong advocates and others that are not so convinced by the use of PowerPoint. Personally, I fall into the latter category.
I should start by announcing that I think PowerPoint is an excellent tool and its use has helped presenters and trainers immensely over the last two decades. The idea of returning to acetates and an OHP fill me with dread. Having said that, I believe the fantastic ability and usability of PowerPoint means that those very users have become too reliant on the tool and training has suffered as a result.
As a trainer and training designer, I get very frustrated by people who equate a good training course with how many slides are included. I have even recently read a training design company's view that a days training should include between 60 - 100 slides. I'm sorry, but this is just poppycock! This would mean that you are displaying at best 10 slides per hour or 1 every six minutes. If you are showing slides at that rate, then you are simply providing no time for activities, review, discussion or even any meaningful commentary from the trainer.
This point brings me to the key element of importance regarding PowerPoint during training and that is the statement, ‘PowerPoint should support the message, not the trainer supporting PowerPoint’. Without following this critical element you fall into the trap of letting the technology, not the content, become primary.
Training should be interactive and indulgent for the learner. It should allow time for the participants to explore the practicalities of an issue as well as to absorb the theory in a relaxed environment. If we simply present information to participants in a slide format we become lecturers, not trainers. To reiterate, PowerPoint should support training materials and the trainer in order to help the learner learn. This means using the tool as a reference point, a method of highlighting a point with an image or where it is not possible to demonstrate a point without a graphic or text based representation.
Some argue that they use PowerPoint as a method of ‘sorting their thoughts’ and although their training course has 2698 slides with it, ‘I won’t be showing most of those’. Well, great, but there is always the danger that someone else training your course will and besides that, surely there are better ways of laying out the structure of a course? That, to me, is why we invented Trainer Notes.
A regular study that is carried out by a website called, ‘Think Outside the Slide’, shows the dangers of PowerPoint and how it is perceived by the audience. Although the data is aimed at presentations rather than training I think it shows very well how problematic PowerPoint can be. The data reveals what annoys people most about PowerPoint.
The speaker read the slides to us - 69.2%
Text so small I couldn’t read it - 48.2%
Full sentences instead of bullet points - 48.0%
Slides hard to see because of colour choice - 33.0%
Overly complex diagrams or charts - 27.9%
As you can see, the speaker reading slides is the most annoying thing to people and although this study was taken in 2009, the same point has been top for every bi-annual study since it started. The author reads a lot into this and it is well worth a read, but my thinking is that the participants don’t like having the slides read to them mainly because they could do that for themselves. As someone on one of my courses recently said about a previous course, ‘The trainer was so intent on putting his notes on the slides, I couldn’t help but feel he should have just emailed his notes to us.’ This brings me back to the point that training should be interactive and involve the participants throughout. PowerPoint limits the potential to do this.
On a typical Trainer Bubble training course you will find something in the range of 12 – 24 slides per day. This will include the ‘title’ slide as well as two ‘objectives’ slides (one to open and one to close the session). PowerPoint advocates might feel that this is a bit sparse and that consequently the training course lacks content. This is certainly not the case and our thousands of customers will testify to this. The fact is, our training content is based in the Trainers Notes, where it should be, and the participants that attend one of our courses will gain knowledge through the information provided by the trainer, the activities they explore, the exercises they carry out, the discussions they take part in and then finally the supporting materials they see and receive. After all, as Confucius said, "Tell Me and I Will Forget; Show Me and I May Remember; Involve Me and I Will Understand."
Confucius probably had it right too , because from various research sources we know that we remember from: the Lecture (5%); Reading (10%); Audio Visual (20%); Demonstration (30%); Discussion group (50%); Practice by doing (75%) and Teaching others (90%). Even a good set of slides will only meet the Audio Visual element of this and at 20%, that’s not a very good return. Of course it’s not possible to make teachers out of all our participants and so the aim is to involve areas from each of these principles. A good training course will do this and allocates as much time and effort to each principle as the output justifies.
To sum up, PowerPoint is an effective tool to use during a training course, but it is only as good as the person using it. Let it support your training course, but don’t let it BE your training course.
I should start by announcing that I think PowerPoint is an excellent tool and its use has helped presenters and trainers immensely over the last two decades. The idea of returning to acetates and an OHP fill me with dread. Having said that, I believe the fantastic ability and usability of PowerPoint means that those very users have become too reliant on the tool and training has suffered as a result.
As a trainer and training designer, I get very frustrated by people who equate a good training course with how many slides are included. I have even recently read a training design company's view that a days training should include between 60 - 100 slides. I'm sorry, but this is just poppycock! This would mean that you are displaying at best 10 slides per hour or 1 every six minutes. If you are showing slides at that rate, then you are simply providing no time for activities, review, discussion or even any meaningful commentary from the trainer.
This point brings me to the key element of importance regarding PowerPoint during training and that is the statement, ‘PowerPoint should support the message, not the trainer supporting PowerPoint’. Without following this critical element you fall into the trap of letting the technology, not the content, become primary.
Training should be interactive and indulgent for the learner. It should allow time for the participants to explore the practicalities of an issue as well as to absorb the theory in a relaxed environment. If we simply present information to participants in a slide format we become lecturers, not trainers. To reiterate, PowerPoint should support training materials and the trainer in order to help the learner learn. This means using the tool as a reference point, a method of highlighting a point with an image or where it is not possible to demonstrate a point without a graphic or text based representation.
Some argue that they use PowerPoint as a method of ‘sorting their thoughts’ and although their training course has 2698 slides with it, ‘I won’t be showing most of those’. Well, great, but there is always the danger that someone else training your course will and besides that, surely there are better ways of laying out the structure of a course? That, to me, is why we invented Trainer Notes.
A regular study that is carried out by a website called, ‘Think Outside the Slide’, shows the dangers of PowerPoint and how it is perceived by the audience. Although the data is aimed at presentations rather than training I think it shows very well how problematic PowerPoint can be. The data reveals what annoys people most about PowerPoint.
The speaker read the slides to us - 69.2%
Text so small I couldn’t read it - 48.2%
Full sentences instead of bullet points - 48.0%
Slides hard to see because of colour choice - 33.0%
Overly complex diagrams or charts - 27.9%
As you can see, the speaker reading slides is the most annoying thing to people and although this study was taken in 2009, the same point has been top for every bi-annual study since it started. The author reads a lot into this and it is well worth a read, but my thinking is that the participants don’t like having the slides read to them mainly because they could do that for themselves. As someone on one of my courses recently said about a previous course, ‘The trainer was so intent on putting his notes on the slides, I couldn’t help but feel he should have just emailed his notes to us.’ This brings me back to the point that training should be interactive and involve the participants throughout. PowerPoint limits the potential to do this.
On a typical Trainer Bubble training course you will find something in the range of 12 – 24 slides per day. This will include the ‘title’ slide as well as two ‘objectives’ slides (one to open and one to close the session). PowerPoint advocates might feel that this is a bit sparse and that consequently the training course lacks content. This is certainly not the case and our thousands of customers will testify to this. The fact is, our training content is based in the Trainers Notes, where it should be, and the participants that attend one of our courses will gain knowledge through the information provided by the trainer, the activities they explore, the exercises they carry out, the discussions they take part in and then finally the supporting materials they see and receive. After all, as Confucius said, "Tell Me and I Will Forget; Show Me and I May Remember; Involve Me and I Will Understand."
Confucius probably had it right too , because from various research sources we know that we remember from: the Lecture (5%); Reading (10%); Audio Visual (20%); Demonstration (30%); Discussion group (50%); Practice by doing (75%) and Teaching others (90%). Even a good set of slides will only meet the Audio Visual element of this and at 20%, that’s not a very good return. Of course it’s not possible to make teachers out of all our participants and so the aim is to involve areas from each of these principles. A good training course will do this and allocates as much time and effort to each principle as the output justifies.
To sum up, PowerPoint is an effective tool to use during a training course, but it is only as good as the person using it. Let it support your training course, but don’t let it BE your training course.
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