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Sunday, April 11, 2010

The 15 Essentials of Bad Professional Development in Technology

by Jacob Gutnicki


1. Do not test the equipment prior to presenting.

2. Do not prepare alternate activities just in case the Internet is not functioning.

3. Do not allow your audience to ever ask questions.

4. Do not give refreshments. What do they think? This is not a café!

5. Do not help confused participants. Assume they were not paying attention.

6. No need to verify links. A broken link never hurt anyone.

7. Talk really fast; the faster the better.

8. Hands-on activities are for losers. It’s all about the lecture.

9. Discussions are a waste of time.

10. No preparation required. Real professional developers shoot from the hip.

11. No agenda required. Your participants are perfectly capable of taking notes.

12. No tutorials required. The Internet will take care of this.

13. No follow up required because we all work too hard.

14. No need to worry about varying software versions or computing platforms. After all, it all works the same way; basically.

15. Feedback??? We don’t need any stinking surveys!!!

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If you liked this, you may also like: Seven qualities of highly effective technology trainers

7 comments:

  1. The funny thing is I have seen people employ each of these methods over and over again never learning from their mistakes.

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  2. Are these the real causes of TECHNOSTRESS?

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  3. Hmm... I think poor professional development can definitely help propagate Techno Stress. Having said that, one's own computing experience can be a leading factor as well.

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  4. This is great! Number 1 especially resonates. So simple. I can't believe the number of times I have seen this. 13 is pretty good too.

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  5. Thank you for your feedback. I believe in the pre-flight checklist approach in which one tests the equipment prior to the workshop and visits the location of the workshop and runs the appropriate tests.

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  6. I loved those! I hate to say this but I fall into some of those sometimes. I am thinking of printing them off and taping them to my desk for a reminder. Thanks for the great post!

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