5 Responses

1. Mobile Learning
   Hi Sareeta

   We are looking at Mobile Learning to increase retention by sending short video messages with various types of information to reinforce
   what was learnt on the classroom based course.

   Almost everyone seems to be glued to a mobile divice these days so if you can puit some training/learning on it it has to be a good thing!

   http://www.skill-pill.com/

   Regards

   Steve

2. “Can I ask the audience, please Chris?”

    

   Sareeta

   Try getting to attend the presentations of the trainees in the future, or get them to attend each others presentations or get a manager to attend their future presentations.  Whoever does it can then use a targeted assessment form to assess the effect, and therefore the success, of the presentation….this is the proof of the value (or not) of the training: if the trainee still puts everyone to sleep or bores the pants off them or leaves them none the wiser, or more confused, you have no improvement in skill or behaviour and no business benefit.

    

   Rus

   PS my title here is a pathertic pun on the line from "Who wants to be a millionaire?"

3. commitment

    

   I am a professional speaker that teaches presentation skills and I get them to commit to give a presentation within a week of the course and then a week later we will have a conference call to go over how things have gone.

4. Video

   Sareeta

   I don’t know if you intend to use video on your course. How about videoing them doing a presentation during the course and then send them away with a copy of their personal action plan and a video of their presentation on a DVD? Then ask them to review it with their managers.

   Or you could ask them to send you a video of themselves doing a presentation after the course together with their thoughts about how it went and what they could do to develop their skills in future.

   Regards

   Dave

5. Ideas on Presenation Skills Post Course Activities

   Here are some ideas:

   • Use a pre course assignment to get the delegates prepare a presentation.
   • Get them to deliver during the course and the end of the course so you can measure their progress.
   • Give them a score sheet to take with them, perhaps the same as the one you used to score them in the course, and ask them to score themselves. This forces them to judge their own presentation based on the criteria discussed in the course and reminds them which areas they still need to pay attention to.
   • Ask them to send their slides to you. A lot of people have bad slides. During a presentation skills course, they may learn  how to improve, but can easily fall back to bad habits. By checking their slides, say a month or two later, you can immediately see if they have improved or not.
   • You can send an example of bad slides a couple of months later to all delegates and ask them to improve it. Based on their response you can see which areas they still need to work on and you can provide a score based on what they reply.
   • Ask them to video record an example presentation and send it to you for evaluation. You can use the score sheet and provide specific feedback.
   • If your delegates were from the same organisation, ask them to get together a few months later and present to each other one at a time for 10 minutes. While they present, others should act as an audience and also as evaluators. At the end, they can provide feedback to the presenter on slide design, delivery, handling questions and so on. Optionally, you can ask them to evaluate formally using score sheets that you can provide to them. 

   To run a presentation skills course, you can take advantage of Presentation Skills Training Materials which contain score sheets, numerous exercises, latest content on design and delivery of presentations and just about everything you need to run a successful course.

   Hope this helps.

   Ehsan Honary