I have a favourite joke when teaching new and delete in C++. Alas, I believe that attendees are now less likely to have seen the show it references. Therefore, I present it here for your enjoyment (or not).

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Exam questions need to be valid, reliable, well phrased, well weighted, and markable. The following checklist is a summary of the suggestions presented in a series of posts (I, II, III) dedicated to writing exam questions for software developers.

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Reliable exams require good weighting - the allocation of marks - and reasonable marking schemes. This, the third post in a series on writing exam questions, provides suggestions for both these areas.

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This, the second post in a series on writing exam questions, demonstrates good phrasing and shows how to fix some common errors.

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I’ve written many exam papers and marked many, many more. This, and the following posts, contain suggestions that I follow when writing exams. I show examples of how to fix poor form and provide a checklist for good exam questions.

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I use a background screen, it’s just not normally green. Background Screen I tried a regular hanging cloth green screen. I had some trouble getting it to be perfectly flat, but it mostly worked. Once I had it working though, I had to question why I was doing it, and I can see two reasons why: to make the background unobtrusive, and to use it to display something actively. This is a different need to many presenters. Read more

OBS is a great piece of software, but setup can be involved. This post describes my current set up for the Mk III teaching station. Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is an essential piece of software if you wish to have control over what is seen by attendees. Without it you would be left switching cameras in your video-conferencing software and having no, or limited, ability to do things like picture-in-picture, a lower third, timers, freeze frames, etc. Read more

Remote teaching has stolen the ability to physically position yourself next to an item of interest on the projection screen. Annotation software provides an alternative. Screen Highlighting and Annotation By highlighting I mean making the position of the pointer clear. Changing the size and shape of the pointer is probably the easiest option here. I use a slightly more advanced option of a circle with transparency, as shown in the photo above. Read more

Sound effects and noises are part of communication and can be used to great effect while training. Stream Deck Sound Pad (full) As with the Stream Deck, sound effects are a well-established technique of streamers, and I know other instructors have used it in training, including live instruction, previously. This was my first opportunity. It wasn’t until I had the Stream Deck that I even had a plan on how to access samples. Read more

Both physical diagrams and digital diagrams are useful for remote training. Physical diagrams illicit a stronger, warmer response though. Physical Drawing Area Physical Drawing Area The Mk III Teaching Station, has a physical diagram area, just as the Mk I had. There have been a few improvements made, and I’ll describe them here, but before that, I’d like to talk about how physical diagrams are received. I have found that attendees enjoy seeing a physical diagram. Read more

Remote teaching requires displays and display areas to be used for different purposes. But, how do you set up so many displays?

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The Stream Deck, and other like devices, is a great tool for remote teaching. For a modest cost and time investment, it can greatly improve the experience of instructor and attendee. Stream Deck (main controls) The photo above shows my Stream Deck XL ($290) after a lot of experimentation and customization. Something like the Stream Deck is important because dedicated buttons allow the instructor to directly control the presentation’s video and audio. Read more

Remote teaching implies some form of video conferencing. It does not, however, mean that we must give up all eye contact. I built a teleprompter unit for my Mk III teaching station. Teaching Teleprompter Eye contact, and reading someone’s body language, are important skills for an instructor. Arguably the need for eye contact and a feeling of a connection is even more important for some attendees given that they have been isolated by themselves for months due to COVID-19. Read more

Sit/Stand desks for remote instruction have different needs to desks used for software development. I didn’t find a suitable one that I could buy so I made my own.

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I wrote about my first teaching station nine months ago. That, however, was just the start.

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For most of my training career, I have delivered courses to audiences in the same room. I have always favoured local delivery because the experience is far better for all. Coronavirus has made that view irrelevant for now; delivery has to be remote.

I made myself feel better by building a remote teaching station.

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When you first start training, your brain probably does just one thing — deliver the training. If you only occasionally deliver training, that’s sufficient. But, if you train often enough, you can expect your brain to potentially perform a total of three tasks.

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I’m happy (possibly too happy) with a phrase I came up with a year or so ago about C++ exceptions: “result codes make me want to throw”.

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Before delving into details, I should be open in that I am an instructor, and therefore I like running instructor-led training sessions. They’re my main source of income so it would be fair to assume that I might be slightly biased against e-learning. You know what, I probably am, but I do develop e-learning resources with my clients, and I do believe that it can be an effective tool, as long as it is being used for the right reasons.

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Someone with a PhD has an academic background and great technical depth — they should be a shoo-in for an instructor role, right? Alas, no. In fact, when interviewing, I treat a PhD as a yellow flag.

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Have you ever been in a training session and asked a question, or seen a question asked, only to have the instructor answer a different question?

Maybe it was an accident, but there is a chance that it was deliberate. The trainer gave a politician’s answer.

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Good instructors can be very hard to find. So, when a potential instructor is being interviewed, or is in a trial period, how do you know that they’re likely to succeed?

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Managing a large team of instructors, as you might find in a graduate training programme, requires planning to make sure that the right instructor is with the right group, for the right topic, and in the right region. This is challenging enough in stable environments, but training programmes can be highly dynamic, and plans may need to be altered on the ground. Understanding a trainer’s flexibility is therefore critical.

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It’s been a long time, but I have finally started a blog. It could easily have been a general blog about development, but there are plenty of those already, so I wanted to focus on an area that isn’t as well addressed — technical training. Yes, some do exist, but at the time of writing, I hadn’t seen any that showed the depth of knowledge I was hoping to see. I’m sure they’re out there, so if you know of one, please leave a comment.

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