[icon-users] Masterclasses
- From: John Harrison <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: icon-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:03:46 +0000 (GMT)
That's an interesting idea. I suspect that the various presentations at
user groups are a bit like master classes (though I've never been to one).
A more permanent resource might be an FAQ somewhere (I've not checked the
IconTech website to see if one exists already). Ideally, the load of
answering questions would be shared though. I don't know how it would
work, but I'm sure there are plenty of us would be willing to contribute.
This list also provides a useful resource, though I suspect the threshold
for asking questions is quite high.
The 64,000$ question is 'what's wrong with rtfm? Much of the information
is there, if we only knew what to look for, and where to find it. That is
where I think there is a potential gap, because you need a level of
understanding about the principles behind the software before you can
effectively explore it. (EW, Impression, and a typewriter behave
differently because they are designed to do different jobs.)
I learnt about using software really effectively in an environment where we
asked each other questions (this was using Macs in the late '80s - early
'90s). But perhaps more significantly, my initial 'training' was 2 hours
when the Managing Director (yes it was that important) gathered everyone in
the project, and pretty well every Mac that we owned at the time, into one
room and showed us 'what we really needed to know to do things
effectively'. This culture spread down from the top (along with the Macs,
while the IT department was feedingAmstrads running DOS to the poor
secretaries!)
In my subsequent company (using Windows a decade later) I tried to pass on
much of what I had learnt by running master classes to help staff whom I
saw using software in very pedestrian, unproductive ways.
One of the beauties of modern software is that you can explore it. When
you think 'there ought to be a way of doing this', you can hunt through
menus, etc and try things. Of course you have to have the urge to explore,
and you have to understand enough to know which stones to turn over.
John
--
John Harrison - http://www.jaharrison.me.uk
Message sent from a British built Iyonix PC running RISC-OS 5
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