Posted By Jason Gould Hi I am persuming you have been on teaching courses yourself. If not I would reccomend that you did or have someone who has before embarking on such a project. I too am thinking about the development of a cd with numerous training and reference aids. What seemed at first to be a simple task has turned a little interesting. After doing a small 7307 teaching course (micro teach) I now appreciate that we have to back up our aims and objectives with teaching plans etc. (cater for different learning styles) What may be sufficient for one may not for the other. 1.Remember the question will be asked if your training was sufficient. 2. Have all the staff absorbed and understood the information. 3. The evaluation proccess 4. The couse outlines 5. What assistance will be available for people with learning difficulties etc. A human teacher can identify and adapt to these where as a computer will not. Im not against them but do stress caution in their development. The powerpoint etc is easy to set up. The rest is the difficult part. Im sure you already know this. Its just my opinion. Maybe you should have backup plans where as people who do have difficulties can be taught by someone in the organisation. Good luck Jason

Posted By Paul Swift I am also looking at computer/online based training, specifically for DSE but covering other issues as well. As a small(ish) company we have found it difficult to schedule training sessions as there are always people out of the office or too busy to attend. This results in having to teach a course more frequently or bad feeling because staff are forced to attend when they have other work to do.The online option is being looked at because it gives flexibility in when staff complete the training, although it seems it will need some management input to ensure they are completing in the alloted time! I have looked at a couple of the online courses and done the sample training at them. I felt that the training was reasonably comprehensive, but there is the obvious problem that you cannot ask questions so you may find that you need to have someone doing a bit more in depth training to be able to provide back up. Practical training is also another obvious problem with online courses.

Posted By Linda Crossland-Clarke In a previous life I used some Instinct Training CD Roms for DSE, I can't remember how to get them direct, but I have a link for a distributer. www.stsbusinessservices.com Linda.

Posted By Adam Courlander Thanks very much for your input guys and girls. Has anyone had experience with packages produced by Cardinus?

Posted By Linda Westrupp Adam I have used some of these packages before and would only recommend the DSE ones. I am not familiar with the management training mentioned but would consider this a possibility. Other types of training i.e. COSHH, Fire, Manual Handling etc. I would definitely NOT recommend doing like this as it is impossible to fully check understanding and absorption of the information. I would also want to check the candidates, for instance - is English their first language? - Are any of them dyslexic? - is everyone computer literate? - can they use a keyboard and mouse? - can they read? How are you going to check that the 'training' is being tranlated into 'real life'? What I found is that we excluded a small proportion of the workforce due to disability etc. and that to some people it is a bit like a 'virtual reality' game and they are unable to see any significance or link to everyday life. I have now returned to face to face training for most issues as it seems to work better. Linda