The Art of Teaching

Our company, High Concept Design & Media Services is the only Corel Training Partner in western Canada and a continuing education provider for the Architectural Institute of British Columbia.

What does that mean?

It means we position ourselves to provide technology training to our clients on the products that we specialize in using every day. It also means that we spend even more time taking training and applying that knowledge in on a daily basis.

Teaching can be difficult, no question, but it can be just as tough to be a student in a challenging classroom environment.

Everyone has their own favourite approach. I believe in a simple formula for assessing the value of training: a 20/30/50 ratio. At the end of the course, I would like to see the total time allocated as follows:

20% Telling
30% Showing
50% Doing

The instructor definitely has experience and information to impart to the students, but in my opinion nobody can learn a lot by being talked at. Knowledge is generally imparted by modeling/emulating; hence the need to show, but the real knowledge is learned by doing in an environment where it is safe, where there is someone to bail you out.

We learn from classes, online and DVD training, experimentation and even from our clients. The thing to remember when it comes to learning software, especially when you have used previous versions is that likely it still works the way you have done it before, but that does not necessarily mean it is the best practice.

Software companies invest millions of dollars on Research and Development – polling existing clients for most requested features, increasing efficiency and adding to ease of use. I often am left shaking my head when someone uses the new version of software and remarks that it is the same as when they last used it – because they can’t be bothered to investigate the power of the new tools and start applying them to their workflow.

No matter how you learn, investigate user groups, tutorials, online training or sign up for a course. You will likely realize there are powerful capabilities in the software you currently use and tasks you do every day that could unnecessarily be costing you hours.

A couple of online resources I recommend are www.lynda.com and VTC Online. They are both inexpensive and support a huge library of courses. Check out the free chapters they offer on all their courses – you could be smarter than you think you are.

Confessions of a Technology Junkie

I have to admit that I am a technology junkie – I love it. In my view, computers, software and electronics do things that even 50 years ago would have been considered magic.

I love finding software that does things better than I do it today, or solutions that save me time in my daily tasks or help me better communicate with my colleagues and clients.

Technology is also fun – networked PC games like Guild Wars, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc. One of my favourite ways to blow off steam is to sit in front of my NHL 08 on my 360 and get schooled by some 12 year old half a world away.

Well, finally, I am leveraging my addiction to technology – for good (your benefit) rather than evil (blowing off an evening in front of Raving Rabbids).

High Concept Design & Media Services is hosting our first technology summit: On the Same Page (In a Paperless World)

www.events.highconceptmedia.com

This event will have a handful of guests and will showcase a number of technologies that are available today to help companies to communicate with their clients and colleagues in a more effective manner that they do today.

Topics highlighted will include note-taking and organizing tools, tools for creating traditional art in a digital age, online project management and communication, online meetings and conferencing, representing CAD design in a model environment, 2D and 3D designs to win more business and the efficiency of using digital standards and deliverables.

What we hope to do is showcase a number of products from a number of manufacturers to help architects and engineers to make informed decision about the solutions they can incorporate into their organization to make their lives easier.

At the end of the day, technology is supposed to make your life easier not make you swear at your computer like a drunken sailor.

If you are interested in attending take a look and register – we can show you what all this new fangled technology does and even help you create a plan to integrate it into your workflow.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Roboto!

The famous author and playwright, Karel Čapek, was born on January 9, 1890. A Czech, he has been compared to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, as one of the originators of "social" science fiction - stories dealing with the social and political effects of advanced science, rather than the rocket-ship adventures so common during the early twentieth century.

Čapek first used the term "robot" in his stage play RUR - Rossum's Universal Robots, and the name stuck. Soon, robots were everywhere - wandering on the moon, flying around in spaceships, thumping Flash Gordon on the head and carrying off hundreds of pretty girls. Beeping, lurching, their red eyes glowing, they became part of the fabric of the future.

At least, in the movies. In reality, robots had a bit farther to go to be taken seriously.

The difficulties in building a machine capable of autonomous motion, direction, and decision-making are extraordinary. It requires extreme advancements in power generation; in sensors and object detection; in motion control and positioning. It requires a fast central computer capable of integrating all these data streams into meaningful decisions in real-time.

Complex technologies have a maturation cycle that is often measured in decades. Advancements in one field may lead to completely new capabilities in others. Aviation is a fine example - the jet plane could not have been developed without major advances in metallurgy - until the turbine blades could be made strong enough, the jet engine would never fly. All the pieces of the puzzle must be ready.

After decades of slow advancement, all the technologies necessary for success begin to reach a sort of "critical mass", where the new technology moves out of the lab or garage and actually gets used. Entire societies and cultures are remade, seemingly overnight.

Robotics is at such a cusp, where advances across the board are starting to mature - small, powerful hybrid energy sources are now available. Advanced pattern and object detecting optics are being developed for the new digital cameras (where even cheap models now have facial recognition). GPS and laser-based inertial positioning units are smaller and more reliable than ever. Computer chips double in speed and halve in price every few years or so. Materials are lighter and stronger than ever.

Robotics today are at the same point that the automobile was in 1910, jet travel was in 1960, and computers were at in 1975 - ready to explode onto the world stage.

Prepare to bow down before your metal masters!