What would you like to learn about in online training sessions?

I've just discovered (belatedly) GoToMeeting.com and other applications like it, and I'm pretty excited. GoToMeeting.com allows you to see my screen and call in so you can hear me. From what I can tell, it also lets me give up screen control to students and lets me see what's on your screen.

It looks like a great, simple, convenient way for me to do online instructor-led training.

It only runs on Windows, but I hope that Linux users will compromise and be able to use a Windows computer for training. 

Soon,  I plan to use GoToMeeting.com to give  online training, as well as occasional free seminars.  I'll need to do some thinking and see how initial classes go, but it looks like I could do any of the  following:

- periodic free seminars
- training at a reasonable price for any individuals who want to sign up, with a minimum number of students for a class to run
- training for an organization: just like my normal onsite training, but without travel expenses
- Short one-on-one tutoring or document trouble-shooting sessions.

The training would probably be no more than 2 hours at a time, though I could chain several together over a period of days or weeks to teach larger topics.

But the key question is: what topics do you want? Basics, specific tricks, configuration, styles and templates, databases, calc printing, creating org charts, converting problem documents -- ?? I'll take lots and lots of suggestions! 

Also, when would you want training? During work hours, evenings, weekends?

Let me know!

Thanks,
Solveig

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Comments

[Bill Anderson]

I would love to see mail merge, and styles. Those are two that I need to get better at and having live interaction would be great!

[Elaine Frandt]

I think an intro session would be great. I have a lot of co-workers who are still a little at sea.

[Jprost]

I think some Draw lessons would be nice. It's easier to follow along with things like clicking, dragging, etc.

[Matt Vance]

Some users of the Drupal open source content management system put on online training sessions called the "Drupal Dojo." They use a combination of cross-platform tools: VNC, IRC, and Skype. Those tools might be difficult for some users to tackle though.

My favorite feature of the Drupal Dojo is that screencasts of the training sessions are recorded and archived. Not only can you view sessions you might have missed, but you can also review sections of training sessions, as needed.

Through syndication and posting to video sites, screencasts might open up a whole other avenue of Open Office promotion. You might also be interested in ShowMeDo.com, which has some screencast tutorials on setting up CamStudio, an open source screencast recording utility for Windows.