Learning is really encouraged for our personal development here at DriveWorks and providing training for others is also an essential part of what we do.
Last week a few of us benefited from Photoshop training and Maria asked us to think about how it was delivered, the material supplied and compare it to our own DriveWorks Solo and Pro Training material course content, style and delivery.
An external trainer joined us at the Barley Store to deliver a two day training course to help us sharpen our Photoshop skills. Jess, myself and two of our tech guys, Rob and Chris were on the course.
As a group we had had varying degrees of experience with Photoshop. Rob and Chris had already used Photoshop at college and at DriveWorks but Jessica and I were quite new to the software.
People who take DriveWorks training invariably have a broad range of experience and our own material has to cater for engineers who have had a go with DriveWorks Solo and people who are completely new to the software and Design Automation.
The Photoshop trainer started by explaining the many tools available in the package. This was really useful as it was an introduction to the tools for the girls, a handy refresher for the boys and a chance for everyone to pick up some keyboard shortcuts and best practices. The content was really relevant to the functionality we were looking to master and we were soon working with layers and special effects.
We whizzed through the training and actually ended up covering what was planned for the two days in just one day.
With DriveWorks Pro Training there is a basic structure of lessons that cover core concepts and these lessons are supported with additional exercises and more advanced tasks which can be very useful in mixed ability classes.
The trainer asked us what we would like to cover and this gave us the opportunity to spend the second day focusing on the more advanced features and functionalities of Photoshop.
We were asked to bring along any projects we were working on and apply our new Photoshop skills. It was really useful to pick the trainers brain and ask him to show us more examples of special effects.
Images created during the two day training – some of which will be used in our new demo materials, coming soon!
After the training, when Maria asked us for feedback on the course and materials provided, it was really useful to think about how DriveWorks’ training is delivered and how we can make it as easy as possible. The Photoshop course was very informative however, we all commented that it would have benefited from having more structure and some exercises or tutorials to follow so we could practice each feature.
One of our mottos here at DriveWorks is ‘Helping Others to Help Themselves’ so we work hard to provide resources that make DriveWorks easy to learn and easy to use. We have spent a lot of time making our training manuals straightforward and easy to follow and ensuring our training at reseller events, SOLIDWORKS World and DriveWorks World are all well planned with plenty of extra lessons for those who finish the training early.
With this motto/goal in mind, we have created a range of training resources to cater for different learning styles and different situations – whether it is DriveWorks Reseller-led training, online training or courses at DriveWorks World. You can view some of our materials here: video clips, webinars, sample projects, tutorials, help files, tech tips and forums.
As we prepare for DriveWorks World 2016, I know that the feedback from our own training experiences will be considered and will help us make sure that all our delegates really benefit.