KEY ISSUES IN ADAPTING AND LOCALISING TRAINING MATERIALS

ISSUE RAISED: CONTENT

GROUP: D

Leader : Derrick Ntalasha

Rapotuer : Clare Sempebwa

Other Members:

1. Alex Mkelemi

2. Floyd Mwenda

Introduction

Content should satisfy the needs of the user. Then the trainer will be able to deliver the training satisfactorily.

How do we judge the appropriate Content?

1. Who are you training? - Audience

Access your audience, find out their needs and develop materials based on real life experience, skills level and applicability.

Example: Training women farmers on how to use mobile phones in rural Uganda is very applicable if you are going to provide a mobile phone otherwise encouraging them to use the post office would be more appropriate.

Case:

Clare: Students of form 5 in Uganda rejected the Ms Office curriculum because they did not see its practicability after School. Many of them felt that the skill acquired would not be sufficient to compete in the world after S.6. The challenge is customize Ms Office training material so that they students can see its practicability in their life after school.

Social Issues

Social issues of the audience you are training should be put into consideration when developing content.

Example: Teaching men in Afhaganistan that Woman too can help foster development might cause a lot of conflict.

2. Where am I training from? - Setting

The setting and infrastructure of the training venue should be considered while adapting training content. Some material may be good but not relevant.

Case

Yese: Tried to adapt some training material but all examples were geared towards Tanzania so he changed that to examples relevant for Tanzania

3. What are you training? – Subject Matter

Training that requires practical skill should be able to have practical examples.

Example: Content for a training that involves hardware maintenance should be able to have real life demonstrations.

Content should be able to say what you have taught. What you teach you be reflected in your training materials.

4. How much are you training? - Scope

Content should be limited to the subject matter. Too much content will confuse your audience.

5. Is the trainer comfortable enough to deliver the content?

A trainer should adapt training material that they can train. If a trainer comes across content that has examples or illustrations that they cannot explain satisfactorily, then that content should not be adapted.

6. How long am I training? – Time Frame

This is the duration of the training. If your training is to be done in a short period of time, then try and summarize your material. Any content in the training materials not covered will leave the trainees feeling that there is something they have not covered.

7. What is the source of the content? - Source

Feedback from peers is very vital in deciding whether one wants to adapt training materials from a particular source.

For example sources that are reliable and have produced good feedback; IEEE for engineers and computers, ACM

8. Training Methodology - Delivery

The type of methodology used to train should determine how the content is structured. The content should allow the trainer to explain things better and easier.

For example, dictation method may not require a lot of streamlining for content because that content is geared towards assisting the trainer on dictating notes for the trainees but if the trainer intends to give handouts to the trainees, then the level of detail, simplicity and accuracy of the content should be considered.

9. Collection of ideas and experiences - Sharing

Content developed as a team is more in-depth due to sharing of various case studies and lessons learnt.

Case:

itrainer’s community on Harvesting ICT4D materials development expertise.

10. Format / Layout - Presentation

The format or layout of the content should be considered based on the audience.

Adults may prefer bulleted notes while sit would be okay to give teenagers paragraphed notes.

11. Copyright issues - Legal

Content adapted should not be replicated. It can be used but refreshed to show your views and opinions.

Content that is copied directly should be referenced i.e. credit should be given to the author.

Case:

Alex uses existing Power Point slides on the internet in a copy and paste situation to train his students and just changes the names? Is that Adapting?

Conclusions

3. Be appropriate for the audience you are training.

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