Demetrius the Technical Trainer
Teaching with explosions:
Honestly, the reason I teach is because I crack me up.If I couldn't add my own personality to the training I do, I'd quit. If I had not been allowed to be myself I would have quit a long time ago. This may sound odd... but I make me laugh.
I'm a single dad. I love my kids. They are hilarious! I also like explosions, fighter jets, soccer and general silliness. The fact of the matter is that I'm probably going to talk about that stuff when I teach because that stuff is on my mind. My teaching style is very much a reflection of my personality. In my life I try to spend as much time as I can laughing. I don't take myself too seriously and when life hands me lemons, I search Google for a new Lemon Meringue Pie recipe. Mmm... Actually pie sounds pretty delicious right now. I can tell it's getting close to lunch time.
In teaching, the greatest challenge for me (and the part that I concentrate on the most) is finding the fine line between entertaining myself, amusing my students, staying relevant to the topic and keeping the subject interesting and coherent. It's not a straight line. It weaves in and out of the various priorities, at times swerving into comparisons between email systems and zombies only to take a hard turn into best practices. Where that thread lies depends to a large degree on the topic and the audience. Over the years I've noticed that striking the proper balance, in other words... finding that thread can really tie things together for my students.
I feel that I've gotten pretty good at following that thread. Here is a video I put together from one of my Excel classes. It's a 6 minute section on the SUM Function and the AutoSum button. It's a pretty fair example of how I approach teaching., although I was extra caffeinated at the time.
AutoSum awesomeness on YouTube
