Training sessions that threatened to go wrong -- and how I rescued them

March 26, 2025

The chapters in this article were originally published as separate articles. For a pdf version, sign up to the free Digital Education newsletter and download it from the Digital Education Supplement area, where it goes under the title of My Worst IT Training Days.

My worst IT training days -- index (Updated)

September 5, 2021

We all have the occasional awful experience when giving training. Here are mine!

My worst IT training days #6: The day my website was shut down (updated)

September 4, 2021

I wonder if there is anything more discombobulating than announcing, with great fanfare, a brilliant resource to a class full of teacher trainees, only to be greeted by a dreadful error message instead?

My worst IT Training Days #5: Whiteboard not working (Updated)

September 4, 2021

Worthy cogitations about what I might have done to avoid being faced with a non-working whiteboard — and why that situation arose in the first place.

My worst IT training days #4: Too much admin on a course (Updated)

September 4, 2021

How the admin involved in a course led to its being abandoned by one group of trainers.

My worst IT training days #3: Large-scale training (Updated)

September 4, 2021

Using an external IT trainer is risky. Here are a few things to insist on to reduce the likelihood of a ruined training day.

My Worst IT Training Days #2: Another Internet Training Day (Updated)

September 4, 2021

It’s always a good thing to stipulate in advance all the things you need in order to run a training session —including even the most basic and obvious ones….

My worst IT training days #1: Internet training day (Updated)

September 4, 2021

Here’s the first article in a series about my worst training days — the ones in which I was the trainer I mean! This was first published in 2018, but is still highly relevant.

My worst IT training days -- index

September 25, 2020

We all have the occasional awful experience when giving training. Here are mine!

My worst IT training days #6: The day my website was shut down

September 5, 2019

My worst IT Training Days #5: Whiteboard not working

August 8, 2019

Worthy cogitations about what I might have done to avoid being faced with a non-working whiteboard — and why that situation arose in the first place.

My worst IT training days #4: Too much admin on a course

August 2, 2019

How the admin involved in a course led to its being abandoned by one group of trainers.

My worst IT training days #3: Large-scale training

July 25, 2019

Using an external IT trainer is risky. Here are a few things to insist on to reduce the likelihood of a ruined training day.

Scream, by Terry Freedman (with apologies to Edvard Munch)

My Worst IT Training Days #2: Another Internet Training Day

September 11, 2018

It’s always a good thing to stipulate in advance all the things you need in order to run a training session —including even the most basic and obvious ones…

My worst IT training days #1: Internet training day

August 6, 2018

Here’s the first article in a new series about my worst training days — the ones in which I was the trainer I mean!

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One for your colleagues, perhaps: art, art history, ploitics with a small ‘p’.

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I submitted my review of this book to Teach Secondary magazine, an educational magazine in the UK. The first review below is what the magazine published. The second one is what I actually wrote! In substantive terms there is little difference between the two, but you may find it interesting to see what the editor altered.

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