Computer Training Room Specifications

[steven.cramer at duke.edu]

<<"Steve [Garwood]'s view is very close to my dream training classroom, also.  I
would put
the trainer/instructor station in the center of the room with the trainee
computers around the outside (facing the walls).">>

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu

The Perkins Library system here at Duke has two computer training rooms. One (in
Lilly Library) uses a traditional layout -- the students sit in rows facing the
instructor and the screen. The rows are close together, so it's rather hard for
the librarian to walk around and give personal help, and it's harder to see all
the students' computer screens.

The other computer training room (in Perkins Library) is a long, rectangular
room with rows of computers facing the walls (on the long side of the room),
plus two rows down the center also facing the long walls. The screen for the
projector is against one of the short sides of the rooms; the instructor's PC is
in a corner. There's plenty of space, so it's easy for the librarian to walk
around a give personal help.

In our first-year student library orientation sessions, each group of students
has a 60-minute session in the Lilly training room, and then, at the next class
time, a follow-up, 60-minute session in the Perkins training room. In the two
sessions, the librarians cover basic library use (catalog, databases,
e-journals, web searching and evaluating, etc.) There's overlap in the
librarians who teach the two sessions.

At the conclusion of the semester, the librarians get feedback from the students
and their graduate-student instructors about the library orientation sessions.
Year after year, the students and their instructors report that they prefer the
Lilly sessions to the Perkins sessions (despite the overlap in librarians doing
the training). They write that their Lilly session was more interesting and
discussion-orientated, and that they paid more attention there.

I think this response is understandable. When the students' computers face the
wall, the students are facing the wall. The librarian and the screen are partly
behind them. This makes it harder to listen, and harder to follow along with the
librarian's computer work. In fact, some students in the Perkins room decide to
turn around a watch the librarian's examples, instead of trying things out on
their own computer, which is what we usually ask them to do.

However, I do think having computers face the wall is a preferable layout for
long computer training sessions (ex. a 3 hour "advanced web searching" class) ,
in which the students spend a lot of time working on exercises, and have plenty
of time to work one-on-one with the librarian.

Different kinds of training work better in different layouts. Ultimately, your
students/patrons, not (perhaps nebulous) computer training theory, will decide
what the best layout is!

Steve Cramer
Reference Librarian
Perkins Library, Duke University
Durham, NC USA
steven.cramer at duke.edu