Secondly there must be reiteration – no one can learn once, go away and remember what they learned. Like learning math, computer skills must be practiced and built upon to become second nature. Therefore, there needs to be a follow up to training, even if it is a simple program mastered and emailed to a technology person on a monthly basis.

Handouts work well for follow ups, as well as the training itself. Unfortunately, they also allow the trainee to simply follow steps and do not encourage independent thought. Still, handouts of print screen shots can be extremelly useful for those who are attemting to learn something new. They must be easily written, like the book “Don’t Make Me Think”, by Steve Krug, and use terminology that is either explained or simple. I would think bright colors or different colors for different sections would help focus people onto what the important sections are – and would aid the instructor who could simply say “turn to the aqua section”, instead of “turn to the page with the picture of the computer”