Business Owners Idea Cafe: Small Business Information, Resources & Tips
! Small business ideas, information & resources !
Small Business Tax Center
Small Business Ideas, Grants &
Plans to Start & Run a Business:

Small Business Grants
Small Business Ideas People in Biz - Profiles
Business Advice from Idea Cafe Experts Coffee Talk with Experts
Starting A Business
Running your Business
Take Out Info
Trade Publications FREE Trade Publications
Your Own Business
Destress
About Idea Cafe
Press Idea Cafe has received Idea Cafe in the News
Idea Cafe's Kudos Kudos for Idea Cafe
Advertise on Idea Cafe Advertise on Idea Cafe
Privacy Policy Privacy Policy
Contact Idea Cafe Contact Idea Cafe
Link to Idea Cafe Link to/from Idea Cafe
Join Idea Cafe
Site Directory
Site Directory Site Map

Online directory to business resources Biz Web Guide
Printer-friendly copy
Lobby Biz Ideas topic #410

Subject: "Setting up workshops" Previous topic | Next topic
oweaponxSun Nov-19-06 12:59 PM
 
Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
"Setting up workshops"


          

I am a US Navy Vet, and am interested in renting a computer lab at a local university. I am looking to do a basic PC workshop, for other Vets, as well as any others that may be interested.

I had spent about a year working in the Libraries of the VA Hospital, and often, I would be assiting Vets, staff, and med students from the local university with things ranging from copying between the hard disk and external devices (ie, flash drive), to formatting resumes in Word.

I have a lot of questions, and hope I can get some leads to get this project to work, especially if anyone has done workshops before. I think the best way to describe what I'm wanting to do is a workshop, with elements of a group tutoring session.

I am going to assume that I would have to pay for the room in advance, so I would have to have the students preregister. I obviously would need them to pay in advance. What are my options? I'm thinking paypal, and maybe other online payment sites. I don't think they would let me have my students pay at the door, but I could be wrong. Again, I'm wanting others' feedback, based on their experience. I'm not expecting an answer from the school until after Thanksgiving.

Do I need to go through any sort of channel, as far as the book I suggest (do I need a company's approval to use their book?), or can I just tell the students "here's the ISBN, check your local or online book store?" Or should I not actually require a book, and just have them go along with what I do (there will be an overhead display, so they can see what I'm doing). Since we won't be doing anything much more than text files, I plan on leaving the options of either floppies or flash drive.

Tips for setting it up. How long should I make the entire workshop? Would 2 hours a day, for 1 week (M-F) be enough? Should I break it down over a set number of days (eg, twice a week, and have the thing be over the period of a month)? This is where I need the most help.

Thanks to any supporters!

  

Alert Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Lobby

Replies to this topic

grafmanWed Nov-22-06 01:21 PM
 
Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
#1. "RE: Setting up workshops"
In response to Reply # 0


          

Congratulations on your choice. You are looking to help people and further your own interests and abilities. How cool is that?

My first suggestion is for you to clearly define your course or workshop syllabus. What "exactly" are you going to cover. This gives potential students answers to most of their questions about whether or not the course will be the right one for them and makes their choices easier. It also makes it easier for you to clearly define how the course will work, what materials and examples you'll need, and how best to approach teaching the material.

A bad example might be:

Learn about computer hardware maintenance. Everything you need to get practical work done around the home or small business.

You'll learn: copying and archiving disk to disk, disk to external devices, disk to web. You'll know how to set up printers and external disk drives, cdrom and dvdrom devices and all external cabling.

A better example:

Learn the necessities of computer hardware maintenance. Make your life easier by understanding the basic components of a computer system set in terms that everyone can understand.

At the end of this course you will:

*know what all of the basic cable connections are and how to use them.
*attach and setup a printer to your system.
*know how to efficiently back up or copy large amounts of data.

The second one gives you clear examples, well defined goals, and is worded in a way that is non-threatening to non-technical users. Remember, the people you are wanting to teach have not figured out how to do this for themselves so they don't want to be intimidated in a propeller head course with lots of technical jargon they aren't going to understand. Make simple and non-threatening and deal with what they will take away.

Your question regarding how long it should be will be determined by practice. You can do it in front of a video camera in your living room or you can try the course with a couple of family members or friends. Remember that anything you do with hands on takes 4 or 5 times longer when you work with real students than it takes when you work with practice folks or by yourself. Practicing live will also help you tune your notes, examples, analogies and makes sure that your demonstrations work.

In the event that the college decides that they don't want to let you use their facilities there are a several things for you to consider.

One is setting up your own facility. If you go to ebay and look for "Dell 260" (there are others so this isn't necessarily a dell recommendation) you can find lots of 10 of these systems for around $3500.00. Add another $1500 for 10 flat panel monitors, $200 for cables and miscellaneous "stuff", and another $200 for a hub, $750 for a projector and a screen and you have an instant system set up. If you need software find a student to buy it at his or her student discount or if you have access to a library discount do that. The bottom line is that you can create a mobile classroom and all you need to do what it is you want to do for well under $10,000.

If you choose not to go for 10 computers then cut it down to 4 or 5. These machines are relatively small and portable. With wireless cards you can cut the transportation and setup down as well.

If you choose to go with laptops they run under $500 for one that would be more than adequate for your purposes and also be very portable.

There are a couple of other hardware options to consider. Depending on your ability to negotiate a good deal you can probably talk a local computer repair or retail sales business into donating hardware for your classes, or giving you an outstanding deal where you will advertise them on an exclusive basis on your website, printed materials, and in your classes in exchange for payment terms on the hardware and software you need. They might also be amenable to putting clients in your classes so the relationship becomes an good symbiosis.

Other options include online tutoring. Any web host that uses Fantastico add on software gives you access to Moodle. Its a great online education system and its free with fantastico hosting accounts. Just a couple off the top of my head are www.bluehost.com and www.hostrocket.com. Not only does online hosting and tutoring help folks get answers to their questions its also a great marketing medium for showing your knowledge and promoting your instructor led courses.

Other alternatives are to inquire at companies in your area. Many small to medium companies have training rooms with 8 to 10 systems that they will let out for a nominal fee. I've rented them for less than $100 for an evening. Some will even exchange facility usage for you teaching their staff.

Renting a small facility from hotels, community centers, restaurants, or coffee shops are some other venues that should provide you with the facility that you need and appear professional and comfortable. There is a coffee shop in my city that rents a room with wifi for $15 per hour, it seats 10 and they let your hourly rate apply to anything they serve in the shop. So you take care of refreshments and food at the same time as your facility.

Your status as a Veteran also gives you access to vocational reeducation money and business funding in the form of grants and low interest loans.

Lots of other alternatives as well. The difference between success doing something you'd like to do and losing this opportunity is being creative.

"Things are difficult only while you don't understand them."

  

Alert Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Lobby

Lobby Biz Ideas topic #410 Previous topic | Next topic
Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.27
Copyright 1997-2006 DCScripts.com