What I did last summer!

View of Riga's Old City

In May 2011, I delivered a Train-the-Trainer workshop in Riga, Latvia for AirBaltic.  My evenings were spent looking at the view of the old city and preparing for my delivery of the summer course, Consulting in Educational Technology – a special topics course offered to Master’s students in the department of Educational Technology at Concordia University in Montreal. I myself had completed the program from 1996 to 2001 and it provided me with the background I required to do the rewarding performance consulting work I do today.

The trainers in Riga inspired me to develop a Master’s course (a first for me) that, in the end, provided great wins and great learnings for both teacher and learners… and overall I believe the course was a success (given the tribute to the student voices in this blog series).

A Tribute

As the leader of the 17 Master’s students in the class, I believe I am the one who learned the most. I was blessed to spend 5 face-to-face hours every week for 6 weeks with sharp, curious, motivated, and driven individuals with a passion for learning and sharing. I became addicted to their thoughts and smiles and withdrawal symptoms came fast when the course ended in mid-August.

As an optional assignment, I encouraged the students to write a blog post on their learnings in the course. Eleven students submitted the posts in this blog series. This series has given them the opportunity to share their stories with you so that you could get to know them better and their new-found knowledge and skills in Performance Improvement Consulting.

As you become familiar with the students over the next several days, I would like to encourage you to reach out to them directly or through comments on this blog: congratulate, encourage, and offer advice! Some of these students have completed their degrees and will soon be practicing in the field, some are already working in the field of performance consulting, and others are in their final year completing project work for actual organizations. If you can help, reach out to me or to the students directly.

Upcoming Posts:

1. My Experiences and Reflections on the Past Seven Weeks by Tasneem Morsy, Sept. 27, 2011
2. All about the Consulting in Educational Technology Course by Rosanna Montoute, Sept. 28, 2011
3. The “Performance Consultant” Title and Me by Angela Abou-Jaoude, Sept. 29, 2011
4. Look for the Pain, and Other Training and Development Recipes by Robert Leibner, Sept. 30, 2011
5. My Learning Outcome by Nancy Boniello, Oct. 1, 2011
6. What I Learned about Consulting by Orzu Kamolova, Oct. 2, 2011
7. A Better Understanding of the Field of Consulting by Jonathan Grant, Oct. 3, 2011
8. Take-Aways, Experiences, and Future Aspirations by Seth Jernigan, Oct. 4, 2011
9. How to Win Your Client in Less Than a Minute by Rasha Samaha, Oct. 5, 2011
10. Using Consulting Skills in My Career by Alaa Alneghaimish, Oct. 6, 2011
11. Where Does an MA in Educational Technology Take You? by Davina Davies, Oct. 7, 2011

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