Re: XY CLASSES

[BRENDA HAHN]

You should ALWAYS get a summary of what the class will cover. We had MENTOR
come to OTA and train us to be XyWrite trainers. Before they arrived, they
sent us the Beginners manual they were planning to use - this was a good 6
months before they were to come on-site. after massive revisions (to allow
mostly for keyboard revisions, although there were more than a few errors) to
the manual, a trainer arrived. We were undergoing a conversion from NBI WP to
IBM Xywrite. I had been using XyWrite for a few years, but was rather
inexperienced in training. We needed to train some 150 people in XyWrite in
less than 6 months. He taught the first class, then I taught one. He provided
evaluion and encouragement, and was really pretty good (I wish I could remember
his name). I still use a permutation of the manual MENTOR wrote, although I've
customized it somewhat to accomodate our publishing needs. Maybe they weren't
ready for the publishing applications you needed. Maybe it was that particular
trainer. I was pretty pleased with them. The format of the lessons makes
sense - although some of it is kind of unnecessary to us (page length, form
depth, etc. -it's all set up already for them).  I recommend the tack that
someone else suggests: someone in there that KNOWS xywrite along with YOUR
application (publishing). look at their materials first. and get references,
especially if you are responsible for training others in return, or using those
materials again. GOOD LUCK! brenda hahn, software trainer/support, Office of
Technology Assessment US Congress