How to find free ITIL V3 Foundation training
Update: sadly, these videos have gone from YouTube
Personally I find learning from online videos even harder than learning from online webpages ("ooh look an incoming email..."), but for those of you who can stomach death-by-video this might be a good option for you to study free for your ITIL V3 Foundation course. This post has compiled and sorted a bunch of videos created by Marco Cattaneo and alerted me to the set, but you can also access them on Marco's own playlist on YouTube.
Pro:
- The "video" is in fact powerpoint slides so you don't need to watch a talking head with bad hair and a worse suit like some videos I've seen.
- Marco speaks as if he is alive.
Con:
- Marco's, like, accent is somewhere between, like, Netherlands and Australia (the videos come from Charles Sturt University in Oz) which is a challenge for some of our less cosmopolitan cousins
- that learning-from-a-video thing. Up to you.
If you really want online traning courses check out those from ITIL Training Zone, ITSMSolutions or Taruu (or countless others). Or for a cheaper option the Art of Service book-and-training for ITIL 2011 seems to sell a lot on Amazon
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See also Pass the V3 Foundation exam in six easy and free steps
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Comments
ITIL for £95
The National Skills Academy for IT is Government funded and has all the training you need for ITIL foundation. It does cost £95 but you do then get access to all their other content, with over 1000 other courses. See http://bit.ly/pUeMZI for more details.
Save your £95
£95 for 1000 courses does seem a good deal, if one intends to do 1000 courses. You could equally join the ACM or a number of other bodies and get a similar deal.
But the point of these posts is that any half-way smart person can pass without any paid assistance. Save your £95. See Pass the V3 Foundation exam in six easy and free steps for details
Video's
I hope they are all legal....especially in the copyright area.
APMG has been cracking down on "home made" training video's. I've spoken to a few web site owners who posted what they were told were accredited training video's (like the ones you mention above - basically a webex recording of a classroom program) on their web sites and were told to take them down until they (the web site owner) paid their own accrediation fees to obtain the proper licensing.
Welcome to the 21st Century
The university is reportedly (I haven't confirmed) fully accredited. Wonder how the ATO community will deal with one of their number posting free training online.
Paying students on the course also use a study guide, OGC publications, interactive sessions and the virtual IT Masters SecondLife Island - the videos are only part of the course.
Welcome to the 21st Century
video's
Skep,
The company that provided the video's to the web site owner was all paid up with one of the EI's for the classroom version of the product. She uploaded a video of her classroom presentation to this web site (sounds like what the University is doing with You Tube) but APMG had the owner pull it down as it was in violation of the OGC copyright (copyrights cannot be transferred) that was originally licensed to the creater of the content for her classroom programs....so the moral to the story is that anyone who wants to display accredited materials in an online format must have the proper accrediation and licensing to go along with it.
understood
yes understood. the accredited University is posting the videos as part of their course - the students access them via youtube. So too can anyone else. My understanding is that this is not a third party arrangement
every academic institution that wants to teach its students ITIL
Good point - I'm checking. raises an uglier point: does every academic institution that wants to teach its students ITIL as part of a course have to have ATO accreditation? That won't help the advancement of ITIL in the industry. Anyone know?
ATO?
Well, I think it depends. If they want to have students pass the Intermediates , their students will have to have followed a training from an accredited institute, either being the university itself or a partner training institute that is acredited. Universities work a lot with partners, so I would see thta as a viable option. As IsleBeeBach stated, the students greatly appreciate the official certificates, so I think they will have found a solution. In the Netherlands we did the same (see my post further on in this topic).
If they just wanna teach ITIL knowledge as a part of their broader ITSM curriculum and organise their own exams there is even no need to be accredited.
I recently had a discussion with Juan Jiménez about the possibility to teach ITIL Foundations whilst not being accredited. I argued that as the candidates did not have to have followed a training to be able to pass the Foundation Exam, the also might have followed a traning from an unaccredited institute an that anyone could give such a trainng. Juan did not agree
the future
Why would a university outsource training? the university is an ATO.
the future is that IT training will be done by tertiary training institutions, just like every other aspect of business. A specialist IT training industry will be a historical relic, or at least a greatly reduced niche industry.
...and if many of them are like Acend it can't come too soon for me.
I've also written recently on how amateur so many supposed trainers are in IT (not that many of my university lecturers were any better)
Geographic differences
In the States, I suspect the specialized IT training industry will continue for a while. The university attitude about certification training is akin to the differences between an academic and wood or mechanical "shop" training in high school. Snobbish? Yes. But if the attitude I got the Universities in the Philadelphia metro area I've talked with is any indication... Don't see Universities becoming ATOs for ITIL or other subject matter areas. In an extension school, or adult education program, maybe, but not accredited 4-year undergraduate degree.
David
Wel we did at the The Hage
Wel we did at the The Hage University when we wanted to have our students PRINCE2 certified. It was simply to hard to become PRINCE2 ATO ourselves, so we partnered wth an existing ATO.
Dropping a snowflake
Sorry guys, it took me a while to identify this Rob person on YouTube, but I guess if you put 2 and 2 together you'll end up here eventually.
Yeah, I'm putting videos on YouTube, and I believe I can as 1. we're fully accredited, and 2. it's the best place to share videos without lag. We do have students all over the world, not only in Australia. The videos I'm sharing only take up approximately 10% of our total study materials, as we also provide study guides, a virtual service and project management Island on SecondLife, exercises, assignments, official OGC books, ITIL overview maps, mindmaps, the lots and more - much more!
These videos are intended for CSU students and I have all intention to live and breathe continuous improvement. I'm not saying they're perfect (I never will), but somehow they can't be bad either as we've already got our students scoring perfect scores. Most students seem to like the videos as an additional resource to review the theory, definitions and terminology, and no, I didn't say all students, as we don't all prefer learning is a pure visual way, but I try to cater for all learning styles. As such there are materials for readers, watchers, and doers!
I guess if you have students watching my videos in your public training courses - well - you'll have to draw your own conclusion I think. Maybe they actually like the accent hahaha...
I used to work for organisations like Pink Elephant and Proactive Services, but have all intention to take ITSM (no, I'm not an ITIL guy - ITIL is just one of the many tools out there) to the next level. As such we're providing [IT]SM across the full spectrum: ITIL Foundation, ITIL Capability courses, ISO/IEC 20000, IT Governance, ISO/IEC 38500, PMBOK, and many other related and I believe key ITSM-domain (although I typically refer to it as ITSM-space) related topics. And we've only just entered the arena - CSU/IT Masters that is - I never thought we would be here that quick!
The academic environment just rocks compared to the public training environment, and things are possible that I couldn't even dream of in my wildest dreams - I know - that sounds like I need to get a real life LoL. I don't have to sell ITIL anymore, but am able to immediately talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the various frameworks. We critique as much as we praise!
Also all this talk about ITIL not being academic... We're delivering a mixture of academic and industry subjects. All ITIL subjects are labeled industry subjects, and students sit the normal APMG exams just like anyone else in the world. This is what today's students are asking for. Not everyone wants, needs, or can become a researcher.
ITSM is something that can't be and shouldn't be ignored anymore - hence the addition to CSU's subject portfolio. Again, please observe my language, I didn't say ITIL - I said ITSM, and am about to omit IT from the equation, because in the end this whole thing is about delivering high quality consistent services that keep our customers and users satisfied. So we need to manage our services, and IT is one part of that equation.
Concerning my videos being only slides. I'm doing this on purpose as I don't think you should be watching my silly face all the time. I look like a Muppet LoL. I like working in the background, but be able to make a difference nonetheless.
Quoting Terry Pratchett (Legends):
"To make an avalanche you can either shake the mountain, or maybe you can just find exactly the right place to drop a snowflake."
I have all intention to drop snowflakes, it's up to you to decide whether or not you think I'm doing it in the right places.
Back to you.
Marco Cattaneo alias IsleBeeBach (I guess I have a somewhat Austrian accent anyway).
CSU ITIL on Youtube
I found the CSU online ITIL class helpful. I am using other materials too. I went through all 78 modules, but there should be more. Any idea about how to get to the remainder of the modules?
Academic Discussion
I agree the curriculum would more likely focus on ITSM than ITIL, but even so. The school could probably teach the course based on the ITIL books and offer their own tests (through to finals). What they could not do is offer APMG certification for taking the course. In addition, the course would have to be reviewed by whatever academic accreditation process is necessary.
I've had conversations with a couple local universities about including ITIL material in the computer science curriculum and... One of the problems they raised, after reviewing the books existing certification syllabuses, etc. is that they don't see how to make it fit. The current view is that it's 5 semesters of material, 1 for each core volume -- and they couldn't see how (or didn't want to try) to make it fit.
David
university certification
"What they could not do is offer APMG certifcation" oh yes they can. They can be an ATO like anyone else. I believe Charles Sturt University is. Marco is certainly an ITIL Expert. Why not? Universities are better qualified and equipped to be ATOs than most ATOs
Talk to your local university
Two different sides to the matter. The core of the matter, after talking with the Dean...
They could not, would not attempt to offer the certification course. They have their own exams, processes, etc. Yes they could go through the cert process, but that is NOT something they believe they can, should, or want to do as part of a their DEGREE program. They have a separate non-accredited extension that might want to... separate business and separate governance.
David
Academic teaching ITIL?
Would an academic institution like an university want to teach ITIL? I would think (hope) they would want to teach ITSM and not a specific toolset by a vendor.
Universities in Denmark wouldn't be allowed to teach ITIL. It would be considered poor academia and not science based research.
academic institutions already do teach ITIL
Many academic institutions already do teach ITIL, just like CompSci teaches Windows and Unix and Java and COBOL. Pure academic education is the exception these days and advanced vocational training more common. You can do any number of degrees in ITSM now, including the one being discussed here. Any tertiary institution that purports to teach IT or ITSM would be failing in their duty if they did NOT teach ITIL.
Strange to think of ITIL as
Strange to think of ITIL as a vendor toolset.
I don't know if any such academic course exists. It would have to include overviews of ITIL, COBIT, CMMI, MOF and more. I tell you an MSc in that sounds VERY tempting. Maybe it's worth putting this idea to Birkbeck (University of London)??? They have half decent menagement and computing schools and specialise in mature students and part-time study.
I'll also suggest this to my itSMF and BCS contacts (unless they already read this here)
UNI program
Yes,
Our program includes ITIL, CobiT, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO/IEC 38500, Organisation Change, Project Management, Finance Management, Communication, Technology Integration, and a whole bunch of other subjects. This is what [IT]SM should have covered from the moment they launched it, but somehow the focus shifted towards this never-ending ITIL thing.
Again, the world is in continuous change, and so is the domain of [IT]SM.
Feel free to spread the word :-)
Chicken and egg
I think it is rather a case of ITSM drifting away from just being ITIL, rather shifting towards ITIL. Back in v1 days there was nothing else about ITSM that was widely available (in the UK we had the CIPFA computer audit guidelines, but they were very much in the audit domain)
As I keep reminding people subjects such as project management were already well covered by other OGC products (PROMPT then PRINCE) when V1 was developed so there was no obvious reason to include them in ITIL. The target audience for ITIL when it first came out was UK government IT staff who would have been using the other OGC guidance by default.
All a little academic now, we are where we are.
The egg is elementary my dear Watson
I completely agree with you - I think ...
Also see http://islebeebach.blogspot.com
The egg is actually the 12th - as yet undiscovered - string particle that made (not being aware of its own consciousness) a spontaneous jump into our dimension the moment Adam decided that Eve needed offspring. It's counterpart particle, slightly more intelligent and aware, went after the chicken. Unfortunately that choice started the Big-Bang in reversed (and slow m o t i o n ) anti-time. Where have I read this type of text before? Surely it started with an 'I'.
The myth of the cage
I've been reading an excellent book, Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" which is particularly interesting read in conjunction with "The Halo Effect"
A bit of me clings to a purely ethical view that "ITSM is a good thing" but is that a verifiable proposition? If ITSM made no contribution to the bottom line would I still say it should be done?What does "doing ITSM" mean anyway? I've been around the ITIL world a very long time and I could count the organisations I think have consistently "done" it on my fingers without recourse to my thumbs.
Is ITSM just a good myth? What is the axiomatic basis for it, and how do we verify the value of ITSM?
makes too much sense
ITSM might be a post-modernist cultural artifact: a mythical conception that will appear as silly to future generations as Egyptian cat-worship, Victorian prudery, or our current neurotic obsessions with environmentalism or safety.
But I don't think so. It makes too much sense.
What fails is that people do ITSM using processes, or worse still technology. ITSM needs a cultural solution (and not a cultish solution). Hence my coming book He Tangata
Common Sense for Sensible People
Control --> Plan --> Do --> Check --> Act --> Control
What else is there to say?
It doesn't need that many pages, now does it?
Neah, I don't think it's only about culture, it's about finding and maintaining a perfect balance between:
People
Processes
Products
Partners
Information
Organisation
Culture
Structure
and most of all
Energy
(does that make any #@!&%$ acronym?)
The four Ps ITIL v3 is referring to is way too weak and narrow minded. One of the most vital ones "information" lacks completely, and from an IT point of view that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me ;-) CobiT seems to have a much more accurate approach here!
I don't even think or claim to be complete as yet. Yeah, I believe it's all about ZEN, the ZEN of existence, the ZEN of ITSM, and somewhere in that equation you'll find the ZEN of ITIL.
IsleBeeBach
PS. I like the USMBOK, but I believe that ultimately SM should end-up in some type of OpenSource space to become fully accepted. Only an OpenSource model of SM will really see the continuous improvement all these models are referring to, but none are actually really delivering against. An SM "Linux-like" version would do the trick quite nicely. Ah well, that's probably something for a new discussion thread. Anyway, I definitely have my eyes on USMBOK right now :-)
Two key things unsaid
One is that the CSI cycle takes no moral stance, but I believe ITSM should.
The second related point for me, and I think I've said this elsewhere is that "people" aren't just another "ingredient" or on a par with process and technology. ITSM either succeeds or fails based on the attitude and skills of the people delivering and managing the service. Process and technology cannot compensate for couldn't care less management, suppliers and staff.
Collections of billions of related cells with one common goal
James,
----- Stuff for another thread on most likely a different website altogether -----
People are "collections of billions of individual, but related cells with one common goal" - sounds like we're something like a system/process ourselves ;-) We're a walking / talking biological, functioning chemical processing unit with the additional ability to replicate (although with minor deviations) clones of ourselves. Science fiction? I don't think so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I may have to disagree with your statement ;-) If you look at "old" companies that have been around for 100-200 years people come and go, but in the end the organization remain. Surely people have a role to play, but personally I do see them as one of the many pieces of a large jig-saw puzzle.
Many people think they can't be replaced or are somehow special. Again, I disagree, we can all be replaced and are all part of a never-ending very natural cycle of birth - adding value - and ultimately death. I know it sounds bizarre, but really people and cultures come and go, but the world will keep spinning, and organizations will keep producing.
We as people in our daily jobs are as dependent on processes and technology (and the rest) as we are on other people. Ultimately I do believe that people and managers will some day be replaced by AI that controls full management of the organisation (and most likely will do a much better job at it), and ultimately this entire planet. We're not that special after all.
So I do think that at same stage processes and technology will compensate for our "people" weaknesses and peculiarities. I feel it's the added energy that some people are able to give and share and those that don't that make a difference in organisations for the time they are part of those organisations. Some people are able to speed up transformations, others aren't, but the transformation is still occurring.
IsleBeeBach
staggering complexity
"people and managers will some day be replaced by AI that controls full management of the organisation"? Sorry to rain on an enthusiastic new contributor to the blog, but: bollocks.
The human brain is not a complex computer. We can't even conceive of the mechanisms it uses. We understand that they are some complex interplay of electrical signals, chemical signals and neuron growth, but that is like saying a car is a complex interplay of metal, glass and rubber. To come up with a device of the staggering complexity of one human brain is beyond prediction. Read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.
We may some day move the Earth to a different sun too.
it is that kind of reductionist mechanistic thinking that gets us into the trouble we are in with IT. Humans are wet, messy, unpredictable, cussed, annoying, perverse and selfish. They are also infinitely adaptable, self-correcting, self-learning, original, creative and best of all funny. For the next few million years we ignore them or underestimate them or try to reduce them to machines at our peril
Only time will tell my dear Watson
Hahahaha...
I was waiting for that - it didn't take long to find your boundaries ;-)
Read some more articles like this one http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/20/research.it, and maybe read a bit less ITSM stuff, and you may change your mind one day.
Maybe you're more predictable than you would like to admit.
Few million years huh? We'll see. We're already starting to panic if someone uses the word flu. Various types of RNA will remain - humans - not sure.
Snowflakes - it's all about snowflakes ...
More on artificial intelligence
Robotics expert Noel Sharkey used to be a believer in artificial intelligence. So why does he now think that AI is a dangerous myth that could lead to a dystopian future of unintelligent, unfeeling robot carers and soldiers?
Why AI is a dangerous dream
"These ideas are based on the assumption that intelligence is computational. It might be, and equally it might not be."
critical analysis
My friend, you don't know how widely read I am
first the Guardian is not exactly the authorative source of scientific news. perhaps you should try some less credulous and more objective sources such as New Scientist or even the Economist, both of which I read regularly.
Second "just completed the first phase" is not a breakthrough. Simulating a neocortical column is not building a brain. To go back to my car analogy, they have a 3d image on a PC of a hexagonal nut and wow! they can make it rotate! it is no more useful than any 3d image of a nut is and it is much closer to a car than a single blobbing computer image is to a human brain.
Third they are only emulating electrical activity - there is far more to a brain than that. since we don't understand how a brain works they are only modelling the tiny portion we vaguely do understand. My dog understands far more about how my car works
Stop smokin that Eumundi Gold and apply some critical analysis, sound science and logic
Growing up with Lucy
I'm sure you've both read this.
Growing up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps
I must get past chapter two at some point, I've only had it for four years.
There is one very valid area of ITSM which rarely gets discussed, which is brokering between two automated services. An obsolete example from my financial services days would be a portal service that displayed a range of quotes to customers provided by different insurance companies. If your quote didn't reach the portal with the right information, within a specified time then it wouldn't reach the customer - but neither would it if it was the 11th quote to reach the portal - putting services that looked at a wider range of their own products before submitting a quote at a disadvantage, and also disadvantaging the consumer. A software service manager might be a way to make such a service more equitable.
I say the example is obsolete because now there are so many 3rd party price comparison sites that return all the results.
But why look for complexity?
Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart is an excellent book that really got me thinking.
Often we over complicate things. I often find people spend ages trying to come up with a process that will handle all hypothetical cases, rather than one that will handle 95% of cases with a branch out to real time decision making for the 5% of difficult cases that might never happen.
Think CMDB - how often do people try and develop a CMDB that will answer every possible question, rather than the ones they most want answers to on a regular basis, and even then they need to ask if a CMDB is the most efficient way of answering the question.
Or how about prioritisation of incidents? The real question for a support team is "which incident should I be working on next?" and to answer that I need to know the relative priority of all the incidents currently in my queue - not how important they are compared to a hypothetical event that hasn't happened. I've seen sites with horrendously complex systems for prioritising incidents that have the net effect of 98% of incidents being "Medium" priority, which in turn means that most of the time every incident in the queue has exactly the same priority as any other. Well you might as well just pull out incident numbers from a bran tub in that case.
Incidentally many years ago I did some research in to how we could automate incident queues for support teams. The biggest issue at the time was the psychological impact on the support team of being forced to do things rather than being involved in the decision. In retrospect I wonder if that could be addressed by social engineering the way the decision is presented to the support team.
quiet on Lucy
Steve Grand went quiet on Lucy the android in 2006 due to "lack of funds" but he has plenty of funds to start a commercial android-making company. Everyone knows that occasionally a "rogue" scientist makes breakthroughs. We know because it makes good press. When they do, many career scientists quickly pick up on their work (especially in these days of rapid communication) because scientists aren't silly. Einstein was not working alone for long. Everyone forgets that for every rogue who does achieve something, ten thousand nutters don't. And for every rogue who does, a million mainsteam scientists also advance human knowledge incrementally.
"Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart" sounds great - on my reading list
utterly in agreement with you over applying the Pareto principle to technology, taxonomy and process!!
Critical factors
I grew up in Bournville, a whole suburb built around an old company, very much driven by the personal vision of the Cadbury family. Yes Cadburys is still going, but it isn't the type of company it was when I was young.
Good process and good use of technology only happens when the people factors are right, that is why American industry has never really understood Toyota.
Process and technology cannot, for me, compensate for a lack of great leadership, insight and execution. You think AI will one day replace management? Perhaps, if AI ever passes the Turing test, but remember we are delivering services to people who are are, like it or not, emotional, irrational and sub-optimal
And to return to being on topic that is why I think training is so important in the ITSM world, because we have to win hearts and minds.And that is why training was so central in the early days of ITIL.
I don't want to sound all New Age because nothing could be further from my own boring rationalistic philosophy degree view of the world, but delivering ITSM is a holistic activity.
Just take a simple example of trying to identify what the business priorities are. Years ago I used to help out on an internal consultancy course where I role played a senior manager with no agenda at all but faced with a choice of either cutting my staff or cutting my budget. However hard I tried to be neutral in my answers delegates would always say "You obviously really want to get rid of people" because that is was what they thought senior managers would think. When we showed the delegates videos of the interviews it was clear that if anything I was defensive of my staff.
One day ITSM software might be able to capture the subtleties, but not now.
HO-LIST-IC
Mmmm...
I like your response a lot. Very constructive, and itSkeptic can take a lessons learned from it.
Nothing wrong with New Age, and definitely nothing wrong with philosophy. They should start teaching philosophy in primary school, and teach us some proper logic, but at the same time teach to appreciate the irrational and illogical. I feel that New Age and Balance have something in common, but I could be wrong there.
I keep saying and strongly believe that ITSM is all about balance (see one of my other comments), and clearly said that AI would take over management. I never said that AI would take over leadership skills (at least not in the foreseeable future), as I believe they are two very different things altogether. In many organizations AI is already embedded in Management Information Systems, and decisions are made based upon statistical trends, deviations, and predictability outcomes. I guess a system that could embed CobiT's control objectives, 6-Sigma and something like the BSC could be a step in the direction of automating the management side of ITSM, but hey that's just an idea for now.
Leaders are about influencing, and motivating other people, setting the example, and impacting on the culture of an organization and is for me basically about sharing some type of energy field (charisma).
So basically we need both (managers and leaders) and integrate these with the world of processes, technology, partners, information, organization, culture, structure and the rest.
Thanks for not taking my comments out of perspective.
PS. itSkeptic - I'm sure you're going to read this - you may want to read "The Line of Polity by Neal Asher" - I think the author has some great ideas and vision. Sure, it's Sci-Fi, but so was Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" in 1865.
anything but facts
There is everything wrong with New Age. As PJ O'Rourke said, New Agers will believe in "anything but facts". New Age brought us razor blades under pyramids, crystal therapy, aromatherapy, homeopathy and every other form of drivelling superstition we are plagued with today.
We've spent a hundred thousand years getting to the level where we are finally crawling out of the primordial slime of superstition and taking our first faltering steps on the solid ground of rationalism. New Age arises from a profound ignorance of science and failure of critical faculties. in a word, it's bullshit.
Jules Verne predicted precisely nothing about lunar travel other than that we did it. I enjoy sci-fi too, and like any fiction I get valuable insights about humans (personally I like Robert Heinlein). i don't use it as a source of scientific prediction. scifi authors have predicted everything imaginable - some of them have to be right
Culture vs IT culture
I think its worth considering the place IT culture finds itself within the context of corporate culture in general.
the merger of creative and the technical has been hard for corporations forever, form and function are often seen as oposing forces.
"managing" creativity has never been an easy task.
IT suffers from this in spades, we promote the most creative people to the least creative roles, ones they are not suited for but can do better than most.
We take our most technical and hard working and pay them nothing, we systematically remove imagination.
If ITIL has some redeeming features its that it is not prescriptive, it is flexible.
If best practice is going to get better we need the squeeky wheel, we need the outliers and imagination, but we need to foster this as an asset not sneak off being creative in spite of the organisation.
In my mind we all need to support thought :).
The open source movement has changed the way of thinking for many, it is a game changer, but it too has structure, strict systems, and processes, they just enable innovation rather than stifling it. to see the success and failure of open source in another field rather than software take a look at: www.teamfrednet.org the forum is a great history of organic growth of process.
watch COBIT
Watch COBIT too. COBIT 5 will reportedly be assembled on an open model. I really think COBIT has the potential (and credibility and governance and funds and...) to be the One BOK to Rule Them All
The MSc is already available
There's already an MSc available, I think this was the first from Northampton Uni, http://www.northampton.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/detail/?id=0154 but I believe there may be others now.
Turn off everything else
I agree about the distractions that come with online training. That's one of the reasons I have a preference for classroom -- though that doesn't stop Blackberry. I've taught classes where at least 1 student spent more time on the phone out of the classroom because of a fire at work than in the room (to the point that I suggested, and the school approved) that he reschedule for a less stressful time.
The ONLY way to deal with an online class is to shutdown everything else (OMG, did he really say that???). Give yourself breaks and do the e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, whatever thing, only on the breaks, say 20 or 30 minutes (set a timer) and then close the distraction programs before resuming the training.
David
concentration
Many of us aren't that disciplined :)
I am amazed by trainees who see nothing rude about having a laptop open and working away while I teach. One guy got really stroppy when i pushed the point that I didn't want him doing that.
there are whole generations now who can't understand the concept of concentration.
Foie Gras
If you shove your opinions down someones throat... Look if it's not interesting enough to hold their attention, then you've a fundamental problem. If it irks you fcuk them out of the class. Maybe they think you're boring or the content is rubbish, or maybe they're there unwillingly because of some enforced dumbass management decision that ITIL will make IT subservient to the lesser educated management tiers?
Discipline is a matter of choice
I agree on all fronts! :-)
I don't mind the open laptop, or the person who appears to be using the laptop to take notes (I do). However, using it (or the Blackberry) to do work constantly banging on the keys for work or WORSE talking to the computer or on the phone... Please take that outside!
One important point: discipline is a matter of choice. We can decide to be disciplined -- if it's important enough to us.
David
Well - if you're not able to keep attention...
... then you've a more fundamental problem, don't you? Decide what you will, and so will your class. No?
Working with what you have got
Now I don't do regular training I can be more relaxed about these things.
When it first started to happen it really bugged me. At some point during a session I would drop in a line like "Of course the really good managers are those who don't need to be in constant touch with the office, because their staff implicitly and explicitly know what is expected of them even in unexpected circumstances." It usually had a short term impact because no one wanted to look like a bad manager.
Now I see it as a fact of life, and not as bad as knowing people are twittering about you during conference sessions. Even in pen and paper days I suspect that as a student I only ever ttuned into about 25% of a lecture unless it was really gripping. We make a rod for our own backs if we are overly reliant on PowerPoint packs, especially when the delegates have them in advance, which is one reason I'm a fan of Prezi.
The new attitude of delegates believing they can multi task in sessions isn't going to go away, so I wonder if their are teaching strategies we can employ to exploit it?
James Finister
Wolston Limited
www.wolston.net
www.coreITSM.com
http://coreitsm.blogspot.com/
Jayzus James...
... look at your cocky attitude again. Why do you insist on classifying people and putting them below you, and assuming you know what they believe they can achieve? Christ they're probably bored from your droning on about ITIL and tickets and best practises and CMDBs and how it's all IT's fault. Listen - they've sussed you when u walked in the door, they stayed polite for a few minutes then went to email, IM, twitter, facebook, youtube, google or whatever to get on with what waqs important to them. If you're dealing with managers who do this, then what does it tell you? Are they good managers because of this or bad managers? Did you ask them WHY THEY DO IT? Smack them James. Personally, I'd invite them to leave if they didn't want to be there, or for those who stayed and continued to mickey about, fcuk them out of the room.
Have you considered, by the way..
That if you were prepared not to hide behind an anonymous visitor account that we might take you more seriously and you would avoid accusations of being a troll? Anyway, moving on from that.
I think you represent a fair number of people who are not just skeptical about ITIL and ITSM, but who are genuinely convinced it is nothing more than management bulls**t. You hate courses that aren't about technology because your job is to know about technology. Yeah, I get that. I have my techno centric moments. I've got pieces of paper to prove it, though they don't convince me so I'm sure they won't convince you.
Tell me, do you fly very often? Do you have a PPL or CPL, or are you just a typical passenger? Doesn't really matter, the question is this: If I book a flight from London to Frankfurt what do I need to know to judge if the service is to spec or not? Is that different, and I think it is, from the assumptions I make about about those delivering the service? I trust those on the flight deck have a CPL, but I hope they also realise I need to land within an hour or so of my scheduled arrival time whilst also valuing my safety. How do we balance the technical view from the service view? I would love to know your ideas.
Damn you are right
Yep ITIL is boring, and it is tedious for delegates having to pass an exam where they have to recognise when they have to use a specific wording because the examiner doesn't appreciate their latent and unrecognised genius.
And I suspect, because it is a long time since I was a tutor on ITIL courses, that it is harder than ever to keep their attention.
Do I classify people? Well of course I do, we all do. You do it based on their perceived technical skills. Most of us are probably lusers to you, I almost certainly am because the DME/VME/CME knowledge I had twenty five years ago isn't, in your view, much use dealing with modern IT environments. Point taken. A lot of ITIL harks back to mainframe days, and of course things like segregation of duties and decent change control are no longer valid - that is what you are arguing isn't it?
I would like to think that I don't give a stuff about to quote yourself "assuming you know what they believe they can achieve" I care about what I believe they are capable of achieving, which is something else entirely.
failed
Just back from the pub when you posted this? You start off calling him cocky and end up throwing people out of your course. If people don't learn it is you as an instructior who has failed. Chucking them out is intellectual laziness and teaching ineptitude. the only valid reason to throw someone out of training is if their disruption is overly impacting other students, not you, and even then you ought to address how you can get them back in. if you are a professional instructor you are there to do the job of teaching all the students.
Given the pther posts from the same address, I'd say we have a troll, and a poor one at that. I'm removing some of the others which are evn less coherent (must have opened the scotch once he got home from the pub)
Incidentally I'd normally remove ad hominem attacks but I know James is enough of a gentleman not to care what you think
Thank you!
First it IS your blog, so that entitles you to do the things you believe are consistent with the tone and content you want. I have ZERO issue with that.
Second, if it was my blog, based on your explanation, I would have done exactly the same thing you did, for the same reasons. I would not want the comments on my blog to degrade into personal attacks. They have no place in a forum for open discussion. It's possible to engage in discourse without pejorative names and labels.
THANK YOU for taking the action you did!
David
Unfair
Skep, unfair to accuse him of drinking scotch after or even
before going to the pub. Actually yes I am cocky at times, and I think one of my worst faults is to say something for effect not realising someone who doesn't know me might draw an unwarranted conclusion from it.
I do worry about his faux "orishnes"s though.
Fanny I failed
Don't like my opinion, so you censor it. I don't like your attitude today, and find you illogical. You open a site to comment and then get cranky when someone comments? Is that an ITIL catch all? So when you don't get your way you probably categorise... then judge... right.... like I'm now a 'troll'. Typical. See that box you're in? People are thinking outside.
pointless tirades
It's not your opinions I censor, it is only pointless tirades or ad hominem attacks or libel. OK I put your two removed comments back so people can see you for what you are.
You're new to the site and you won't last long. You have nothing to say but bitter outbursts. You think you are some advanced business thinker but your insight is not yet apparent.
And if you are going to accuse others of "classifying people and putting them below you" please don't refer to me as "boyo" and tell me "I'd eat you for breakfast without a doubt"
please move on so we can resume intelligent discussion
OK, read, still think they deserve to be pulled
The subject says it all.
Perhaps the only thing to do is modify the posting page to suggest that messages that contain personal attacks, name calling, and libelous or slanderous content, etc., will be pulled.
Up to you.
David
perhaps
Libel and personal attacks will be pulled. But "personal" is a subjective assessment (so too is libel). I implied he was drunk, irrational, unprofessional and devoid of original ideas so perhaps I should pulll my own posts too? This is a public place, and stupid behaviour is tolerated in most public places up to some limit. Ooops I think I just implied he's stupid too...
I'd rather leave it there and let readers judge. I know how 95% of them will see it
Take it outside
I don't mind if someone get interrupted by work (or family). It is, as noted, a fact of life. What I DO object to, sometimes loudly, is the student who isn't polite enough to take the phone conversation out of the room. That situation is a bit easier to control than the student who disrupts class with loud typing (or worse, talking to the computer while typing).
In other words, I don't really care (never really have cared) about the work related interruptions, what I have difficulty with is the student who doesn't have enough respect for the other students to relocate the disruptive disruptive behavior.
David
Generation Text
If you have kids, you know this is a HUGE issue -- take a look at Generation Text by Dr. Michael Osit.
Crackberries (aka Blackberries) are the drug of choice today, and don't assume that this is better or worse than the traditional stimulants. Just different.
John M. Worthington
MyServiceMonitor, LLC
Two answers
Please be aware that the name University not always refer to an institute where research is the basic activity. I used to work for De Haagse Hogeschool (The Hague University) in the Netherlands where the mainstream courses lead to bachelor degrees. We (that is I ;-) ) introduced ITIL, PRINCE2, ASL and BISL traning withing the curriculum (the foundation levels only) because we were convinced thart students entering their first job after university should at least have heard of these sest of best practices. We even used the Foudation exams instead of (or as part of) our own examinations. We of course had become accredited exam center. Many of the same universities have followed this approach. The approach was very much valued by the (future) employers of our students and tghis approach passed govenment accreditation. By the way: especially the "evning students" (those who followed the curriculum in the evening whilst working in the practice during the day)
If you have questions obout this, please drop me a line!
With regards to using laptops during during classes. I was one of the forst to do such during my evening school in the early 90's. Of course I did this only for taking notes (a copy of which was very valued by classmates who hadn't been able to be present that evenening ;-) )
I never minded students taking notes of even doing other things on their laptop while I was lecturing, provided the did not disturb the other student or me! In more interactve classes or practical assignment I did not accept laptops, because of the nee of visual communication. Speaking on the phone or to the laptop during classes is out of the question for me. It disturbs and is utterly impolite towards the other students and me.
I'll bet the students are glad you're gone
Imagine swapping a proper exam for some tosh like an ITIL exam!! How lazy are you?! The subject was probably so boring few people turned up - those that did turned up cost the lecture hall was warmer than their flats, or cos they could get wifi access thru the college to pursue their own interests while you babbled shite.
Shift
Funny, I would say a lot of people I taught, and I can only go on their feedback forms and what they said to my face,* found doing ITIL courses a life changing experience., I guess that is less likely since the focus shifted to passing the exam.
I am concerned that dear visitor is making possibly libellous assertions behind a façade of anonymity about courses delivered by people who he has never met, and whose courses he has never attended.
What would visitor like us to teach? That the business are "f**kwits" That knowing about a technology that will probably be obsolete in five years time makes you a professional?
I have to be honest I sometimes forget how much we depend on people with technical knowledge, though I also forget that I have techie moments... only tonight I was explaining to SWMBO about assigning static IP addresses and her eyes told me I'd lost her, and BTW visitor, I'm an ISACA certified auditor who I suspect knows a lot more about process control systems in critical industrial systems than you do. But then I'm sure one day you will tell us who you are and who you work for, because of course you have no reason not to.
* Knowledge of neither of which, "visitor" has unless he was on one of my courses but has never acknowledged it
I beg your pardon !
Actually, most of my students were far from happy when I left !
Besides: the official ITIL foundation certificate was much valued by the students.