Communications skills for
technical instructors Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson
I run a consulting company and we
base our reputation of having instructions who are stellar, both in
knowledge, but more important, in presentation style. All
of my instructors must be superb speakers, and
mediocrity is not tolerated! job requirements list I always
stress that written communications skills are an absolute requirement for the
professional Oracle DBA, and I've seen many technically competent professional
rejected because they cannot assemble a coherent sentence.
Look at this collection is
awful mistakes from resumes that I have
received.
shameful, crappy communications
that make me ashamed to be a database professional.
Oracle professionals are also
required to be good speakers, and I have recommend training specifically
designed to make instructors become effective speaker.
Dale Carnegie - This is a timeless
program, essential for anybody who must deal with the public.
Toastmasters - This is a great way to
get started speaking in public.
Auctioneer
school - Janet and I attended school and I became a licensed
auctioneer to hone my speaking skills. I highly
recommend auctioneering
school because learning to think on your feet
is an important skill for every instructor!
I learned instruction skills in College, teaching classes while
studying the mannerisms of stellar professors and mentors such as the
charismatic
Dr. Frank Logan .
I was super-lucky to work for
several years under Dr. Logan, an amazing man
who taught me everything from electromechanical
programming to effective communication skills.
Getting excited about teaching
It's not easy, getting pumped-up
over dry technical topics, but YOU MUST seem excited if you want to
effective transfer information!
You must ask rhetorical questions, and have a
wide range of vocabulary, whispering one minute and shouting the next . . .
Today, Stanford's
Tom Peters
is one of my communications hero's, an exciting and dynamic speaker who
commands your attention.
Have a listen, you cannot ignore Tom Peters:
Remember, knowing
your content is only part of becoming a top instructor!
If you lose your audience, you have failed, no
matter how well you know the content.
This is especially important when teaching highly
technical topics!
But it's also a matter of
understanding written English!
Learning to write Good
Many competent oracle professionals have some of the
worst grammar that I?ve ever encountered. Now, I?m no English major myself
(I tested-out of College English to pursue technical courses) but I cannot
believe some of the writing I see from certified Oracle professionals:
The installer Oracle uses to install the Oracle
software is called the Oracle Universal Installer. So we click on the check box that says Create
Starter Database so that it is not checked. This screen gives you a lot of information, and you
will want to make a note of the information there. This is the location that all the disk backups will
be made to. I find myself saying, 'self, where is that table
anyway??. It is to answer questions like this that the data dictionary
is meant for. I also like to leave enough room so that I can
install the next version of Oracle on the disk too. In our example we choose to opt to call our
database BOOKTST. This window indicates to Oracle that it should
configure Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) and where it creates the
database at. The next screen is seen in the following screen
print: I suggest you click the sample schemas check box if
you are building a database to test on, and have Oracle create them.
and include the URL for the page.
