Module: Sales planning

Here is the presentation about sales planning for today´s session. This session will be delivery by Clara Rodrigues.
Note: To see with more quality, you can click on "more" and choose the option "FullScreen".

Sales Planning on Prezi

Final Conference: Empowering SME Managers in Second Life

Dear Colleague,

In the behalf of VITA’ partnership, you are invited to participate in the Final Conference of this project, entitled “Empowering SME managers in Second Life”, on the 22th October 2010, in Viana do Castelo (Portugal), at Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão (see the location at http://portal.ipvc.pt/portal/page/portal/estg/estg_localizacao).

After the collaborative work in the scope of a Leonardo da Vinci—Transfer of Innovation project, the trans-European partnership intends to:

î share with the participants knowledge, tools and resources for their own innovation initiatives;

î demonstrate the use of VITA outcomes and products;

î connect with others towards further developments and projects.

The event is open for Companies, Academics, Education Institutions, Teachers and Students, eLearning and ICT developers to discuss:

• the emergent profile of SME leaders in Europe;
• best-practices, methods and instruments in training managers;
• the potential of Second Life and 3D virtual environments to enhance learning opportunities in business and other fields.

Please find the programme at our website http://vita.bitmedia.cc.

The conference is also linked to the CENTERIS’2010 - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems in the same location. More information at http://www.eiswatch.org/centeris2010/.

Come along and feel free to present your own ideas and projects to us,

Clara Rodrigues

Project’ Coordination

PS: participation is free but registration is mandatory. The registration form and travel information can be found on http://vita.bitmedia.cc

Module 3: Ability to discover new opportunities

A big thank you to Nelson shall be the first statement in this post. His help in preparation and object organization in Second Life is really very helpful!

The module is based on a presentation but it tries to open the minds of the participants to get a feeling for upcoming opportunities and possibilities.




The trainers of this module, coordinated and supervised by Aura Haidimoschi are from Romania. So the idea was born to take one of the most beautiful castles of Romania as model for finding opportunities - and - the time when people just thought about Dracula movies when seeing a Romanian castle are past!

Just have a look on this nice picture - this time from Real Life ;-)

Module 2: Build and manage teams

The two sessions of this module have been given by George and me, Gerhard aka. Dorothea Dollinger.

It started with some team building exercises like taking a group snapshot at a defined place or looking for hidden objects on the campus.

Several tools have been used in this module which have been new for the participants but already well-known for the blog readers. Nevertheless I would like to mention them here from a trainer's perspective.

A panel for brainstorming, here for possible roles of people in teams:

The tool can be configured to accept messages from just the owner, a group or from the public and it receives messages on a specific channel, e.g. 27.

Writing
/27 showme
into the text entry line of the local chat sends the message to channel 27 and the board displays it. There the texts can be repositioned by standard Second Life editing. This tool proved to be very useful.

Presentations on a "Zebra presenter":

These steps are already quite common to trainers:

• Creating a presentation in Powerpoint,
• saving it as serie of jpgs
• checking the filenames to be in alphabetical order,
• uploading the images to Second Life,
• editing a "Zebra Notebook",
• dragging the slides (already called Second Life textures) to the content folder of the notebook,
• setting a presentation wall,
• checking the channels of both devices ..

..
and ...

relax and present B-)


And - last but not least - a simple task: creating an object and applying a texture for being used as wallpaper. In a classroom a trainer would keep the most important facts as posted sheets of a flip chart on the classroom walls. The 3D environment gives an advantage: there is much space and those objects can be recycled to 100%. No paper wasted, no whiteboard pens to refill and finally no dirty fingers from cleaning the whiteboard :-)



It's funny to teach here!

Module 1. Communication Skills General Introduction to SL -basic

Session 2

The 2nd Session of Module 1 was launched on Thursday the 16th of September. The trainers were Gerhard and George while the participants were mainly from Greece and Italy. First of all Gerhard offered some L$ to all participants and explained them the usage of money in SL. Especially for the VITA training it is needed in order all to be able to upload pictures on SL.



The teacher also explained the hearing ability of avatars and let them experience it by talking while being in different distances. (e.g. 10, 20 and 40 meters away).



The main aim of Session 2 was that all participants get familiar with building, resizing, moving, rotating and copying objects. This was achieved by several exercises and the practice of all trainees. Gerhard also explained how to upload images and use them as texture of objects. He asked of all participants to make an object, upload a picture of them and put it as object's texture. They all did it successfully!

Finally there was an exercise in order to understand the basic principles of communication. The trainer provided a topic list of main communication principles.

1) effective listening
2) barriers in communication
3) name 5 dos for business communication
4) name 5 don'ts for business communication
5) effective internal communication (in the SME)
6) effective external communication

The students in groups discussed about one communication principle, agreed on a list of main points, created a powerpoint, saved it as jpg, uploaded it to SL and put it on a presentation panel.



That was the end of Session 2. The third and last session on Module 1 is set for Monday the 20th of September.

Module 1. Communication Skills General Introduction to SL – basics +

Session 1

On Tuesday the 14th of September we launched the second turn of VITA training in our campus. Participants from our target group started their learning experience in VITA Campus and Second Life in general.

Gerhard, the trainer of Session 1, welcomed the participants in Vita Campus and explained them about the basic communication options in SL (chat, written text, speak, IM etc.). The trainees practiced their ability to chat and send private messages to one another.

Then, by the help of Gerhard, they learned how to move and fly around and they had the opportunity to explore specific places in the VITA Campus such as the Greek temple, the Colosseum and the Library.

An other subject was the control of the view in SL and the different "looking" possibilities the camera control provides.

A very important issue was the familiarisation of the trainees with the inventory. The trainer put some country hats on the floor and asked from the participants to find their national hat, take a copy (which they could then find in their inventory) and wear it. Then they managed to learn some of the properties of the objects and how to pass them to one another. At the same time they learned how to take snapshots of their current view in SL and store them in their computers.

Finally Gerhard explained to everyone what are the advantages of having friends in SL, how to offer friendship and how to offer teleport.

The second session of Module 1 is planned for Thursday the 16th of September.

3rd Session about Negotiation Skills

Today was another session about negotiation skills.

In this session the trainers(Giovanni and Sara) asked to trainees to divide in groups and work together to negotiate in a specific product. For this, the trainers gave the exercise by notecard.

After this, each group had 30 minutes to organize the ideas and think about negotiate strategies to achieve the group objectives.



After this time, the groups debate their ideas and discuss in group.

In final, was presented one powerpoint presentation about these negotiation strategies, in order to consolidate what was done during the exercise.

Module 3: Ability to discover new opportunities Session 2 (May 7, 2010)

The session of yesterday started with a presentation given by Aura about Profile of an Entrepreneur and next given by Eugen.

After that each trainee presented and comented the results of their homework (answered a questionary). We made a small break, and the trainees assisted to the presentation about where to find information about business opportunities presented by Aura.

After she show some pictures of Peles Castle, located in Romania and we have a discuss to create a business ideia involving the castle.

Module3: Discovery New Opportunities

Today was another training session of vita Project!

This session was the first of three session about discover new opportunities in business.

This session start with the small presentation of trainees.

After this, the Trainer started one powerpoint presentation about "Ability to discover new opportunities". With this presentation, trainees learned about what is an Entrepreneur and some caracteristics. They also learned about Niches and Swot Analysis, brainstorming and another things.



In final of presentation, the trainers asked to trainees to having a discussion about discovery opportunities of business in their countries. The discussion was very productive, with some good results.

Tomorrow there is another session about this module.

Module 2: Build and Lead Teams - Session 2 (April 30, 2010)

Hi,

Today we had another session.Like yesterday we faced some problems the training session started 45 minutes earlier (Gerhard and George decision) in order to the participants who didn't follow the training yesterday have an overview of it.So we start to do the same tasks at yesterday.
After that we proceed with the tasks of today that was in the agenda:

We learn how to speak using the repeater, to talk with someone that is far from us:

Then George showed a power point presentation about how to choose a leadership pattern

Finally we formed two teams with a leadership that Gerhard choose and the trainers had to show a situation of leadership.

See you at the next session on April, 6!

Session 1: Build and Lead Teams (April 29, 2010)

Hello everyone!

This time the theme was: Build and Lead Teams and the trainers were: George and Gerhard.

After the technical troubles we took this place as lesson base, the first was to form two teams you can see the team members on the boxes left and right of the agenda. (As you see on the picture)

The leadership in the teams was given to the people in rotation.

The first task: follow the team leader: the trainers had to look for a the building which looks like buildings in the leaders home country and take a snapshot of the group there and return.

The second task: find hidden objects by delegation of team members.

Next was used a brainstorming board for roles of persons in teams. (this included the explanation how to use the EduNation Brainstorming board) and next was a brainstorming about characteristics of a leader.

After that the trainers watched the video "what birds can tell us about leadership" and the final part was the presentation about phases in team development.

Last session about communication skills

Today was the last session about communication skills.

In this session,the trainers did a summary about previous sessions.
The trainees learned also about object´s permission and how clean objects.

After this task, all participants attends one powerpoint presentation about principles of communication.





In last minutes of session, the trainees were divide in two groups and did a small theater performance about Internal VS External communication and Effective communication.

Here are some picture about this two groups:





Next session is about Build and lead teams and is on 29th april.

Second Training of Communication Module

Hello all,

Today was the second training of Vita Project.

This session trainees learned how create objects, resize, put textures in object and upload pictures to Second Life.

See in picture the objects created by trainees in Greek temple.



Another topic was an powerpoint presentation about some topics of communication, like communication in business, barriers in communication, etc.

The trainer put this topics in boards and let the trainees choose.After this they discuss this topics in groups of 3 elements.




The trainees do the presentations with powerpoint presentation and voice.



Here are some pictures:



Another presentation:



Next Training Session is next monday, on 26th april.

First Training Session

Hello partners,

Today was the first training session of the Vita Project.

Was a great session, and all participants liked this session. The feedback was good, and all trainees learn a lot in this first class.

Here are some pictures of this session.

Begin of training session. Meeting point:Greek temple:




Here are trainees meeting after exercice "move around by walking".




The trainees in exercice "Take and dress objects":



I will try follow all training sessions and write here the feedback, and all news.

See you tomorow

Swot Analysis tool

Hi partners,

Here are other tool for Vita Project. This tool is for "Ability to discover new opportunities" skills. And for this, is very importante do the analysis Swot to identify new opportunities and threats.

So I create this tool for trainees doing this analysis and later discuss with trainer.

It´s simple to use the tool. It´s only needs to write in right place what the trainees think, they ideas for a specific problem, like a tradicional Swot Analysis. But this this tool is possible do Swot Analysis in Second Life, and all people present in sessions can see and debate the ideas.

It´s possible too, consult the page "Info" that may have some information about how does a Swot Analysis, for example
Please comment.

Video Presentation

Hello again,

For some training sessions is essential have some tool like a video presentation.
So, this tool have this goal.

it´s very simple to use. The trainer only must upload the video on Youtube. For this, i create one account for VITA Project. See your e-mails.

Then it´s only need put the URL on Video Presentation.

TimeManagement Tool

Here are another VITA project tool.
This tool was created for TimeManagement Skills.

The main goal of the tool is help the trainees priorizing activities.

This topic is very important in Management. Is important our managers knows how manage many activities, so they need priorize very well the activities.

How it works?

This tool is based on new second life client. That means that the tool is a web page that runs over a second life object, like a cube for example.

The objective of tool is help trainees to priorize they activities.

How?

Well, in this web page, they can put the activities names that they want priorize.
Then, for many factors that condition the priorization, they choose the level of importance, like for example for activities one the time factor is less important, then the trainees will put the number "one" in this factor.

After this, the system will calculate this numbers for each activity and for each factor(time, costs, manfactory, etc) and the system will generate, automatically, a bar chart that will show the more and the less importante activity.

See the pictures:

Voting Balls tool

Here are a new tool. This is a voting tool and the main objective is use it for voting in some training sessions.

The tool is composed by on box and one Score Board.

Each avatar have only 9 balls to vote.

Begin the voting Process!

During a training session, maybe the trainer needs some opinions of the trainees. So, voting tool is a good way to express opinion.

How Vote?

For vote, is only need that avatar touch in box. Doing this, avatar put one of the 9 balls that he have, inside of the box. Simultaneos the score board is updated, that means that when one avatar put one ball, the score board is updated to 1, two ball appears two on score board, etc

Really easy!

To manage the voting, the trainer have two options: Ball´s Collector, and Reset the Count.

The first option, Ball´s Collector, allow the trainer clean all balls in box.
The second one, Reset, allow the trainer start again the voting and the score board goes to zero.

Here are some pictures.

Please Upgrade your Second Life client Now

I ask to all partners to upgrade your second life clients please.
This upgrade is very useful because some tools were developed by new features that this client can provide.

Here are the link to donwload the new version of client:

http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/?lang=en-US

Thank you!

Discussion of Training Sessions

The Vita Project tools are almost finished.
Yesterday, trainers met in Second Life to discuss some issues about training sessions.

Here are some pictures of this meeting.

Meeting in Rome

This week held another meeting, this time in Rome, Italy.

This meeting with all partners was very productive.The meeting selected the nine skills that a manager must possess, and which will be the topics of training course.

Now is the time to create the educational tools to help these skills in future courses.