I’ve spent a good part of my working day today sat in front of a computer: nothing new in that, given that I teach IT skills for a living. Today has been different though because it’s me that’s been doing the learning.

The university has access to an online facility called Welsh Networked Learning from which subscribers can access online training materials to aid staff development and I’ve just become the eLearning Administrator for our establishment.

Not wanting to sign other people up to courses without first trying the system for myself, I registered and have been working my way through one of the modules. I’m glad I did, not because I’ve found the system difficult to work with, it isn’t, in fact it's well worked out and quite enlightening.

There is however one flaw as far as I’m concerned and that’s the instructor’s voice.

Okay it’s difficult to sound really interested and animated when you’re coming from a computer speaker, so I’ll let that pass. Did the British company who produce the software have to use an American presenter though? No, of course they didn't. So she’s Microsoft trained and obviously knows her subject, so what? The constant use of Americanisms and the little girl giggle followed by “Good job” when a task is completed really got up my nose.

I’m not being xenophobic here, I hold American nationals in the same esteem as people from other races, it’s just that the production company is British and I’m British living and working in Britain, so why couldn’t the presenter/tutor be British too? You can bet if the software production company had been Chinese the presenter wouldn’t have been a Yank!
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