In DITA specialization training, workshops and hands-on exercises play a pivotal role in imparting practical skills and knowledge to authors and developers. These interactive sessions are essential for several reasons:

1. Practical Application: Workshops and hands-on exercises provide participants with the opportunity to apply theoretical concepts in a practical context. This practical experience helps learners gain a deeper understanding of how DITA specialization works and how to create specialized content effectively.

2. Skill Development: Through hands-on exercises, authors and developers can develop the necessary skills required for working with DITA specializations. This includes understanding the structure of DITA documents, creating custom elements, and using specialization mechanisms like subject schemes and constraints.

Below is an example of how a hands-on exercise can be structured in DITA XML:

<procedure>
  <title>Creating a Specialized Element</title>
  <steps>
    <step>
      <cmd>Step 1: Open your DITA authoring tool.</cmd>
      <info>Launch the DITA tool of your choice.</info>
    </step>
    <step>
      <cmd>Step 2: Create a new DITA topic.</cmd>
      <info>Create a new DITA topic document in your tool.</info>
    </step>
    <step>
      <cmd>Step 3: Define a specialized element.</cmd>
      <info>Using the specialization mechanism, define a custom element and associate it with your topic.</info>
    </step>
    <step>
      <cmd>Step 4: Add content to the specialized element.</cmd>
      <info>Add content to your specialized element to see how it works.</info>
    </step>
  </steps>
</procedure>

Workshops and hands-on exercises enable participants to gain hands-on experience in creating, customizing, and using DITA specializations, ensuring they are well-prepared to work with DITA in real-world scenarios.