So, I teach a lot of online classes for VMware. Many of you may know this, for those that don’t, well, here ya go 🙂 Probably 60% of my classes are delivered online, the rest are in a live classroom.
- Do you have broadband connectivity? You’ll probably want this for the presentation and the labs.
- Do you have a telephone, or are you going to use a headset on your computer? Ideally, you will have a land-line telephone with a speaker (or even better, a headset) for the voice component of the class. This will provide the cleanest overall audio experience. Our online Training Center provides VOIP services for the session, and that tends to work rather well, but you will definitely need decent broadband and a computer headset so that the audio doesn’t turn into a terrible echo-tastic mess!
- Do you have more than one monitor you can work with (one for your documents, one for the class and lab sessions)? Multiple monitors is a serious benefit. For those that don’t have many displays just hanging around, most laptops can drive a secondary monitor while the laptop screen is open.
- Do you have a reasonably comfortable chair? You’ll be in it for most of the day – good to have.
- Stuff to make lunch in the kitchen? While heading down the street to grab a bite is probably ok, traffic can be a little unpredictable.
- Is there a TV (or any other possible distraction) nearby? These are the biggest concentration killers in any online class. It’s awful easy to mute your line and kick on a DVD that you’ve been meaning to watch, but then you’ll miss out on all the entertainment your instructor can provide!
I think it’s really best to treat an online class much like you treat a classroom-based class. You need to remove yourself from the office, from the troubles of work. When you take a class and travel to the classroom, you can focus on the education aspect of your job. In most organizations, training time is precious and rare. Take advantage of it.
In the office, you can sit and listen, but how many people just pop by your cubicle during a day? How often are you pulled away from your desk for an impromptu design meeting or troubleshooting session? How dedicated can you really be to the training?
When you don’t give the class your full attention, you’re not only providing a disservice to the instructor, in many cases, you’re providing a disruption to the class. In our classes, for example, the lab exercises are progressive – almost every lab depends on the successful completion of the prior labs. But more important to that, later in the class, when we start talking about distributed and clustered services, each attendee will be teamed up with another so that clusters can be built. If you haven’t been able to keep up with the lab exercises, then you’re not only hurting yourself, but also your lab partner.
So Live Online classes definitely mean we need to look at the bigger picture, as we’re potentially bombarded with constant distractions. Put yourself in a position to focus on the class. Even if you’ve been working with our products for a while, I promise that we’ll both learn something about the product during one of my classes. But only if you’re paying attention.
-jk
VirtualKrueger 