Computer Career Retraining Online - What Are The Options 2009
As there are a plethora of computer study programs on the market today, it can be difficult to know where to start. Find one that's on a par with your abilities and personality, and that's in demand in the working environment. You can learn anything from Microsoft User Skills up to career training for Networking, Programming, Databases and Web Design. There's a lot to choose from and so it's probably best to chat to an industry expert prior to making your choice: it would be awful to start the wrong training for an area that you don't enjoy!
By keeping costs to a minimum, computer training providers can now offer up-to-the-minute courses that have great quality training and assistance for much less than is expected from the old-school colleges.
How are we supposed to go about making an informed decision then? With all these possibilities, we have to know where we should look - and what to be looking for.
Looking at the myriad of choice out there, it's not really surprising that most potential trainees don't really understand the best career path they should even pursue. Working through a list of odd-sounding and meaningless job titles is no use whatsoever. Most of us don't really appreciate what our good friends do at work - so we have no hope of understanding the complexities of a specific IT job. To get through to the essence of this, we need to discuss many core topics:
* The sort of individual you consider yourself to be - the tasks that you enjoy doing, and on the other side of the coin - what makes you unhappy.
* Is your focus to obtain training because of a precise raison d'etre - e.g. are you looking at working based from home (self-employment possibly?)?
* Any personal or home needs you may have?
* Many students don't properly consider the amount of work required to gain all the necessary accreditation.
* You have to understand the differences across all the training areas.
For the majority of us, dissecting so much data will require meeting with an advisor who has direct industry experience. Not only the certifications - you also need to understand the commercial expectations and needs also.
The classroom style of learning we remember from school, using textbooks and whiteboards, is usually pretty hard going. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, dig around for more practical courses that are on-screen and interactive. We see a huge improvement in memory retention when all our senses are brought into the mix - this has been an accepted fact in expert circles for decades now.
Fully interactive motion videos involving demonstration and virtual lab's beat books hands-down. And you'll find them fun and interesting. You really need to look at examples of the study materials provided by the company you're considering. They have to utilise video, demonstrations and various interactive elements.
Avoid training that is purely online. You want physical CD/DVD ROM course materials where obtainable, enabling them to be used at your convenience - ISP quality varies, so you don't want to be totally reliant on a good broadband connection all the time.
If you're thinking of using a certification company which is still using 'in-centre workshop days' as part of their program, then consider these difficulties met by the majority of students:
* Loads of journeys to the workshops - sometimes quite a distance away.
* Access to classes; often Mon-Fri and two or three days in a row. It's never convenient to take the required time off work.
* If we get four weeks vacation allowance, using half of that on educational classes often means losing out on family and vacation time.
* With the high costs involved, many schools make the classes quite large - which is not ideal (increasing the ratio of students to teachers).
* Class pace - workshops typically feature students of varied abilities, consequently there is often tension between students with more background knowledge and those who want to go a little slower.
* Many students talk of the high costs involved with travelling back and forth to the training school while covering the cost of accommodation and food gets very high.
* Not wanting employers to know about the training can be very important to many students. There's no need to give up any job advancement, income boosts or achievement at your current job because you're getting trained in a different area. When your boss discovers you're taking steps towards qualification in a different industry, what do you think they'll do?
* How many of us have shied away from raising a hand in the air, because we wanted to fit in?
* Typically, days in-centre become virtually unreachable, in cases where you live away for some part of the year.
Doesn't it make a lot more sense to take classes when it suits you -- not the training company - and make use of interactive videos of instructors teaching a class. You can study at home on your desktop computer or why not in the garden on a laptop. If you've got questions, then make use of the 24x7 support (that should've been packaged with any technical type of training.) Note-taking is gone forever - everything is prepared in advance for you. Any time you want to repeat something, just do it. Put directly: You avoid a bunch of hassle, save money and time, and altogether avoid polluting the environment.
Of all the important things to consider, one of the most essential is always full 24x7 support with dedicated instructors and mentors. Far too often we see trainers who only provide support to you inside of office hours (typically 9am-6pm) and sometimes a little earlier or later (but not weekends usually). You'll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and phone support is usually just a call-centre who will make some notes and then email an advisor - who will attempt to call you within 24-48 hrs, at a suitable time to them. This is no good if you're stuck with a particular problem and can only study at specific times.
The most successful trainers use multiple support centres from around the world. They use an online interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, irrespective of the time you login, help is at hand, without any problems or delays. If you fail to get yourself direct-access 24x7 support, you'll very quickly realise that you've made a mistake. You may avoid using the support throughout the night, but consider weekends, early mornings or late evenings.
Lately, do you find yourself questioning the security of your job? For the majority of us, this only rears its head when something goes wrong. But in today's marketplace, the lesson often learned too late is that true job security simply doesn't exist anymore, for the vast majority of people. Of course, a marketplace with high growth, where there just aren't enough staff to go round (through a massive shortage of trained workers), opens the possibility of real job security.
The Information Technology (IT) skills shortage in the UK currently stands at approx twenty six percent, as shown by the 2006 e-Skills analysis. Therefore, for each 4 job positions that exist around the computer industry, companies are only able to find enough qualified individuals for three of them. This one concept in itself shows why the country needs a lot more trainees to join the industry. It would be hard to imagine if a better time or market conditions will exist for acquiring training in this swiftly growing and blossoming sector.
By keeping costs to a minimum, computer training providers can now offer up-to-the-minute courses that have great quality training and assistance for much less than is expected from the old-school colleges.
How are we supposed to go about making an informed decision then? With all these possibilities, we have to know where we should look - and what to be looking for.
Looking at the myriad of choice out there, it's not really surprising that most potential trainees don't really understand the best career path they should even pursue. Working through a list of odd-sounding and meaningless job titles is no use whatsoever. Most of us don't really appreciate what our good friends do at work - so we have no hope of understanding the complexities of a specific IT job. To get through to the essence of this, we need to discuss many core topics:
* The sort of individual you consider yourself to be - the tasks that you enjoy doing, and on the other side of the coin - what makes you unhappy.
* Is your focus to obtain training because of a precise raison d'etre - e.g. are you looking at working based from home (self-employment possibly?)?
* Any personal or home needs you may have?
* Many students don't properly consider the amount of work required to gain all the necessary accreditation.
* You have to understand the differences across all the training areas.
For the majority of us, dissecting so much data will require meeting with an advisor who has direct industry experience. Not only the certifications - you also need to understand the commercial expectations and needs also.
The classroom style of learning we remember from school, using textbooks and whiteboards, is usually pretty hard going. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, dig around for more practical courses that are on-screen and interactive. We see a huge improvement in memory retention when all our senses are brought into the mix - this has been an accepted fact in expert circles for decades now.
Fully interactive motion videos involving demonstration and virtual lab's beat books hands-down. And you'll find them fun and interesting. You really need to look at examples of the study materials provided by the company you're considering. They have to utilise video, demonstrations and various interactive elements.
Avoid training that is purely online. You want physical CD/DVD ROM course materials where obtainable, enabling them to be used at your convenience - ISP quality varies, so you don't want to be totally reliant on a good broadband connection all the time.
If you're thinking of using a certification company which is still using 'in-centre workshop days' as part of their program, then consider these difficulties met by the majority of students:
* Loads of journeys to the workshops - sometimes quite a distance away.
* Access to classes; often Mon-Fri and two or three days in a row. It's never convenient to take the required time off work.
* If we get four weeks vacation allowance, using half of that on educational classes often means losing out on family and vacation time.
* With the high costs involved, many schools make the classes quite large - which is not ideal (increasing the ratio of students to teachers).
* Class pace - workshops typically feature students of varied abilities, consequently there is often tension between students with more background knowledge and those who want to go a little slower.
* Many students talk of the high costs involved with travelling back and forth to the training school while covering the cost of accommodation and food gets very high.
* Not wanting employers to know about the training can be very important to many students. There's no need to give up any job advancement, income boosts or achievement at your current job because you're getting trained in a different area. When your boss discovers you're taking steps towards qualification in a different industry, what do you think they'll do?
* How many of us have shied away from raising a hand in the air, because we wanted to fit in?
* Typically, days in-centre become virtually unreachable, in cases where you live away for some part of the year.
Doesn't it make a lot more sense to take classes when it suits you -- not the training company - and make use of interactive videos of instructors teaching a class. You can study at home on your desktop computer or why not in the garden on a laptop. If you've got questions, then make use of the 24x7 support (that should've been packaged with any technical type of training.) Note-taking is gone forever - everything is prepared in advance for you. Any time you want to repeat something, just do it. Put directly: You avoid a bunch of hassle, save money and time, and altogether avoid polluting the environment.
Of all the important things to consider, one of the most essential is always full 24x7 support with dedicated instructors and mentors. Far too often we see trainers who only provide support to you inside of office hours (typically 9am-6pm) and sometimes a little earlier or later (but not weekends usually). You'll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and phone support is usually just a call-centre who will make some notes and then email an advisor - who will attempt to call you within 24-48 hrs, at a suitable time to them. This is no good if you're stuck with a particular problem and can only study at specific times.
The most successful trainers use multiple support centres from around the world. They use an online interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, irrespective of the time you login, help is at hand, without any problems or delays. If you fail to get yourself direct-access 24x7 support, you'll very quickly realise that you've made a mistake. You may avoid using the support throughout the night, but consider weekends, early mornings or late evenings.
Lately, do you find yourself questioning the security of your job? For the majority of us, this only rears its head when something goes wrong. But in today's marketplace, the lesson often learned too late is that true job security simply doesn't exist anymore, for the vast majority of people. Of course, a marketplace with high growth, where there just aren't enough staff to go round (through a massive shortage of trained workers), opens the possibility of real job security.
The Information Technology (IT) skills shortage in the UK currently stands at approx twenty six percent, as shown by the 2006 e-Skills analysis. Therefore, for each 4 job positions that exist around the computer industry, companies are only able to find enough qualified individuals for three of them. This one concept in itself shows why the country needs a lot more trainees to join the industry. It would be hard to imagine if a better time or market conditions will exist for acquiring training in this swiftly growing and blossoming sector.
About the Author:
Jason Kendall has worked in the IT industry for 20 yrs. He thinks he knows what he's doing by now. For advice on Computer Training Online, visit LearningLolly IT Training.
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