Live Web Class

I’ve been doing some training via a live web class this week – and it’s nowhere near as bad as I feared.  I’m taking the class from my cube (which doesn’t tend to get too noisy because all the people around me appear to work from home most days), and basically you’re connected so that you see a video of the instructor from her home office, a Q & A panel where you can communicate with the instructor, a copy of the slides as she is presenting, and a “virtual work area” where you log in and perform exercises as part of the training.  It is a surprisingly effective way of doing things – and certainly cheaper and less hassle than everyone having to travel and stay somewhere in order to attend the training in person.  My only criticism would be that it is very time consuming – 6 days of 3.5 hours training, when 3 full days would maybe be better.  But I like the course and what I’m learning – part of my desire to improve my technical skills, and something that should look good on my CV.