Looking for a more affordable training option?

Can’t have your team out of the office for an extended period of time?

Want to work in the comfort of your own office (or at home... don’t worry, we won’t tell)?

There are times where a hands-on class is not a viable option for some people. If a hands-on class is not available in your area, there’s the extra expense of travel, lodging and meals. In addition, students attending hands-on classes are out of the office for an extended period of time. For these reasons, and many others, we have many classes we offer as webcasts.

A typical day’s class runs for about 3.5 hours with an included 30 minute break. During this time the instructor presents two lectures and demos. Unlike hands-on classes where students have “classroom” hands-on lab time, webcast students are given take-away hands-on labs which they can do a their own leisure. We conduct our online classes using Microsoft’s Live Meeting service. Students will be provided with a meeting ID and password to attend the class (this information is sent out the week prior to the class). Students can listen to the audio of the webcast class either using the Live Meeting audio broadcast stream or by calling into a conference line we provide.

Each webcast student is provided a manual for the class, a ZIP download (some classes may/may not have an associated download) and details needed to the login to the Live Meeting webcast as well as the conference phone line. All sessions are recorded and students have access to watch these recordings on-demand for up to 30 days from the completion of that day’s class. Students are usually sent the URL of the recoded session within 24 hours of the completion of that day’s session as it takes Live Meeting a few hours to process the live feed as a consumable recording.
While the delivery format of these classes is different from a traditional hands-on class, this format is also very similar. These classes contain mostly the same content as the equivalent hands-on class (some modules are omitted from open enrollment classes due to the shorted daily class schedule), including the hands-on labs.

This online offering is appealing to many for various reasons:

• Online classes are half the cost of hands-on classes
• Online classes do not require any travel
• Online classes are shorter… 3.5 hrs/day compared to the full-day of a hands-on class
• Online classes do not require students be out of the office for extended periods of time

Before selecting an online class, keep in mind there are a few things you give up in exchange for the online experience over the hands-on classes:

• Shortened class: Not all modules are in the webcast version of a hands-on class. Make sure you check the agenda when registering for the class.
• Rich classroom experience: Let’s face it, nothing can substitute the classroom experience where you can converse not only with the instructor, but also with other students or collaborate in discussions on whiteboards. While you are free to ask questions in the webcast class, it just is not the same think as being in the same room with the instructor?

Student Requirements for Online Classes

Due to the nature of the online class offering, we at Critical Path Training cannot fully control the learning experience… we can only contain the contents of the online feed you receive. With that in mind, there are a few requirements for all our online classes:

• High-Speed Internet Connection: Because the class is streamed across as a webcast, you need to make sure you have sufficient bandwidth to consume the stream. Like all webcast delivery mechanisms: unfortunately the only thing we can control is our connection to Live Meeting; we have no control or influence over your experience. A sub-par connection will result in a sub-par experience. However because we use Microsoft’s Live Meeting service to conduct our online classes, it is safe to assume if you can watch live MSDN Webcasts, you will have a good experience with our online classes.
• Installed and Working Live Meeting Client: Simply put, if you don’t have the Live Meeting client installed, you can’t watch the feed. Click here to download the client and watch a test webcast from Microsoft.
  Note: install the bigger client… not the smaller download Web client. In our experience the Web client is problematic.
• Time Set Aside to Watch the Class: Online classes are scheduled and students are free to watch and submit questions to the instructor using the Live Meeting client during the live delivery. However, all sessions are recorded and students are given access to watch the recordings on-demand for up to 30 days after that day’s class. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure they make time to watch the class during this timeframe
  Note: recordings are not available for download and offline viewing… they are only available on-demand.

We have online classes for Developers, Administrators / IT Professionals, Information Workers / Site Collection Owners and Web Designers. For more information on our classes, feel free to jump to any of the following…