It's time to put the coffee on

[carlos_miguens]

About 2 years ago we released our first eLearning class. This was a self-paced and online class which has since been updated to keep up with Alfresco's new product releases. We’ve found that this approach works well for our introductory topics, because it gives our students the option to learn at their own pace and in their own time, with a tried and trusted formula.  But, given the demands of some of our more advanced courses an instructor becomes essential. This is where the instructor led training (ILT for short) steps in. In a classroom environment with a trainer you can ask questions, for example how you might implement features in your own business case.



However ILT classes have some drawbacks. Since they are scheduled at a particular location, at a particular time, if this date and time does not match your availability you will have to wait until the next class, which may be weeks later. When you register for a class it is possible the class may be cancelled because of insufficient numbers. Somehow we need to address these drawbacks.

Project Espresso?

Our project, code named Espresso, will deliver a brand new and revolutionary way of taking training from Alfresco, that will address these issues and provide additional benefits to participants.



We pay close attention to industry trends and to our customers and both have caused us to re-think the challenge of delivering affordable, effective training.  This is why we’ve come up with a new way to deliver training to delegates. The changes happening in the way people learn, and are trained, are both profound and permanent. For the very first time, learners have the ability to take control of their own learning experience. This is being driven for the most part by the advent of new technologies, social platforms, search engines and near ubiquitous instant communications.



That’s why we’re embracing this new era of Personal Learning. Tertiary educators are adopting these changes quickly and even schools are getting in on the act through the flipped-classroom model.  This trend to Personal Learning is becoming widespread throughout the education field and is being led by two organizations in the United States edX and Coursera. They have invested many millions in spearheading this approach and are reporting impressive early success.

The future of training

In future we are looking for a different type of training delivery channel which more closely matches the Personal Learning approach and which will deliver benefits to Alfresco as well as our students. We’re stuck for a name at the moment, but this new approach will:

• be intensive self-paced, but flexible;



• have electronic content delivery;



• be group based;



• supported by an instructor;



• have a support forum per class;



• have no minimum delegate requirement (i.e. guaranteed to run);



• have a virtual machine environment provisioned.

If you would like to see a demo of our vision about how this would work? You can watch it now, but please bear in mind that this video demonstration is a future concept! We are working hard to bring this new way of training to you, and it’s not too late to let us know what you think by completing our survey, it will take 5 minutes of your time and as a thank you, we will enter you into our prize draw on 25 February, when one lucky respondent will win an Amazon Kindle Fire.