I was recently asked by a colleague what I like better: teaching online or in-person, and my thoughts on self-paced learning. Here are my unfiltered thoughts…
In the “old days” I used to fly to a different city once a month and spend 4 days training people in person. I loved and hated it. I loved how easy it was for me to tell from facial expressions who was struggling with a topic, and when to take more time explaining things. I also really loved how I got to know my students outside of e-discovery during our breaks and lunches. On the flip side, in-person training usually meant having to travel (getting there is the worst - I will be first in line for the “beam me up Scotty” when it is available to purchase), wearing business attire and spending days away from family. And for the students, they had to keep up with their own work that must have been piling up.
Moving to live online training required the same amount of prep work as in-person training, but it meant we could stay home, be with our families at night and wear track pants if we wanted to, but students still had to commit to time during work hours to learn the content, which in this fast-paced world didn’t work for a lot of us.
We now have online self-paced administrator courses for Project Manager and System Manager certifications, which takes online training to the next level. Briana Morris, Manager of Training and E-Learning Programs, has developed a class that is engaging, easy to use and very detailed to help administrators become fully certified when it works for them. The Project Manager course has been self-paced for a while now, but the System Manager class will be launching in March, and we are super excited about it. We believe giving people time to learn at their pace and on their terms give them what they need to become a rock star administrator.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for in-person teaching, and we will offer in-person training if there is a demand for it. In recent years it has become more than clear that online, self-paced training can work for everyone, and we are meeting the needs of our clients with it. Of course, it’s easy to do when you have a customer-centric training team ready to jump in and assist any student with any issue.