Last week just in time to commemorate my first year in the professional world I was able to add one more new experience to my list. It was time consuming, it was at times awkward, it was educational, and best of all it relieved me of negotiating DC commuter traffic for four days. This experience would have to be none other than…virtual training.
Now everybody’s seen the bus and billboard advertisements for a host of online trainings, but never before had I been introduced to the ambiguity that is a virtual course, this one happening to be in software application design, but that’s beside the point. Really, a better name would be “virtual-classroom training”. In essence, I took part in over 32 hours of reading off a screen, typing answers to activities, listening to lectures by the mysterious voices from the central time zone, and the occasional interaction with the other people who signed up to take it. Saying I was tethered to my computer throughout, wouldn’t be too far off. The Centra Server

http://www.saba.com/resources/datasheets/saba_ds_centra_virtualclass.pdf

was my new home, and I had been whisked away to the land of the walkie-talkie.
Lecture. Comment. Question. Answer. Lecture 2. etc..

Soon after logging in every morning, the rest of the day was marked by the passing microphone control back and forth between the number of strangers, all simultaneously not wanting to interrupt each other. Thinking back, I now have much greater respect for all the radio personalities out there. I really got the impression of how vital the production booth is for a radio show. You have somebody else to let you know your mic is OK, to tell you that you are not too loud, and there’s really no substitute for seeing somebody nodding as they listen vs. nodding off. My co-host for this adventure didn’t get budgeted in, I suppose. True to all arenas, some participants were just no fun, but it was pretty a nice experience to have at least this one time, and in the end I won’t need to see any of them agai…-for the first time.

Being the ever technologically adept, the Generation Y in me can embrace the new-fangled technology, but still you’ll find me seeking out a classroom setting any day. Perhaps the reality is that training budgets will soon be viewed as much more wisely spent doing what I just did. Experimentation and eventual evaluation with virtual training will surely only be pushed further, particularly for such a company with enough eyes to the future to grasp a top ten ranking in the Business Week’s 2007 list of the top 10 places to start a career.

http://www.businessweek.com/careers/bplc/2007/8.htm?chan=careers_special...

The experience overall, was candidly a mixed bag, and I’m sure curriculum tinkering is a constant. It is tough to argue with results though, and I would say my new credentials are anything but virtual.