NWDA Terragen 2 Online Learning

[FrankB]

Hi everyone,

we're thinking about launching a NWDA online college and would like to check whether there would be enough demand within our community of users. Initial thoughts are:

- Subject matter 2 hour live training webinars
- Multi week workshops, with weekly 2 hr live meetings and offline exercises for TG2 students

Both formats would include a combination of web-based live demonstrations, with teleconferencing in parallel.
Courses will likely be conducted on weekends, in the morning around 10 am MST for students in the US, and afternoon around 3 pm CET for Europe. Course language would be english. Trainers would vary depending on the subject matter.

Now it's your turn: interested?

Cheers,
Frank

[PG]

I'd be interested in taking part in lessons on certain subjects. Is it going to be a predetermined curriculum?

[CCC]

Why not. Will it cost anything?

I do a lot of terrain editing in external applications but if i could use them somewhat less and get deep into figuring out how unique displacement variations, very good complex fake stones with clumped distribution which follows slopes and eroded parts of terrain, types of soils, surface layers that work into more of there use as well as faking erosion, certain types of strata and good color harmonies, then i am sure there are other aspects for those missing tweaks that might be missed much of the time that can be covered.

[macmapper]

I'd be interested to see what you would offer.   Thanks!

[yossam]

Got me interested.

[domdib]

I'm kind of interested, but the time you mention probably wouldn't suit, as my weekends are always very busy (I have young kids). Maybe in five years time 

[neuspadrin]

Maybe for those people who wouldn't be able to schedule around the live times, you could also offer the ability to watch them any time, just not live with the person there. They still get the video lesson, but dont really get to ask questions live.  Maybe then they could ask them via email.

[rcallicotte]

I might be interested.

Online learning is a lot of work to meet most people's needs.  I know there has been someone here from another group who has quite a good lesson for TG2 and they charged minimal dollars for about 8 weeks of classes.  Is this what you're planning to do, Frank?

[FrankB]

Hi everyone, thanks for your thoughts and questions.

Nothing is carved in stone so far, for now it's just an idea for which we would like to test demand first.

Is it a pre-determined curriculum? Probably not in the beginning, but maybe in the future.

What difficulty level will we address? Both introductory courses as well as advanced topics, such as the ones mentioned by CCC.

Will these happen exclusively on weekends? Not sure yet. We all have a day job, so evening times during the work week might be possible. Well, times may depend on the location of the trainer.

Will we record sessions? Most probably not. These will be hands-on trainings. As I said, with our day jobs, we can really only devote time by planning ahead, and during which students get our fullest attention - but mentoring students with questions asynchronously over the entire week will just no be feasible. We rather try to ensure good coverage across world time zones, so that there are suitable opportunites to join us for most people.

Will it cost anything? Will it have a "minimal" price?
Yes and depends. Yes these will be for a training charge. And regarding the minimal price, it depends on what's minimal in your eyes. It will definitely have fair value, like our other products, but at this stage prices are not determined yet. I only have a good idea about cost for the infrastucture to deliver live screen sharing and teleconferencing for up to 20 concurrent students. This is the primary reason why we need to assess demand first. If the infrastructures were for free, we would "just do it" and the see how it goes, but they're not (of course). That being said, we realize this form of paid training is best suited for either professional users who are looking for ways to speed up their learning curve compared to pure self-learning, or for enthusiastic hobbyists that see value in the subject matter trainings offered by NWDA.

I think we can come up with pretty exciting content and subject matters, that would be ideal in these two formats. From cloud magic to a function deep dive as examples for the 2hr webinars, up to more complex workshops where you learn how to develop your own procedural terrain manipulation through various exercises that deal with the multitude of ways to achieve that, and where students can work towards their own workshop scene, while being trained and accompanied by one of the NWDA trainers. I believe this is going to be really exciting.

... but you tell me if it really is - or not.  

Regards,
Frank

[cyphyr]

I think this is an excellent idea, one that could possibly be very good for NWDA and Terragen. I do however feel compelled to point out the obvious... (oh dear, Richards "on one" again!!  ) These are issues that will have to be overcome in order for it to work (imho) .

In no particular order:

• Terragen is still slow, so a live webcast will inherently be very limited, no one's going to want to wait for 2-5 min for a preview to render. All they will remember from the experience is the waiting...


• Another issue with having a live webcast is timing, not everybody lives in the same time zone or has the same working practices/hours.


• And another issue is bandwidth, for it to be live you'll have to compress the stream and this may not work so well or easily on the terragen interface. Also re bandwidth we dont all get the same, in the UK most people are between 2 - 6 Mbs.


• To be honest I don't really see why it has to be live in the first place, why not just do a screen capture video of "How to create perfect Storm Clouds", the obvious "Your First Scene" and "An Introduction to Functions" etc. All these could be streamed from your site or sold as downloads (I'd go for streaming). Live conversations happen (pretty much) here anyway or you could have an NWDA training forum attached to your site where paid up members are able to share their knowledge.


• Cost, well two hours of training DVD can easily set you back £50 or so, sometimes more. I would guess that would be prohibitive but also one hell of a lot of work to prepare for the trainers.


• I don't see how you can have pro and hobby licensing either


• There is another issue of live training and that is personalities. If one student is particularly keen, enthusiastic or pushy even (or having trouble keeping up with the rest, or surging ahead) they can monopolize the session. This may be great for them but the rest of the students will either be held back or not understand whats being taught.

That's all I can think of for now and is by no means a criticism, cant be really since there's nothing to criticize yet I think its a great idea and I'd be sure to buy some vidz if the price point was right.

Good luck

Richard

[FrankB]

Luckily not all of your points mentioned are issues, some are rather suggestions

Here are the answers as best as I can at this point:

- at least on my machine TG2 is not slow. Not even the preview. Every trainer with an average quad core should be able to render a low detail window faster that the preview, so I guess that's a non issue. Also, just in case one has to wait for a render to complete, the time could be used to explain something or take questions.

- time zones, you just have to accomodate for. From Europe, it's possible to cover suitable times for the Americas, Europe and parts of Africa. Admittedly, Asia Pacific could probably only be server during weekends, in their evening.

- bandwidth: a non issue even with a 1 Mbs line. Upstream bandwidth from instructors is more important.

- I don't have the infrastructure to manage paid on demand streaming, but the main point is that a recorded webcast is generally of very little value, compared to a real class, where you can ask questions and instructors can adjust to these, maximizing the value for all students

- We'll have to figure out pricing, but it will be affordable.

- There is not going to be a difference in private and commercial pricing.

- demanding personalities during the training: a good setup is to have to raise a virtual hand in the webinar environment. This way, the instructor knows that there's a question, but he can finish what he's doing prior allowing the question and  answering it. Actually it's pretty easy to give every participant a relatively equal share of time.

Cheers;
Frank

[Seth]

I did give lessons 3 or 4 times to "professional" users that tried to use TG2 for their projects.
The main difficulty was not technical, like bandwith or waiting for render, etc... but mainly for me to speak english.
This "e-learning" is something that we talk about for a long time, and I think it is a great way to learn things quickly (let's say more quickly than just posting advices). I must say that the shoutbox i included on my website was a way for me to see if "live" learning could be a good idea for some of us/you.
As for the time schedules... well I guess that motivated people can get some organisation to be able to follow the training and i am sure that trainers can find solutions too
But as Frank said, we all have everyday jobs and for some of us kids too !

There is no problem, there are only solutions !

[Henry Blewer]

The times mentioned are when I'm either at work, or trying to sleep. Since I don't sleep well, that's not an issue.
It would be nice to be able to buy the video of each session. Neuspaudrin's video tutorials were very good in this respect. If the lessons were available in video, it would be easy to look at different aspects of the sessions.

[Grundy]

I think an online learning course is an excellent idea and would take part in it. I took one online course from an online "college" and got a refund because it was simply horrid.

However, how you describe the direction your course is going I would not attend.

Reasons being (I give my opinion here because I want you to succeed):

1. Live online courses do not work. I speak from experience. Especially if you have 5+ students online at a single time. I found that 3 students are maximum for online learning course and only if they are friends, family or colleagues. Random people have conflicting schedules, personality and learning levels that makes for an impossible learning situation. There are too many variables on why live online courses do not work for groups. You will just have to go that rough road to truly understand.

You need pre-recorded lessons (my preference is video, not written) and "homework" assignments per video with project files to work with.  FrankB said," recorded webcast is generally of very little value, compared to a real class, where you can ask questions and instructors can adjust to these, maximizing the value for all students."  

I cannot disagree more. A good teacher explains the material in such a way that it is easy to follow that should eliminate any possible questions (as much as possible anyway). Example: Lynda.com. Any recorded lessons you get from them is very well explained in painstakingly detail. Also, you already have a forum and a strong community here that people can ask questions about the lesson(s) and get answers. Way more value than a live class. Recorded classes gives you that personal tutor feeling and a forum gives you your own references you can go and check frequently. A live online class or even a classroom devalues the individual student.

2. You need a curriculum. You cannot set up your webcam, go online and "wing it". You need structure that builds on itself. This is a lot of work and the reason why there are so many unprofessional teachers.
Students need to be motivated, stimulated and given a goal to achieve.

3. You need a beginning course, intermediate course and an advance course and a curriculum for each. You can also do workshops on special projects. It would be nice if you could make workshops for all the levels. One for beginners, one for advance, ect.

Starting what you guys want to start is not going to be easy. Knowing the material is a tool but putting it all together to teach is a skill on its own.

I suggest you obtain some courses from Lynda.com and check out their teaching technique/style. They are the number one online teaching company for a reason.

Good luck.

[FrankB]

Thanks for your points, Grundy. I think this type of class is just not the right setup for you.  And that's fine, everyone prefers to learn differently.
For example, I have opposite experiences than what you describe, I think many aspects contribute to making it a success or failure, in the end. Beginning with your own expectations, all the way up to teaching abilities and proficiency of the instructor.

Saying that I truly appreciate all these thought, they will help make it better eventually.

I see from your comments that you're are "thinking big" - bigger than we think it will be at this point. We're not attempting to create a complete Terragen school. But we do have the ability and knowledge to run a few interesting workshop and webinars. Just that, not more, not less.

Thanks,
Frank