NWDA Terragen 2 Online Learning

rcallicotte · September 25, 2009, 03:15:27 PM

The best online course I ever took was when learning CISCO for my certification. It was like this -

A set time - everyone knew to show up for the lives session that included live video, whiteboards and a means of sending questions to the speaker via a chat system. We could even call in at the end of the class to ask questions by waiting in a queue.

The cool thing - this was all recorded, so when I was on vacation it was no problem to come back and catch up by watching the recording. There were handouts. There were people we could send questions to find answers about something, even when the class was not live.

This, in my opinion, is a doable platform for you at NWDA. Hey, you might consider working together with LVS Online http://lvsonline.com/blog/terragen-2-online-class/, who have come here to ask anyone if they're interested. Britt is a great instructor and might even be willing to work something out with you guys for various levels of training and / or special projects. I'd love to do a project in this sort of setting like LVS with you guys at NWDA providing content. Awesome idea, isn't it?

FrankB · September 25, 2009, 04:00:36 PM

Calico, the Cisco training (and maybe exam) that you described sounds great.
But sure you get all that if you take multiple training courses for around 2500 USD each.
Clearly that's well beyond the charges that would be appropriate for what we have in mind!

Now, if so many funds come through with just one class, it's understandable that offline and online mentoring, handouts, proper training kits and all that nice stuff comes with it. Usually IT classes like these have between 10 - 20 students, so there is quite a lot of budget in the game.

I feel that's beyond our idea. Let's start simple, and then see where that leads us to eventually.

Frank

Grundy · September 25, 2009, 04:12:12 PM

LVS Online is horrible! That was the online school I was talking about. Their lessons are incomplete and their instructors are very poor (Brit was my instructor). It was so bad that parts of their lessons cut off in the middle of sentences.

The only reason I would recommend LVS is to learn what not to do in teaching.

Sounds like you guys want to do a quick hit and run workshop/webinar. I would still do a video and not an online class. Either way, it will be fun to see where you go with this.

rcallicotte · September 25, 2009, 04:12:40 PM

What about just working with Britt and LVS to supply the content and see if LVS would supply what it already does? They have a beginner's course, but you guys could provide more advanced lessons and even projects. LVS only charges about $25 a person.

FrankB · September 25, 2009, 04:35:23 PM

Quote from: calico on September 25, 2009, 04:12:40 PM
What about just working with Britt and LVS to supply the content and see if LVS would supply what it already does? They have a beginner's course, but you guys could provide more advanced lessons and even projects. LVS only charges about $25 a person.

For now, we would like to rather try it the NWDA way

Oshyan · September 26, 2009, 02:26:30 AM

Now, Frank, I think this is a very interesting idea.

I must say I don't entirely agree with all your assertions, but the fundamental concept of a live class is a good one, and different than the normal static video session, which I like. I do however think you should consider recording them, if only to make them available to people who have to miss classes (due to scheduling), etc.

I do speak from experience here as my "day job" is helping to run a vocational school that has a distance learning program. I think finding an effective combination of realtime and offline learning will be most effective. Give people a static video going over the base techniques you're teaching, so everyone can get solid with that at their own pace, then hold a live class following that where you talk about the video tutorial more in-depth and answer questions. This is similar to the standard college model of "read this text for next time" and then lecture on it. It seems to work quite well. You lay the foundation in a repeatable, standardized way, then you maximize the value of your individual attention time because you're not having to teach through the basic concepts of the lesson, you're focusing only on the harder issues, the things people missed.

Just my 2 cents. Can't wait to see what comes of this.

- Oshyan

Seth · September 26, 2009, 04:20:20 AM

At least, people seem to be interested in taking some e-learning lesson Frank

Oshyan · September 26, 2009, 04:37:21 AM

I have removed the off-topic bickering that was going on here, but tried to leave each respective opinion intact. Please let them stand as-is and don't continue off-topic or hostile posts. I hope that's the end of the unpleasantness.

Thanks,

Oshyan

Walli · September 26, 2009, 09:20:27 AM

just want to throw in the idea, that it might make sense to decide on behalf of the topic - I think there´s stuff that can be covered well with "static" video tut, other topics are learned best if you are in close contact to a mentor.

neuspadrin · September 26, 2009, 09:22:19 AM

I think the idea of buying a dvd of a bunch of videos compiled together, along with scene resources, etc would be an awesome idea. Maybe after youve done quite a few videos, you can compile them together, and bundle in a few NWDA packs to get them started on those tutorials.

afterall, the cost of a dvd infrastructure is quite slim

put videos on dvd, send out via mail.

Henry Blewer · September 26, 2009, 01:53:55 PM

I would be nice to know how much demand a DVD would have. Burning 20 would be tedious, but not too bad. Burning more than 50 would be a real pain. There are services which will burn copies for a fee. Why not start a poll? See how many you could expect to sell?

Seth · September 26, 2009, 02:54:18 PM

why burnind DVD when you can do e-learning and sell e-lessons ?
I don't see the point.
It costs money and that means the lessons will be more expensive...
You need to comile everything, burn the DVD, send them to students, replace them when they are broken, etc...
Downloading is far better to me.
live lessons too.

cyphyr · September 26, 2009, 03:06:31 PM

I don't think the lessons need be long, take a look at Newtek's Lightwave tutorial library, it must have over a hundred videos in it by now more maybe, covering every imaginable use of LW, but almost none over 5 min long. And where they are they are in parts, 1, 2, 3 etc. Of course compare this to the sort of videos supplied by the likes of Kurve Studios, much longer and more in depth. Also much more expensive, especially as the ones on the Newtek site are free! All this is really academic as its up to NWDA to decide what to do. I think we've shown that there is interest in Video tutorials...
ball... court etc

Richard

neuspadrin · September 26, 2009, 03:15:43 PM

Quote from: Seth on September 26, 2009, 02:54:18 PM
why burnind DVD when you can do e-learning and sell e-lessons ?
I don't see the point.
It costs money and that means the lessons will be more expensive...
You need to comile everything, burn the DVD, send them to students, replace them when they are broken, etc...
Downloading is far better to me.
live lessons too.

Well doesn't have to be a dvd, maybe some sort of package/bundle system. Also for NWDA in general might be nice to get some value packs going or something now that your getting more content instead of just individual packs.

Henry Blewer · September 26, 2009, 04:23:03 PM

Downloadable AVI would be fine. I have a little HardDrive space left, maybe 40 hours?