Class on Demand Review

by Michael Munt
Hakin9 Magazine | September 2010  [reprinted with permission]

Traditional IT training has always been in the classroom where you spend a week or two with strangers and just follow the instructor through the coursebook, but in recent years more and more courses are becoming available via online learning platforms.

Class on Demand is one such company providing a wide variety of courses and I was given the opportunity to try out their Implementing Wireless Networks Using the HP ProCurve MultiService Mobility Solution course.

This course describes how to address your business requirements with regard to designing, testing and implementing a complete solution using Multi Service networks. The course is broken down into 10 easy modules with each module running under 40 minutes, some are a lot shorter than this.

By keeping it this short I feel that they manage to keep the viewer engaged with the course by providing just the right amount of information during the time period allowed. The instructor is clear and concise throughout and he actually appears to enjoy the information he is trying to convey across to the viewer, as even though he is likely to be reading from a script there isn’t any of the usual monotone that you sometimes get with this type of training so you wont be falling asleep to6 this one!

The application itself uses Silverlight so you will need to add this to your browser if you dont already have it. Initially I tried to use it on my Ubuntu but I found that it wouldn’t work on my Ubuntu as the moonlight add-on to Firefox wouldn’t play DRM protected media. Once I booted up into Windows and had the Silverlight addon installed to my Firefox, everything loaded up just fine.

You are given three options on how you wish to view the training. Either in a small window, a full width of the web page or full screen. The player itself is very simple to use, with the usual controls of pause, stop play etc and volume control. The player was very responsive to any use of the controls and when changing the screen size through the three different options. The picture itself was smooth and clear throughout with excellent sound levels, I didn’t notice any tininess throughout the course.

For those of you who have never been involved in implementing the wireless solutions the first Module provides a good although a little brief overview of 802.11 technology. Each module has a good description on what it information is contained within that section. The titles of each class clearly states what you will learn.

The content provided was very detailed in my opinion, but not over the top technically so that I wasn’t bombarded with too much information on a new subject. Being able to jump around on the course was quite handy for those moments when I wasn’t sure on something I could quickly start up a previously viewed module to double check as the modules were always quick to load.

I enjoyed this course throughout and found it very educational and informative as it was using something that I hadn’t previously had any experience with (HP ProCurve MultiService Mobility), so it was good to actually have something to learn :) I have used various other online training courses in the past and this course was definitely in the top 3 regarding the content and information provided and the actual delivery of that content, as it was a pleasure to use.

One thing I do have to mention is their superb technical support as I had an issue with the training not working for me all the time, and the response I received was fantastic. A more or less an immediate reply to my email and constant updates as to the progress of the issue. They worked hard to identify the issue and resolve it so that I was able to view the rest of the course in a very short space of time. I am still convinced it wasn’t anything of their doing and it was my ISP that was at fault but they still made changes to allow me to continue on with the training. In my opinion the backup of any online training has to be excellent judge of the streaming service they will deliver, and this was an excellent example.