Any one used E-learning ?

[PaneerTikka]

I'm looking at ElementK or CareerAcademy for the MCTS in Web/Windows. Anyone used either of these and have you got any views ? Were they worth it ?

ElementK is ~$1000 & CareerAcademy is ~$2500 .


Although I have the microsoft books, I think I need something to make the whole cert process a bit more interesting and quicker.

Would be nice to see some independent reviews before I part with my hard earned cash!

[greenbrucelee]

Hi Welcome

Most people on here would recommend self study and seen as though you have the books why not?

It will be cheaper.

[simongrahamuk]

Question - How would going with one of these providers make the cert process more interesting and quicker?

Your primary concern should be playing with the technologies and learning them, not simply trying to get certified in them, that stage comes later. The only way to learn technologies and how to do things is to actually use them, in conjunction with reading about them.

*You wouldn't be trying to spam the afore mentioned companies would you?

[PaneerTikka]

Originally Posted by simongrahamuk

*You wouldn't be trying to spam the afore mentioned companies would you?

Let me say this clearly....No I am not.

I agree that you should try and get to know the technologies before doing the cert. I already have 3 years development experience in ASP.NET.

I feel the books are very dry. I see E learning as a half way house to classroom study which is the best method.

[wizard]

Originally Posted by PaneerTikka

Let me say this clearly....No I am not.

I agree that you should try and get to know the technologies before doing the cert. I already have 3 years development experience in ASP.NET.

I feel the books are very dry. I see E learning as a half way house to classroom study which is the best method.

I would rather save tons of money and work at my own pace than be tutor led, you always feel rushed and you can easily miss something.

[SteveM]

Originally Posted by wizard

I would rather save tons of money and work at my own pace than be tutor led, you always feel rushed and you can easily miss something.

I think it depends on how you learn - I suspect I'm a little bit dyslexic, so I find reading "heavy" books quite tough going especially without any context to put what you're studying into.

I've been lucky enough in the past to go on some classroom courses - but I like to have a decent grounding in the subject first so I know what I'm looking at and can take eveything in - so I make sure I set aside time to play and experiment beforehand. You can also test the trainer with trickier questions!

Mind you, if I'm studying for exams I then go through the process of virtually copying-out the textbooks by hand as I find that cements the knowledge in my brain.

[BosonMichael]

Originally Posted by PaneerTikka

Let me say this clearly....No I am not.

I agree that you should try and get to know the technologies before doing the cert. I already have 3 years development experience in ASP.NET.

I feel the books are very dry. I see E learning as a half way house to classroom study which is the best method.

Everyone is different... but I find video-based training to be as bad as classroom based training. It goes at someone elses speed, not my speed... and I can't skim a video or class. I *can* skim a book.

Still... even if I did learn well from video-based training... that's an awful lot of money to spend on training.

[Notes_Bloke]

I personally prefer CBT to classroom study. I find classroom study to be some guy/gal reading monotonously from a book combined with a few labs. So I prefer to get a good book, some CBT on the subject and then practice the labs (from the book/cbt) on my virtual network. But as BM says, everyone is different and its what works best for you.

NB