Here’s a collection of customer quotes as a follow-up to my last post about the importance of attitude towards Live Virtual Classes (LVCs). They are from courses that I have taught personally this year with an average delivery score of about 96%:

Oracle Database 12c: Managing Multitenant Architecture

Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g: Manage Clusterware and ASM

Oracle Database 12c: New Features for Administrators

Exadata Database Machine Administration Workshop

Oracle 11g: RAC and Grid Infrastructure Administration Accelerated

„My first experience of an LVC. Pleased to say it was very positive. Introduction and start on Monday morning was smooth. I would recommend to my colleagues.“

Always important to make a good first impression!

„The whole LVC package just worked. From the comfort of my own environment with a great instructor makes for happy learning :)“

And that is exactly what we strive to deliver.

„Both, host and producer were very professional and guided the students through the course.“

An LVC producer takes care for all technical aspects apart from the course itself, like access to the learning platform. The instructor appears as „host“ on the learning platform.

„Instructor professionally answered students‘ questions and kept up a positive mood in the community!“

LVCs can be funny too 🙂

„I appreciate the way how the course was presented. Very well controlled time, organization of presentation, exercises. Interaction with us was great. Always ready to answer a question, give an examples to difficult topic, illustrating topics.“

So much about allegedly missing interaction in LVCs.

„I work few years on RAC databases, my knowledge was not so clear regarding some topic on RAC and Grid after completing this training I’m sure that I will handle our RAC and Grid environment differently and for sure will have positive impact in our production environment. Great thank!“

You cannot top that with a classroom course either 🙂

„LVC is offering great and flexible way to gain knowledge without travel or hotels etc.“

„LVCs reduce travel costs and help the students to manage their time on their own, i.e. to join the classes from home and focus on the presented content.“

Trust me, I didn’t make up the last two although they may sound like your manager talking – or mine, for that matter 😉

The single most important factor for successful digital learning is the attitude both of the instructor as well as of the attendees towards the course format. Delivery of countless Live Virtual Classes (LVCs) for Oracle University made me realize that. There are technical prerequisites of course: A reliable and fast network connection and the usage of a good headset is mandatory, else the participant is doomed from the start. Other prerequisites are the same as for traditional courses: Good course material, working lab environment for hands on practices and last not least knowledgeable instructors. For that part notice that we have the very same courseware, lab environments and instructors like for our classroom courses at Oracle University education centers also for LVCs. The major difference is in your head 🙂

Delivering my first couple of LVCs, I felt quite uncomfortable with that new format. Accordingly, my performance was not as good as usual. Meanwhile, I consider the LVC format as totally adequate for my courses and that attitude enables me to deliver them with the same performance as my classroom courses. Actually, they are even better to some degree: I always struggle producing clean sketches with readable handwriting on the whiteboard. Now look at this MS paint sketch from one of my Data Guard LVCs:

Data Guard Real-Time Apply

Attendees get all my sketches per email if they like afterwards.

In short: Because I’m happy delivering through LVC today, I’m now able to do it with high quality. The attitude defines the outcome.

Did you ever have a teacher in school that you just disliked for some reason? It was hard to learn anything from that teacher, right? Even if that person was competent.

So this is also true on the side of the attendee: The attitude defines the outcome. If you take an LVC thinking „This cannot work!“, chances are that you are right just because of your mindset. When you attend an LVC with an open mind – even after some initial trouble because you need to familiarize yourself with the learning platform and the way things are presented there – it is much more likely that you will benefit from it. You may even like it better than classroom courses because you can attend from home without the time and expenses it takes to travel 🙂

Some common objections against LVC I have heard from customers and my usual responses:

An LVC doesn’t deliver the same amount of interaction like a classroom course!

That is not necessarily so: You are in a small group (mostly less than 10) that is constantly in an audio conference. Unmute yourself and say anything you like, just like in a classroom. Additionally, you have a chatbox available. This is sometimes extremely helpful, especially with non-native speakers in the class 🙂 You can easily exchange email addresses using the chatbox as well and stay in touch even after the LVC.

I have no appropriate working place to attend an LVC!

You have no appropriate working place at all, then, for something that requires a certain amount of concentration. Talk to your manager about it – maybe there is something like a quiet room available during the LVC.

I cannot keep up the attention when starring the whole day on the computer screen!

Of course not, that is why we have breaks and practices in between the lessons.

Finally, I would love to hear about your thoughts and experiences with online courses! What is your attitude towards Digital Learning?