We understand: travelling to a training venue, even a fantastic venue, can be a problem.
Maybe you don't have the time. Or it costs too much. Or you still need to go to the office after the course.
Don't put off your training because of the travelling. Go virtual instead.
A virtual classroom lets you attend the live training sessions from wherever you are. You will hear the lecturer, see the whiteboard, and be able to ask questions and get answers.
There is a webcam and a microphone set up in our classroom. We have software that streams the lecture live to you, so that you can hear and see the lecturer. You will also be able to see the whiteboard and anything that the lecturer wants to demonstrate.
You can ask the lecturer questions and you can (virtually) put up your hand if you need help.
You will need the following:
We will send you detailed instructions before the course starts.
Not quite. Some people might tell you it is the same experience, but let's be honest. Have you ever had a video chat with a friend using Skype or Hangouts or WhatsApp? Then you know it is not as good as meeting your friend in person. You won't have as much interaction with other delegates. You won't get to eat our yummy cookies.
Most important of all: you will have to be more disciplined. You need to make sure that you attend all the sessions, and don't get distracted by meetings or children. You must pay attention, and do the exercises. To reduce bandwidth costs and lag-time, we advise that you do not broadcast your camera all the time. So we won't know if you are doing other work instead of paying attention. But that's your responsibility.
The virtual classroom technology is dependent on good internet connectivity on both your side and ours. On our side we have a Telkom VDSL line, because fibre is still not available in our area.
Unfortunately we have been experiencing ongoing network interruptions for a number of months. The interruptions are usually relatively short, but they are frequent during the course of the day. Telkom has, to date, been unable to resolve this.
We believe that this will have a significantly negative impact on your experience of the virtual training. Although we have a backup Internet connection, it is not adequate for this kind of broadcasting.
Until Telkom can resolve this issue — or one of the service providers delivers on the promise of fibre — we regret that we do not recommend using the virtual classroom option.