Sunday, March 22, 2009

Adobe Web Design Course Providers - How Can I Compare Them 2009

By Jason Kendall

If you've aspirations to be a professional web designer with the right credentials for the current working environment, you should find training in Adobe Dreamweaver. To utilise Dreamweaver professionally in web design, a full understanding of the complete Adobe Web Creative Suite (which incorporates Flash and Action Script) is something to consider very seriously. Having this knowledge will mean, you could subsequently become an Adobe Certified Professional (ACP) or an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE).

Constructing the website is only the beginning of the skills needed by web professionals today. You'd be wise to look for a course with additional features such as PHP, HTML and MySQL so that you can know how to maintain content, drive traffic and operate on dynamic sites that are database driven.

So, which sort of questions should we be raising if we'd like to get the understanding necessary? After all, there seems to be a good many fairly great opportunities for everyone to consider.

If your advisor doesn't dig around with lots of question - chances are they're just a salesperson. If they're pushing towards a particular product before getting to know your background and experience, then you know you're being sold to. With a bit of work-based experience or base qualifications, you may find that your starting point is now at a different level to a new student. Where this will be your first effort at IT study then you may want to begin with user-skills and software training first.

One of the most important things to insist on has to be full 24x7 support through professional mentors and instructors. Too many companies only provide office hours (or extended office hours) support. Find a good quality service with help available at all hours of the day and night (irrespective of whether it's the wee hours on Sunday morning!) You'll need 24x7 direct access to mentors and instructors, and not a message system as this will slow you down - constantly waiting for a call-back during office hours.

The best trainers incorporate three or four individual support centres across multiple time-zones. Online access provides the interactive interface to link them all seamlessly, at any time you choose, help is just seconds away, avoiding all the delays and problems. If you opt for less than 24x7 support, you'll end up kicking yourself. You may not need it throughout the night, but what about weekends, evenings and early mornings at some point.

If you're like many of the students we talk to then you're a practical sort of person - the 'hands-on' type. If you're anything like us, the unfortunate chore of reading reference guides can be just about bared when essential, but it's not ideal. You should use video and multimedia based materials if learning from books is not your thing. Where we can involve all our senses in the learning process, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.

Interactive full motion video utilising video demo's and practice lab's beat books hands-down. And they're far more fun. Don't take any chances and look at examples of the courseware provided before you sign the purchase order. You should expect instructor-led video demonstrations and a variety of audio-visual and interactive sections.

Go for physical media such as CD or DVD ROM's every time. Thus avoiding all the issues associated with broadband outages, failure and signal quality issues etc.

'In-Centre' days are often sold as a strong aspect by a lot of certification companies. After talking to many computer industry students that have tried them out, you'll find they generally end up being seen as a major problem mainly due to the following:

* Constant driving back and forth from the centre - often hundreds of miles.

* Mon-Fri access for workshops is the norm, and with 2-3 days to book off work, this can represent quite a problem for a lot of trainees who are working.

* I think you'd agree that we usually discover 4 weeks off each year is not really enough. Use up over half of it for educational classes and see your problems doubled.

* Workshops can fill up very quickly and can sometimes be too big - so they're not personal enough.

* Tension is sometimes created in the classroom because students want to progress at their own pace.

* Soaring travel costs - driving to and from the training centre plus accommodation for the duration can cost a lot each time you attend. If we just assume a basic 5-10 workshops costing 35 pounds for an over-night room, plus 40 pounds for petrol and 15.00 for food, we find an extra four to nine hundred pounds of add-on cost.

* Keeping your training private from your employer can be very important to many attendees. Why give up potential advancement, salary hikes or success at work because you're getting trained in a different area. If your employer knows you're taking steps towards training in another sector, what will they think?

* Most of us avoid posing questions while sitting with our fellow trainees - because none of us wants to look like we don't understand.

* More often than not, classes frequently become virtually undoable, where you live away for some part of the year.

For a far more flexible approach, utilise pre-filmed lessons at home, in comfort - taking them when it's convenient to you - not some other person. Do them at home on your desktop PC or if you have laptop, why not get outside if the weather's nice. If you've got questions, then use the provided 24x7 live support (that should've been packaged with any technical type of training.) Classes and lessons can be repeated whenever you feel you need to - repetition is good for memory. And you'll never have to write notes again - everything's done for you already. The result: Less hassle and stress, less cost, and no wasted travelling time.

Locating job security these days is very unusual. Businesses can remove us out of the workplace with very little notice - as and when it suits them. We can however locate security at market-level, by searching for areas of high demand, together with work-skill shortages.

Reviewing the Information Technology (IT) sector, a recent e-Skills investigation showed an over 26 percent skills deficit. It follows then that for every four jobs that exist in computing, companies are only able to find properly accredited workers for 3 of the 4. This one reality alone clearly demonstrates why the United Kingdom desperately needs many more people to enter the Information Technology market. Surely, now really is the very best time to retrain into the IT industry.

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