- Classroom Training/ILT: Best Bang for Big Bucks?
- ILT Pros and Cons
- Making the Most of ILT
- Online Training: Many Options for All Budgets and Backgrounds
- Online Training Pros and Cons
- What to Choose: ILT or Online Training?
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Online Training: Many Options for All Budgets and Backgrounds
To some extent, online training can overlap with ILT. This represents a “Cadillac variety” of online training, where an instructor is assigned to that class, and where interaction with that instructor is scheduled to occur regularly, either in the form of an instructor-led class, lecture, or presentation online, as well as possible interaction in the form of online office hours where chat or IM provides informal time with the instructor. Such classes can sometimes cost as much as in-person ILT, and will generally be more expensive than other kinds of online training that lack live instructor access. Even so, you’ll spend 25-50% less per hour for such training because the face-to-face element is removed, and because class sizes are generally more open (neither constrained by nor limited to the number of seats in a physical classroom).
Online training that doesn’t require a live instructor (though access to an instructor may or may not be part of the deal) offers lots of appeal to students whose schedules or situations don’t permit them to show up in a real classroom on a regular schedule. In fact, most online training is both self-paced (students complete modules as quickly or slowly as they like, according to their available time and interest) and self-administered (students sign on, do their reading, complete their assignments, work their way through labs, and take quizzes and exams on their own initiative and at their own discretion). This kind of online training usually costs less than half as much as equivalent ILT, and might even cost significantly less than that. By way of comparison, Microsoft Learning partners offer online training courses for the Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) and Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) credentials at prices between $300 and $500 per course, where most of the corresponding ILT classes run 3-5 days and cost around $600 per day to attend.