Jam Sessions Provide IT Training For Busy Workers
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WestLake Training and Development has come up with an innovative way to bring its programs to students, particularly students who are trying to fit their studies around a busy work schedule. Based in Washington D.C., the 12 year old company focusses exclusively on web application development training and is now encouraging students to take part in Jam Sessions, a combination of self-study and virtual classroom learning.
"Our largest client, Lockheed Martin, asked us to provide live instructor-led virtual training several years ago, back when no one else was doing it," says WestLake President Mark Rogers explaining where the idea for the Jam Sessions came from, "Because of all the experience we have accrued between then and now, we feel that we are better at delivering this type of Web application development training than anyone else in the industry."
Students taking part in Jam Sessions first participate in a short instructor led virtual classroom session that can be delivered at any time before, during or after their work day. They then complete a lab-oriented self-study lesson based on the classroom topic. This self-study can be done at any time and students can take as much or as little time as they need to complete it. Once the self-study is done, students take part in another virtual class that is about two hours long. During this time, the instructor will review what students have learned, clarify concepts, answer any questions and evaluate the self-paced work.
"We've seen situations where clients are reluctant to take their people away from billable work or deadline-driven deliverables to attend several days of IT training. What we have with Jam Sessions, however, is a true blended learning solution that combines self-paced training with very effective instructor-led sessions. This approach keeps students billable and meeting their deadlines but still makes time for important Web application development training," explains Jill McKay, WestLake Vice President of Business Development.
WestLake believes in using the latest training trends in its programs and has been working with virtual classrooms since 2002. The company offers courses for numerous types of web-based software including Visual Studio.Net, Java 2, Oracle SQL and PL/SQL, Microsoft, Unix, XML, Cisco and many more. Their training programs are tailored to suit government agencies, corporations and not-for-profits throughout the U.S. and around the world.