Course+Class: The best and fastest way to get your training

Announcement: The primary delivery for Tech Comm Tools training is now Course+Class. This method combines the immediate access of a self-paced online course with the personal attention you get in a live class.

Put another way, it combines the in-depth topics in my online courses with the high-touch experience of my virtual instructor-led training, which includes both screen sharing and remote keyboard and mouse as needed.

Before Course+Class

See if this sounds familiar:

• You need specific software training because of a new job, job description, or contract.
• You need it now. You need it yesterday.
• You look around, but can’t find a training center. At least
  • not with weekly classes
  • near you
  • with the precise topic you need

And if you find what you’re looking for (likely an online class), you’ll need to block out two full days away from work (something your boss isn’t thrilled about). With any luck, there are enough other folks that need training when you do, and the class runs. It might even run in (or close to) your local time zone. After two days of rapid-fire training, you come back to work and are appointed the in-house expert.

Or, you don’t find an online class, but you do find a self-paced course. That’s great, but you’ll need to scratch out the time to work through things on your own. And if the course lessons aren’t a 100% match to what you need or you have questions that go beyond the exact materials prepared, you may find online support via comments has its limits.

With Course+Class

You go to learn.techcommtools.com and choose the FrameMaker training that you need, with the delivery method you want. Choosing the Course+Class option gives you 45 days of online course access along with two half-day sessions (about 3.5 hours each) of live training to review material, ask questions, and discuss best practices. In the live sessions you will also explore additional software options, and work out recommendations to resolve your specific needs.

Why isn’t Course+Class more expensive than your previous live online classes?

It’s pretty simple, really. About 4 years ago I committed to developing and delivering both self-paced online courses and live online classes. Since then, I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate recorded content into my live training, if only to keep from losing my voice on training days!

Asking students to watch video in a live class seemed a stretch, but when a former course student inquired about a new hire in need of training, I had my Dorothy in Oz moment, realizing I’d had the answer in front of me the whole time: Have students review the topics in the online course that are most applicable to their situation, at their own pace. Reserve live class time for the “Aha” moments that come with the biggest, most important concepts.

The results are in

After the first few iterations of Course+Class, the benefits were already obvious.

One student had this to say about her Authoring Structured Content in FrameMaker Course+Class experience:

E-learning combined with in-person training conducted by Matt Sullivan made the FrameMaker Training for Structured Authoring so simple and easy to understand. Matt is super knowledgeable when it comes to FrameMaker! It’s always a pleasure when you learn from the best in the industry!

Chinar, commercial aviation pilot

Another client, who has trained with me a number of times said:

This was exactly what I needed Matt! All your previous courses along with all the unstructured deliverables the past year or two prepared me for this course. It was a gem and a confidence builder to begin working on structured projects – and possibly converting some of my unstructured projects! 

The course flowed beautifully and was easy to follow thanks to your insights, experience, and instructional/mentorship abilities! Look forward to the live days when they become available. 

Thanks again!!

Forrest, Commercial Real Estate Broker and Educator

In this format, you can skim over topics that don’t apply, or with which you are already familiar. You can go slow or you can go deep, right from the start in the online content. It’s all there, including topics I never had time to address in a constrained 2-day format.

Then when you’re up to speed on “the basics” like locating and setting Preferences, navigating the interface, or simple features like spell check, you get your two live training sessions.

Course+Class lets me optimize your live class experience and focus on what students historically find most valuable. Things like ideal scenarios, best practices, workflow, and productivity concepts.

Course+Class delivers in two ways:

• You get immediate access to course materials, letting you start your training at the time, place, and pace you choose.
• Having gained confidence and knowledge via the online course content, in the live class sessions you are better able to consider more sophisticated content in less time.

Putting in time with the self-paced material adds other huge advantages to Course+Class:

• The training days are shorter, since easily digestible topics are already covered and out of the way.
• If you are on a tight daily schedule, or if you are outside of US time zones, shorter class sessions are easier to justify and manage than a full six hours plus lunch online.
• Freeing up lecture time in the online class means that we can dig deeper into specific student workflows, something that used to be reserved for larger private training groups.

Available Course+Class Titles

Click on a button below for syllabus and pricing on all delivery methods for the following topics

Authoring, Creating, Editing Content

Formatting and Templates

Note: The two courses below do not overlap. Template design for a structured workflow requires knowledge of a structure model as well as knowledge of unstructured formatting functions.