First Impressions after the first Month it@ab Blended IT-Training in Germany

Sophisticated IT-Management Training Programme Offers High Pace Learning

2004-04-20. As participants report after the first month of training, building managerial and IT skills in a Blended Learning environment already shows its advantages over traditional methods of education.

Knowledge and experience are the key competences when trying to initiate a sustained growth in the much needed IT sector in the South African developing countries. The deployment of foreign experts being a thing of the past, the education of local skilled multipliers is the much more promising and accepted way to build capacities where they are essential. Traditional learning and education models for local experts in many cases turned out too slow and restricted in coverage.

Blended Training Combines Individual Learning and Classes

21 LearnLine AG, the Freiburg based e-learning company in charge with organizing the it@ab Blended Learning programme, put together a highly sophisticated mix of in-depth classes with experienced trainers, web and computer based trainings and simulations. The mix of computer based but always supervised learning and classes, known as Blended Training, has its advantages in the combination of individual learning at the participant’s own pace according to their needs and joint classes which offer the opportunity to benefit from the insights of an experienced trainer and share the learning experience of the other participants.

Focus on Open Source and practical Results

The Blended Training Program started already in December 2003 as a part-time component during the language training in Saarbrücken. March 2004 the Junior IT-Consultants moved to Freiburg and attended several seminars with face to face training or worked through e-learning modules, respectively.
The internet technology section mostly concentrated on open source technology. In the hands-on classes, the students created, amongst other things, a Linux based client-server-environment and set up a small content management system. Using MySQL as database and PHP including the appropriate administration tools, a model website with a news area and dedicated rights for password protected administration could successfully be implemented.

“The students show a remarkably high motivation”, reports Dr. Helmut Merz, “which is both a prove of the soundness it@ab programme and the high quality didactical concept of the classes and e-learning modules.” “The training is very useful to me as I could use the knowledge gained in my e-projects” summarises the participant Nelson Chamba from the Information Centre CIUEM of the University of Maputo in Mozambique his impressions.

Virtual Training Processes Build Competences Quickly

Besides all technical topics business orientation is a main focus of this programme for further education. Lessons on IT-consultancy and project management took place in the first week of training. Though always under the tutelage of a coach, individual learning in a virtual management environment improved practical project management knowledge of the participants. This computer based simulation provides a virtual model of an IT company, and the participants takes over all tasks concerning planning and execution of a medium sized IT project. The whole range of real world economic processes, including “soft factors” like sense of responsibility, motivation, team spirit and human relations, are taken into account, and the decisions and the way the student meets the challenges of his task are rated immediately.

The immediate feed-back and the practise oriented scenario speed up the acquisition of “business experience” considerably. Especially the controlled and supervised progress in a natural workflow sequence offer the participant a unique opportunity to develop managerial skills effectively in an unmatched shortness of time.
Further sections on e-Development and e-Readiness, internet technology, advanced webdesign, Collaboration Learning Environment, and e-Learning completed the first month of this high-level IT-programme.

Contact:
InWEnt gGmbH / Cologne
Frau Renate Finke
renate.finke@inwent.org

Contact:
21 LearnLine AG / Freiburg
Herr Rainer K. Kasemir
rainer.kasemir@21LL.com