Re: Education vs manuals

The perennial question! With all these manuals around, why do I need training?

Well, personally, I love manuals -but I haven't got a clue how to access them until I have some vague idea of what it is that I'm looking for.

Classic case in point: you know in the newer Windows how half your menu items disappear to be replaced by a couple of downward-pointing chevrons after a while? Apparently this annoys some people. They want to turn it off. Try searching the Microsoft Help for subjects relating to 'disappearing menu items' or 'downward-pointing chevrons' and you'll be out of luck. However, if you happen to know that this feature is called 'personalized menus', then you'll be fine. How do you find out what it's called until someone's called it that in your presence?

I find training invaluable merely because it shows me what there is to learn. And that's the approach I take in the class room. Forget it if you think I can impart the sum total of my Oracle knowledge in a week or even several. My role (I think) is to show you the possible, and to give you some guidance that you might (I hope) remember... but you still have to do the learning, usually after the course.

I don't think I've ever read a manual or guide book yet which has helped straight out of the dust jacket. But after a mere thiry minutes with someone showing me something, *then* the manual starts making sense. Not everyone's like that: some ( a very small minority, I think) can get all they need out of a book, and good luck to them.

I think it's a false dichotomy, in other words, for most people, to suggest that it's either training or manuals. For most, I think it's a case of manuals making infinitely more sense after some training than before. And I don't think it really matters in that regard how well the manual is written (and as a writer of manuals myself, I try hard to make them readable and informative): it's just that hearing or seeing someone do something (and having a chance to do it yourself) is a prime requirement for reading about it afterwards. For most.

Regards
HJR

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"John Russell" <netnews2_at_johnrussell.mailshell.com> wrote in message
news:k8ke4uonkchlhacjbumuo1bs2nk2qnkdie_at_4ax.com...


> On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:27:39 -0000, "George Barbour"

> <gbarbour_at_csc.com> wrote:

> >Oracle is a good and essential product.

> ...

> >It has a very large and successful education and training arm.

>


> Yes, that's an interesting division, with sharp people spread all over

> the world.

>


> I'm curious how the cost/benefit analysis works for enrolling in a

> course or purchasing an online training product as opposed to

> purchasing a manual.  What are the advantages people find that make

> the extra cost worthwhile?  Some possibilities I can imagine are:

>


> - Availability of pre-tested systems to work through exercises.

> - Tutorial (step-by-step) nature of material.

> - Access to instructor to answer questions.

> - Better focus or completeness of code examples.

>


> I'm also curious about the differences in purchasing and

> authorization:

>


> - Are course enrollments usually funnelled through a company's

> education coordinator, while manuals are purchased by individual

> employees?

> - Is it easier to sign up for a course because that money comes from

> an education budget, while the cost of a manual might come out of a

> department's budget?

> - Is it standard practice to run everyone in a department through the

> same CD-based self-study course, while a manual on the same topic sits

> on one person's bookshelf?

>


> John

> --

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