May 21, 2001, 12:00 AM — On "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," host Regis Philbin relaxes his
contestants by starting out with a series of throwaway questions. After
successfully guessing that the President of the United States lives in
the White House rather than Graceland, the contestant is more at ease,
and perhaps, receptive to the real thing. This seems to be the same
concept behind LearnKey's (http://www.learnkey.com) e-learning solution.
The course's first element is a "pre-test" covering basic knowledge and
giving you an opportunity to see what you already know. The first few
are about as basic as you can get with questions like "What is a
spreadsheet?", "What is a cell?", and "What is a spreadsheet used for?"
(Hint: The answer is not "a spreadsheet is something you line bird
cages with".)
For the review, I chose the Excel 2000 training. The tutorial comprises
three sessions, and the program operates fairly quickly. After the pre-
test, the sessions include a selection of articles and assignments that
cover expert training, a lab, and a post-test. Other assignments
include review of a study guide, attendance at the forum, and review of
a "brain dump" section. The sessions excellently mix reading, watching
presentations, interacting with others, and "hands-on" practice;
virtually everything you'd get at a regular in-class session.
The tutorial starts out with a speaker giving a brief history of
spreadsheets, going back to the very first one (VisiCalc), but the
tutorial isn't limited to a talking head. It is interspersed with live
examples and a white board with study notes. After the basic
presentation and overview, the tutorial goes quickly onto the
conceptual aspect of the subject matter, and then on to basic and more
advanced functionality.
The multimedia element of the tutorial requires that students have
RealPlayer 8.0 from Real Networks, the basic version of which is freely
available. The streaming media works fairly well over a high-speed
cable modem, but I can't say what it would look like with a 56Kb dial-
up. Users are presented with a set of radio buttons to indicate their
connection speed. With the cable modem, the video flows smoothly, with
only the occasional blip and "one moment please" screen while the
software buffers the stream. Even with a high-speed cable modem,
multimedia delivery over the Internet is still not perfect.
The OnlineExpert series of courses include the Cisco CCNA; CompTIA A+,
INet+ and Network+ certifications, Microsoft Windows 2000 Directory
Services Administration, Windows 2000 Directory Services Design,
Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure Administration, Windows 2000
Network Infrastructure Design, Windows 2000 Network Security Design,
Windows 2000 Professional Administration, and Windows 2000 Server
Administration; and Microsoft MOUS certifications including Access,
Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.
The Excel tutorial sells for $275. It's a good value. It's a well-made
and excellent way to prepare for certification. The industry experts
who design and present the material have successfully created a set of
engaging, easy-to-follow, and self-paced courses.
