Blog

Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

March 2020

The “studio” for my virtual classroom

In view of the government advice to avoid all unnecessary social contact as much as possible, we are cancelling all courses scheduled for our Surrey Training Centre until further notice.

All our scheduled courses will now run as online courses only in our Virtual Classroom. You can join them from your office if you’re still in it, from home, or from anywhere you have an internet connection and a suitable computer. We’ll be doing our best to try and re-create the classroom experience with delegates being able to see, hear and interact with each other, as well as ask questions to your trainer just as you would if you were in the room with them.

These will be live, instructor-led training courses not pre-recorded videos that you playback. You’ll need to join them at the appointed start time just as you would if you were attending a physical classroom, and you’ll see the same demonstrations and complete the same task-based exercises as you would in a real classroom. Desktop sharing also allows the trainer to see and assess your work and provide feedback.

One obvious difference is that you’ll need to provide your own hardware and software for these courses. On the flip-side, these courses are much cheaper than actual classroom courses because obviously as a business, we don’t have the same overheads with online training.

These are troubling, unprecedented times and we all need to do our best to stay safe, protect others, especially the vulnerable, and follow the best advice available, whilst trying to maintain as normal an existence as possible. I realise that cost is going to be an important consideration now more than ever before for many of you, but try and think about the long game here. This crisis will end, and when it does your skills will be vital to get businesses and the economy back up to speed as quickly as possible. If you can use this enforced down-time to upskill yourself, improve your CV and maybe boost your confidence, you’ll be doing yourself and the economy a great service.

Stay safe,

Chris O’Shea