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For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))
Training course material - why we write our own

If you come on a Well House Consultants Python course, you'll be taught by the guy who actually wrote the course, and who wrote and developed the Python course material. The same comments apply for a Perl or a PHP or a Linux or a MySQL or a Tcl course.

But developing a course and material is an expensive business. It's said to take 10 days to develop material for one day of training. So is our current policy the correct one for us, or should we consider buying in course materials? An email and a telephone call the other day from IT Courseware on one hand showed me some excellent alternative material, but on the other hand lead me to review, and confirm that we can still offer a very much better product using our own materials and knowledge.

What do we gain from writing our own material?

Editorial control.

The ability to cover subjects that our particular customer base wants to be covered in the way that they want it covered.

The ability to use our style on the notes. For example, most training course notes are pages of "bullet" points whereas ours are much more of a "learning to program in Python" manual that will be useful later too.

The ability to "localise" our training - provide a Python course that's exactly what people want in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England.

The ability to update the notes rapidly (overnight if necessary!) to reflect new sofware releases, new technology uses and security issues amongst other things.

The ability to provide a tailored course to meet an individual clients's needs.

Material Presentation

The look and feel that we choose is consistent throughout all of our courses, and is suitable for Open Source Programming topics.

We can format our material into A4 binders rather than using the nearest American size too ;-)

Staff Skill and development

Our staff know the subjects we teach anyway, but actually writing the material quickly resolves any obscure areas that they're not sure of before they every present a course, and it clarifies in their mind exactly how a subject can be presented to learners. Better to get this worked out before the students arrive rather than in front of them, at their expense.

Last Minute

The ability to accept bookings and tailoring up until the "last minute". It's not common, but we have accepted bookings after normal close of business one day for a course that starts on the next working day.

What would we gain by buying in material?

Cost and easier systems

I'm going to dispute cost! I think that buying in material would only be a cost saving for the first two or three courses given on a subject - the ongoing license fees for notes would then increase our costs. We're a bit of an "oddball" on this - we write efficiently and do so very much in unpaid overtime - as a hobby, you might say - so that the metrics for Well House Consultants are different to the metrics for other training outfits.

It would certainly be easier to order up (say) half a dozen sets of Perl notes a week ahead of a course that to have to print and bind them ourselves ... ensuring paper and toner stocks, backup systems in case of hardware failure, binder, etc ...

Product Range

We could choose to advertise and present a course on a subject that we didn't really know, or on a subject that we couldn't be bothered to write about. We wouldn't do this, though!

So why might others be tempted to buy in material when we don't

Because they don't have skilled technical authors
Because they don't know the subject well enough to actually write the course
Because they don't have graphic artists available to make a good presentation

Because it's much easier (admin wise) to buy in the materials
Because they don't have the printing / binding resources
and the costs would be lower for them if they lacked enthusiastic efficient writers or if they were only going to be using the material once or twice.

Links:
Further information on our courseware
Download centre, including training note samples
Free coursenotes on Java
(written 2005-07-30, updated 2006-06-05)

 
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G504 - Well House Consultants - Writing Notes
  [4] Seeing the wood for the trees. - (2004-08-06)
  [7] Writing on a Sunday - (2004-08-08)
  [9] Study room - the Oxford train - (2004-08-10)
  [394] A year on - should we offer certified PHP courses - (2005-07-28)
  [407] Theft of training material - (2005-08-09)
  [797] Writing up new C / C++ notes. - (2006-07-09)
  [979] Empty seats, Nodding Donkeys and buses - (2006-12-11)
  [982] Notes from the white board - (2006-12-14)
  [1950] Copyright of Training Notes and Web Site - (2008-12-18)
  [2010] How long should a training module be? - (2009-01-27)
  [2192] Copy writing - allowing for the cut - (2009-05-21)
  [2414] Hello World - a good traditional start to a Java course - (2009-09-22)
  [2481] Sample code with errors in it on our web site - (2009-10-29)
  [2812] What is Perl? - (2010-06-15)
  [2828] Sharing our programs - easy. Sharing our data - harder. - (2010-06-26)
  [3152] Jargon busting - (2011-01-30)
  [4009] Clear, concise examples - Ruby classes and objects. - (2013-02-17)
  [4031] Showing what programming errors look like - web site pitfall - (2013-03-06)


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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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