Not having to leave the office is both a strength and weakness of distance learning with LearningSpace. Depending on the amount of privacy you have or the amount of "fire-fighting" you need to do in your job, this could be a good thing or a bad thing. Will you really be able to get people to leave you alone when you are so close at hand? If people won't be able to leave you alone, get a high-speed Internet connection at home (ISDN or better will suffice) and take the class from there, provided your family bothers you less than your co-workers, which isn't exactly a given.

The course materials
The LifeCycle course lessons are contained within the schedule database, which you can access via a normal Web browser as shown in Figure D.

FIGURE D


The schedule database contains all the printed LifeCycle lessons and is your starting point. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The lessons are definitely not dry and ordinary, as might have been the case with some of your other technical training classes. They are written in a conversational style and flow really nicely when you're reading them. Here's a few of the more fun excerpts from the lessons that'll give you a taste of the courseware:

Back before the earth's crust had completely cooled, Lotus Notes and Domino software development practices were pretty basic. Slap together a couple of forms, paste in a view or two, and push it out into production...

All good things must come to an end. No matter how much fun it is to create software, at some point you have to turn it over to your end users and they get to bang away at it for a while...

I've long been of the opinion that Notes doesn't encourage or enforce aesthetic application design. You've seen 'em, I've seen 'em--we've all seen applications in Notes and Domino that look like colorblind drunken monkeys designed them...

Good morning. Have you got a nice hot cup of coffee or tea sitting next to you? Are you ready to get a fresh start on a brand-new day? Perhaps one of the worst things that you could have to do is start your day by working on somebody else's project for a while. I don't know about you, but sometimes I would rather write an application twice than have to go in and maintain someone else's code…

I definitely don't want you to get the idea that the course materials are all fun and games, however. This is very serious and important material and you'll find plenty of hardcore meat throughout to chew on. Often, though, technical course materials don't seem to be created by humans, so I wanted to make sure I got the point across that you will not only learn from the LifeCycle course materials but also that you will enjoy learning from them.

One of the things I also liked about how the course was structured was the fact that a short quiz followed each of the lessons. Far from being irritating, it helped me keep track of my progress and tell whether or not I was gaining an understanding the material.

The chat is where the action's at
The most compelling part of the course for me was the live chat sessions. This is where you get a chance to "hear" what the instructor and your fellow students have to say, and you're welcome to jump in at any time with comments of your own. You definitely should know how to type proficiently in order to make the most of the chat component of LearningSpace Live.