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Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 03/23/06 20:16
Karl Groves wrote:
> First, a shout out to Jerry and Justin, whom I know from a.w.w.
>
> I've been having a private conversation with Justin Koivisto regarding
> training for the ZCE Cert and he has been most helpful.
>
> I'm going to pose the same question here to anyone who also posts here and
> has the ZCE Cert.
>
> I am interested in getting the Cert, not just for the sake of having the
> certificate, but also because the training to study for it will close some
> troubling gaps in my skills. I've been self-teaching myself PHP for a few
> years now and I'm looking at the Zend training as a way to put the
> finishing touches on the core skills I'm lacking.
>
> So here's are questions for any ZCE's out there:
> - What's your opinion on in-person "Boot Camps" vs. the online training?
> My main concern about online training is that I have ADHD and fear
> the online training may leave me vulnerable to being distracted by in-home
> stuff. Also, the online course is only 19 hours of instruction over several
> weeks whereas the Boot Camps are 40 hours over 5 days
>
> - Are there any "Boot Camps" you'd recommend over others? The Zend web
> site lists these in the USA:
> http://www.axisos.com
> http://www.netcominfo.com
> http://www.otg-nc.com
>
>
> TIA for all responses.
>
>
>
Hi, Karl,
I can't speak for any of the courses in particular, but from having taught
hundreds of these types of courses before, I can speak with a little authority.
Boot camps can be a great resource for getting the fundamentals of the language
down. I used to teach C, C++ and Java, each in a week. In that time frame we
obviously didn't cover every piece of the language, but we got them going enough
to be somewhat productive. Of course they still made a lot of errors - but they
had the basics of the language down.
The real advantage of the boot camp is having a live instructor to answer
questions and help with the labs. A good instructor can answer questions not
covered by the course material, quickly spot errors in students code and be able
to help struggling students while giving more advanced students additional lab
material. Of course, a bad instructor will do none of that.
The downside of these classes is they are quite expensive - typically $1500+ per
person.
With that said - these are typically geared to the new programmer. You have a
fair amount of PHP experience already, and I'm afraid that, while you may pick
up *some* material, 90% of what you'll hear there will be old news to you. And
you'll consistently be ahead of the rest of the students in the class. The
result will end up as a very boring class. These were some of my greatest
challenges as an instructor - how to keep somewhat experienced programmers
interested and finding labs to challenge them.
Of course, online learning doesn't have these advantages, but then it also isn't
as expensive. But with ADHD, you have an additional challenge (wouldn't it
affect your learning in a classroom situation also?).
You could look for some tutorials in the internet; there are a lot of free ones
out there. But I think my recommendation for you would be to get a good book on
PHP and study that. It will be much cheaper than a sit-down class, and more
in-depth than a 19 hour tutorial. And since you're not in a time constraint to
learn the material (and you're just filling in some holes in your knowledge),
you could spend an hour or two a day studying and get a lot in just a few weeks
time.
Anyway - my $0.02 worth.
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
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