Software Classroom Course Development Steps

Courses are developed when a new product, or updated version, is to made available to others.

1. First step, a decision is made to create a new course or update a current course.
2. A course developer is assigned.
3. Interested parties meet for a kick-off where personnel and schedules are discussed.
4. The course developer does an audience analysis.
5. The course design document is created or updated.
6. The document is shared with interested parties. The document is updated based on feedback.
7. The course design document is finalized for content and schedule. Note, this may change during the material development stage.
8. A training development environment is created.
9. Course materials are developed, example: classroom slides and a lab exercise guide.
10. The materials are shared with people who give feedback.
11. Feedback is incorporated.
12. The finalized materials are submitted to production services who build the finalized product materials.
13. The training environment is made into a formal environment for the future instructor and students. Environment includes: hardware and operating system specification, application software, and training lab files.
14. An assigned person runs through the labs in a sample training environment. If needed, the lab document and the environment are updated.
15. A course description is written and posted to attract students.
16. The course is formally released.
17. The course is schedule, an instructor assigned, and the course is delivered to the students.

For special training events, course materials maybe quickly put together by an expert course developer. Before starting, the developer creates an course lesson module document, verses a detailed course design document. This document is shared via email with a few key persons who give high level feedback. The materials are developed, and often, because of time limitations, the only testing is the course developer's testing. The material are used, as is, from the developer. In this case, the course developer is often the instructor.

Sales Engineer Training

Sales engineers want to implement, their company's products and services, as a solution to customer requirements. They collect customer information regarding what they want to do and what will be required to make it happen. Then, present their company's solutions through slides, diagrams, white boarding, and demonstrations. Sometimes, to get into the door, they respond to RFPs (request for proposals) with descriptions of their companies abilities to deliver a solution.

Training needs:

• A sample system to demo. Often, applications can run in a virtual machine (VM) on a laptop. Or, access pre-configured systems via the internet.
• Enough administration skills to manage the demo: start, stop, and monitor the applications.
• Draw solution component architecture diagrams. Example components: web application, application server, and database servers mapped onto sufficiently powered hardware running over an adequate secure network.
• Methods to calculate hardware and software requirements to handle the customer needs. Example: the amount hardware to run the software required to satisfy the customer solution's users.
• They work with account sales representatives to work out pricing.

When a customer asks, "Can your product do this and that," the sales engineer's answer should be positive as it usually comes down to consultant (or developer) time and hardware. It is the sales person responsibility to negotiate the cost.
On the post-sales side, sales engineers may co-ordinate implementations and support the completion of production implementation planning. Their pre-sales training and personnel skills experience will get them through this stage. Their job is get the project moving and hand off implementation and support issues to their appropriate colleagues.

Sales engineers make the sale, hand off to the others for implementation, then move on to next sales engagement.

As a product manager of a small team, I enhanced my product to fit the customer needs. To demo it, I posted the application solution on the internet, then contacted my customer contact and did a demonstration. He arranged a meeting on his side with a VP, operations, and users, everyone required to make a decision. The loved the idea, bought into and I worked with my development to implement the solution. On another sales call, instead of me demonstrating the product, I had the potential customer's tech person use the online application to demonstrate the capabilities and the ease which their users would get started using the product. This meant that their tech person recommended the product during our phone call.

As a sales engineer, I thought of creative ways to get customers involved. Example, to sell my web site training materials, I enhanced the course to include the JavaScript programming skills required to program the basics of Google Maps. This was a real attention getter with the sales team, who felt it was good product to help them with further sales. Students in other countries loved learning the secrets of California's Silicon Valley's developers.

Target Audience

I'm a curriculum developer. I write training course material. Before starting new content, I put myself in the target audience's shoes, and then wonder, "What do I want to do with these products and services?"
My target audiences:

• Operations personnel who set up computer room environments. They have network devices cabled, computers mounted into racks, and manage other computer room requirements such as cooling systems. They configure network routers and firewalls to allow secure, viable network routing.
• System administrators install software into the operations environments, then test and monitor the software applications and hardware.
• Integrators install software and configure multiple applications to work together. They work with operations to insure network traffic routing works properly.
• Developers write and test software applications which are installed into the operations computer rooms.
• Database administrators manage the installed databases. They work with the developers to set up database tables, indexes, and other database objects for the applications to work.
• Users who use the applications.
• Sales engineers who demonstrate applications and are able to answer questions regarding software and hardware requirements for customer required usage.
• Architects who design systems and solutions that are implemented into computer environments.

Each audience has their own training requirements. There is overlap, however, for training to be useful, it must focus on the needs of the students. Else, the instructor with notice the students doing email and surfing the web, verses listening and working through the lab exercises.
Instructors guide the students through relevant course material, or they boring, irrelevant, and loose their audience. Since good instructors like to be the star of the classroom, us curriculum developers must give them action packed blockbuster scripts.

Windows 10 Optimization

After installing Windows 10, I reduced the number of services that start on boot up. This improves boot time (faster startup) and disables unneeded services that may cause problems. I disabled the services recommended on BlackViper.com web page: Windows 10 Service Configurations.
To view the services the author disabled, I selected Show/Hide Columns and checked only the related columns. For example, here are the columns I kept: Display Name, Service Name (Registry), DEFAULT Windows 10 Home, and "Tweaked". Then search for "*".
Also, over and above BlackViper.com's list, I stopped and disabled: Connected User Experiences and Telemetry, HomeGroup Provider, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Windows License Manager Service, and Windows Image Acquisition (WIA).
Click to see my disabled services: Disabled.

Windows 7 Service Configuration Optimization

After installing Windows 7, I configured the services for optimization and reliability by reducing the number that start on boot up. But which services to disable? I read through BlackViper.com's service list titled, Windows 7 Service Configurations. Windows 7 is my choice of operating system because of the difficulties with drivers for the older OS, WinXP, for new hardware. And, Windows 7 is fine, and after using it for a time, I got to like it.
Click to see my settings: Automatic, Disabled, Manual


Note, since my computer has McAfee for security and protection, I turn off more Windows security features than you may choose to do.

Your Computer Files Worth $100 to You?

Save your files, photos, movies, movie clips, documents, programs, software onto a USB drive. Don't use DVDs and CDs for backup, get an external USB drive.
Example, I bought a Maxtor 160gig drive for $80. My hard drive on my desktop and laptop are both 80gigs. Total files backed up from both computers is less than 80 gigs.
Pros:
* Easy: plug the USB drive into the computer, it becomes another drive on your computer, drag and drop directories onto your USB drive.
* Faster to copy files and directories onto the USB drive than to backup to a DVD or CD.
* Compact, my USB drive and cable is a smaller then my 12 DVD carry case and yet 160gigs is larger storage than 35 DVDs, or 200 CDs.
* Easy/fast/convent read and write.
* Can copy multiple gigs from one computer to another fast and easy.
Cons:
* An initial out lay of $80-$130 for the drive. But is not your photos, documents and other much worth much more?

Suggestions:
* From time to time, backup the USB drive files onto an offsite computer. This secures your data in case of a total loss, example house theft or fire.
* For photos, I upload my recent best to Google photos, example, picasaweb tigerfarm. So I have my photos on my computer and on the Google computers.
* For convenience, buy the USB drive that does not require an external power supply.
* Use the sync software that comes with the hard drive, or use some kind of backup strategy such as the one following.
Backup Strategy:
* Move your static files, files that do not change, to a common directory.
Example, I have graphics directory for my photos, movies, clips, and music.
I created a directory called graphicsStatic. Under graphics static, I have sub directories based on date of backup. Now, my graphics directory is just for new files.
* I backup both my graphics and graphicsStatic directories. Backup graphicsStatic once. The graphics directory backup when feel the need.


Note, there are 2 basic types of USB drives:
1. No external power supply, the power for the drive is from the USB port. These drives are small is physical size and smaller in disk size for the money.
Example: when on sale in the San Francisco Bay area, $80 for 160 gigs, $100 for 250gigs.
2. External power supply which requires the drive to be plugged into the wall power, and plugged in to the computer USB for data transfer. These drives are larger, 500gig and 1 terabyte are common.
Disadvantage is time and inconvenience to plug into the wall power when you want to use it.

Google Web Toolkit Widgets

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) has many functional widgets: GWT hompage.
I have enjoyed coding in GWT. GWT is the only tool I know of that allows us Java programmers to program web site front ends using our Java programming skills.