CIW WITH SKILLTRAIN

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Yeah it does say now on their Student website it is now version 5.

 

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Hi All,

If you cannot get the Master CIW Designer course that covers v5 ask serious questions.

version 4 is no longer relevant for the Master CIW Designer qualification. You cannot take a test on it, full stop!

To geofftaylor,

If they cannot do v5 refuse to join them. Find somebody that can.


Keimos

 

Hi there,
I met with the sales rep from Skillstrain last week and was impressed with their CIW Website Design Manager course.

He's coming back on Monday and I'm going to sign up for it.
(£2750 - is this OK?)

However, I've just noticed that the Frontpage is v2000, and Dreamweaver is v3, both of which seem rather outdated?

Is this just that their literature needs updating or are they selling me a product that it not current? I would ask the rep myself, but it's the weekend and I'm going to spend it worrying about this unless someone can answer this for me.
Thank you.

 

That would imply that their syllabus is v4, although you will have to sit the v5 exams.
There isn't an awful lot in it, but it does reflect a certain laziness on their behalf if they can't be bothered to update their course material.

 

Hi Kim,

Do not sign up unless they can guarantee that you will be getting the v5 courseware.

There is quite a bit of difference between v4 and v5 that would affect your ability to pass the v5 exams with confidence.

Keimos

 

Thank you JonnyMX and Keimos, I'll raise the subject with the sales rep tomorrow. Best regards Kim

 

I am doing the A+, N+ and MCSA with SkillStrain (sorry, but this is how i believe their name should be). I am advising everyone to stay away from this company, formerly known as Scheidegger. After I finished A+ and N+ I wanted to take the exams, but they told me the exams are all at the end of the 3 courses. How stupid! So I went and took the exams myself, and then sent them the proofs in order to reimburse me (the cost of the exams is included in the fees). Needless to say i had to study from other sources (i used cbtdirect) in order to be up to date because their courses are a bit outdated. I continued and passed all of the MCSA exams apart from one which i am going to take this week. Last week i received a letter from Skillstrain saying that my time was up and that if i wanted them to send me the next part of the course i should pay them 100 pounds for 6 months or 150 for 12 months. So beware of that. The salesman will tell you you have all the time in the world to study, but there is actually a time limit. I read my contract with them and there is nothing to say that, so i am going to call them and probably have a big argument with them. I don't care if i don't finish their stupid course, I am one exam away from my goal, and then they can go **** themselves.
I just wanted to warn you people who think of signing up with them.

 

Well, 7 months for a subject, but I did 3 subjects, A+, N+ and MCSA. Unless they treat all three as one subject... Anyway, I'm done with them, just passed my last exam today, so I'm now MCSA 2000! So i don't need their extension, don't need their materials. I'm sending them the paperwork so i can get my reimbursment. Anyway, they can't expect me to recommend them to other people. Which by the way i did, i recommended a friend about 2 years ago, gave them all his details, he was interested in a web design course, and he is still waiting for a call from them...

 

I am studying SkillTrain/Scheidegger CIWv5 (currently Section 2 Part A - JavaScript). And I started the course at the end of February, so their study material is up-to-date, perhaps the promotion needs change.

The fee was the same (£2750), which covers 24 months - if I can't finish in that time (have to "extend the course" as they say), I have to pay more.

Regarding the softwares: they state that I have to finish Section 4 Part A to acquire the Macromedia MX pack - no version number. If I can introduce a new student successfully, I get Frontpage 2003.

Besides, everything seems fine except that I can't progress too quickly as I do not want to just dump everything into my mind. I had only had a working knowledge of X/HTML and CSS before, JavaScript is totally new, and Perl will be totally new as well, though I started to learn PHP once... I still have to say that the part which was a real pain: Section 1 Part C, Network Technology Foundations. Most of the TMAs seemed pointlessly aim at memorising hard technical data about how to build networks and components and stuff like that. (I mean, if I had wanted to be a network admin, I would have studied Cisco instead! )

 

I almost forgot:

one thing I really dislike in the study material is their clinging on outdated browsers. I don't understand why they come up with NS and IE 4.0, sometimes even 3.0!! The date is 2006 now, not 1996...

 

Hi

I guess it depends were you coming from, if you had programming experience and network experience like me I found the Sect 1 part C easy, and also Perl and PHP are fairly easy to change to after much programming in the past. Cant see the point in all that HTML and CSS stuff if we going to be using Frontpage and/or Dreamweaver, does it all for you. It would be like (to me) going back to the days of Commodore 64s and Basic programming were you wrote a program then proceeded to load up strings full of PEEKs and POKEs! Just doesn't make sense to be using something so high level then have to start rumaging around at that level to make it work. Dont get me wrong, it has its place, but in the real world its all about getting things done fast/cheap, and I cant see that fiddling about with hex codes for colours is the way to get a website together fast.

Ian.

 

One of the reasons for knowing your HTML and CSS is for the occasions when Dreamweaver messes up. As for Frontpage, it produces some of the most horrible HTML known to man - it *needs* manual cleaning!

Harry.

 

Frontpage being Microsoft does not surprise me that its rubbish. Dreamweaver is a very expensive package, so I am surprised there are considerable bugs in it. Maybe better software for web site creation could be suggested?

Thanks

Ian.

 

Neither is rubbish, and they are not particularly buggy.
The problem lies in how they 'automate' the generation of code. It is great to have a button which says 'insert rollover effect here' but it then produces about two pages of HTML and script to achieve the effect. No human can read the code, and if you then delete your rollover half of it gets left behind...

 

"Being fast and cheap" is usually still a synonym for doing a half job, though. I still prefer to know how things work - for me, that is what "high level" means. The "push of a button" syndrome reminds me of elderly people who have problems using the 'latest' technology (i.e. TV remote control and mobile phones), which is supposed to unburden their lives!

I finished Javascript (Section 2 Part A) and they haven't sent me the summarising assignment (JSTMA 07-A) that the owner of ciwcourse.co.uk speaks of! Which is, on the on hand, good, as I can proceed more quickly to the next subject (and can finish the course more easily later on), but on the other hand, very bad, as practically they don't require me to present a working (however basic) knowledge of coding in Javascript.

 

Hi all,
As with Tecx, I have just joined skill train CIW website design manager and have found Section 1 very boring and I must admit, I cant really find the relevance in it. I know it's good to have a basic knowledge, but the tests, I just cant figure out the relevance. Theres so much info, I've already forgotten the 1st section in it. Someone please tell me it gets more practical after this. It's great to have a forum like this by the way.
regards
Dai

 

I found the beginning very boring as well. Especially the one about networking with all the technical stuff :razz:... The HTML was interesting (but said nothing new for me as I was already alright with XHTML+CSS). Section 2 goes into JavaScript, then Perl, and I seem to have stuck... Hope I can carry on after the Christmas season. I learnt PHP before, Apache+SQL actually, and all that basic stuff, and I could easily combine PHP with my previous knowledge on XHTML+CSS. But with Perl, it's all about programming, not a word on how to display this whole misery in a browser or the relevance in it. (I had to look it up. The CIW course's sections are so separated that you learn everything on its own, not gradually as it would be preferable for a beginner.)

 

The course material is often wrong and very outdated, and most of the time the help that they give you is rubbish (both webmail and phone), BUT, this means you have to find answers yourself, which realy helps you learn. If you find lots of forums (like this one), then you shouldnt have a problem. The thing I found badly lacking was the lack of practicle work, and you often dont have the time to build your own website to learn this stuff (as well as study). what little practicle learning i have done on my own VASTLY increases understanding of a concept.

 

Hi,

I am currently doing the Master CIW Designer certification, I am not doing it with Skilltrain however I am wondering what you get for your money when doing it with Skilltrain?

I think Skilltrain do the same certification, if they do could anyone tell me how much they charge for the certification/ course? What material you get to work with? Do they supply you with any official CIW learning books, practice exam quesitons etc?

I am just curious after reading through this forum because it sounds like Skilltrain is the way to go for home learning, plus would like to compare it to the compony I'm doing it with.

Any feedback would be helpful

Cheers