Contents
Introduction The Early Years The Traditional Approach The TalkIT Vision The Challenges The Outcome Can You Solve This Coding Problem? Other Bits
Introduction
Welcome to the latest news from TalkIT. This issue is about the story of TalkIT. Why the company was started. What is our vision for a new way of learning. What it can offer you. As usual, I would really like to hear what you think. Please add your comments at the bottom of this blog.
The Early Years
Let’s start with my background. Most of my life I have been working with technology and education. After a Computer Science degree I became a teacher. I then lectured in computing at several Universities. Learning and teaching technology has been a major theme in my life. 
I then took this academic experience out in to industry. For the last 11 years I have written and delivered training courses for software developers. I worked with teams of developers, mostly on their sites. Over the years I have visited many companies in the UK and Norway. I have supported developers launch new projects or learn new languages. I have also run public scheduled courses at training centres. My speciality is .Net and SQL Server in their many flavours. Read more on background … I have also had a strong curiosity about how to learn effectively. Recent research in to the brain indicates powerful ways to enhance the learning process. I use these techniques myself to accelerate learning and improve recall. I also apply these approaches in TalkIT’s courses. For example, our e-learning courses have a strong visual element with lots of graphics. Read more on effective learning and creativity …
The Traditional Approach
After a few years working as trainer I realised that there are problems with the traditional approach. Have you ever been on the wrong course? A course that did not contain what you needed. Or a course that was too simple or too complex.
Perhaps these problems were due to how the course was booked. Did the person selling the course really know its content? Or ask what you needed? Often several middle parties are involved in booking a course. For commercial reasons they do not share information about a training requirement. With a massive amount of online, people can find most stuff for themselves. Google knows it all; millions of tutorials, forums and blogs. There is so much information available on the web. And it is available at any time. And much of it is free. There is now less desire to take time away from work to attend a training course. But how relevant and creditable are these online sources? How to blend on and off-line learning?
The TalkIT Vision
So I made a radical decision. I will use my experience to create an alternative; TalkIT. The vision is to embrace contemporary approaches to business and education. Clients will get the training they really need. TalkIT will blend on-demand e-learning with the benefits of classroom training. Our e-learning courses will include accelerated learning methods. Read more on our aims …
The Challenges
Creating TalkIT presented massive challenges. For a start we had very limited resources. This was a low budget production. But we had high ideals and aimed at a mass market. I first used my contacts to build a team of experienced trainers. They provide expert knowledge in a wide range of fields. We decided to recruit students but develop them in to their roles. We selected capable and enthusiastic young people but they had limited work experience. We filled marketing and a technical author role. Our market research indicated the competition was stiff and well established. We wanted to differentiate ourselves by providing something more. I could see that there was a lot of work ahead to make the vision a reality. Read more on how we work …
The Outcome 
After 2 years things are growing well. We are where we planned to be at this stage. We have six excellent e-learning courses published and for sale and more planned. These provide a complete learning experience; video, solution downloads and code samples. Visitors can learn by seeing, doing, listening or reading. Read more on e-learning courses. We have a website that guides visitors towards the training they need. The site also communicates our values. Web traffic from around the world is growing. We are constantly improving the users experience on the website. There is still much to do. Our student employees have come on enormously. They have learnt the basics and are now contributing lots of ideas. We are talking about collaborations with partner companies. These provide other channels to distribute our e-learning content.
Can You Solve This Coding Problem?
Here is a C# code snippet. What is the output? Do you recognise the algorithm? Is there a more efficient way of coding this?
int[] b = { 9, 8, 7, 10, 4, 6, 5, 1, 3, 2 };
int temp;
for (int i = 0; i < 9; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j < 9-i; j++)
{
if (b[j] < b[j + 1])
{
temp = b[j];
b[j] = b[j + 1];
b[j + 1] = temp;
}
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
Console.Write(b[i]);
}
Other Bits
The TalkIT website is currently being enhanced. It will become easier find what you want on the site. Also the e-learning payment system is being improved. So no payments are being taken for a week or so. But lots of tutorials remain on a free trial.
We have just published a Python courses. The first three tutorials are available as a free trial. Try it out? Getting Started with Python Please tell us what your opinion. Which language would you prefer to learn? Tweet to us on Twitter or Message us on Google+. TalkIT has been very active on social media recently. We have been posting on coding, new gadgets and IT humour. Why don’t you connect with us on Twitter or FaceBook? You can follow all the latest news and let us know what you think. 
@NowTalkIT 
NowTalkIT Here are some recent tweets. Getting started with #Html5 Develop websites that use web sockets,animations and geolocation. http://ow.ly/HYOeq @quizful_com I reviewed your puzzles! Well done.I think it is a great resource,which can support our coding tutorials in #java and #html5 :) Is it important to comment your code? http://www.talk-it.biz/2015/01/talkit-humour-comments-in-code/ … #coding #humour #comments #javascript #csharp #html5 Which programming language should you learn first? http://talk-it.biz/2015/04/which- … #javascript #csharp #java #html5 #learn Learn C++ with TalkIT. Engaging videos,labs and tutorials.Start from basics and then advance. http://www.talk-it.biz/c-marketing-page-2/ …… Your code never has bugs! #epiccode #programming #humour #learncoding #javascript #html5 #java #python How to read IF statements? Learn with 6 coding puzzles http://talk-it.biz/2015/04/6-codi #csharp #javascript #html5 #java #learn. – via @NowTalkIT What is the best developer E-learning platform? http://talk-it.biz/2014/08/talkit … #javascript #csharp #html5 #coding #java #net
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Thanks to Wikipedia
David Ringsell MCPD 2015 ©