We're right in the middle of conference season at the moment, with the SHARE conference recently finished, and the MQTC conference on the horizon. I was wondering, how do you get your technical education for IBM MQ? Do you go to one of the conferences? Do you take education classes? Do you learn online, read blog posts and articles? Do you just get stuck into Knowledge Center and teach yourself? How would you prefer to learn (if money and company sign-off weren't in the way!)

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My preference has always been classroom, deep technical courses with some hands on exercises. This works best for me. Following that are the conferences, heavy with technical content. Then when manuals were around, I used to sit and read those for hours on end, something I find very difficult to do with the KC.
If I am looking for something on a specific subject the KC is OK, so are the many blogs, but for general self education, not so good but again, I emphasise, for me.

Regards - Grant

I love learning by doing. I have always believed the best way for a subject to 'sink in' is to actually do it yourself. So I agree with you about the hands on exercises.

Do you think the hands on is why you prefer classroom education or is there something else about that environment as well? For example, taking you away from your desk or carving out an undisturbed time slot for education that cannot be easily interrupted by the day job.

Cheers,
Morag 

Sorry for the delay Morag, I was away.
I think it is exactly as you state, by doing it, the knowledge soaks int, plus you get multiple re-inforcements of the knowledge - having been told it, you are now faced with the screens to read & get that into your memory, then you have to think about what options to select, which buttons to click etc, it really is a multi-faceted ingestion of knowledge. Well, that's how I see it.
Of course, the classroom has the added advantages of being able to query the lecturer on any points I may be confused about, hearing others asking different question ("ooooh! I never thought of THAT") and the interaction with fellow classmates before, during, after the courses.

Your other points are - for me - very important too. Dedicated time, away from the disturbances of the office are very conducive to learning!

Regards - Grant

So here's a question for you all. Given the difficulty some people have to getting to classroom based education, either funding or availability problems. How can some of the very distinct classroom positives like carving out a specific time/place for education, avoiding the distractions of the day job or having interaction with others be applied to online learning?

Do you find a different desk to sit at so no-one can find you? Do you hire a meeting room and several of you do the same online course at once, so you get a little interaction? What tricks have you used to improve your ability to get a good run at an online course?

At the moment I give the classes when needed, but to learn something new I prefer "labs" or articles that show me how to do it and I can follow.  If I can, I attend technical conferences.

I believe the classroom situation is great, because you can give your undivided attention to a topic, it is easy to ask questions and you do labs in a controlled environment.

Cookbook style walk-throughs, labs and exercises with instructions are all good hands on learning material. When you give classes, do your students also like the hands on aspect?

I agree the undivided attention of a classroom course is brilliant. Sometimes it's hard to get booked onto such courses when they don't get the requisite minimum number of attendees and then get cancelled. Is it better to have a self-paced individual course immediately (with the possibility of distractions at your own desk), or wait to get onto a classroom course (which might be months in the future)?

Cheers,
Morag

My feedback shows that labs and "free talk" sessions get the highest ratings.

Totally agree on the other points, sometimes difficult to get into a class.

"Free talk" sessions is a new concept to me. I don't think I have ever done technical education with such a session. I can imagine what it is - title is fairly self explanatory. What sort of MQ subjects make good free talk sessions that you have done?

Morag .... very often especially people new to MQ find it hard to visualize or imagine what MQ can do for them.  The same is true for even experienced IIB people that does not understand that MQ underneath IIB makes a VERY strong and compelling case, you can just do sooooo much more.  So, it usually starts with somebody asking "how would I do 'X' in MQ.  I then grab my whiteboard markers and we walk my thinking process on how to solve a specific problem.  I might take an hour out of the day, but it is absolutely worthwhile.  The understanding gained by the students are big and well appreciated.

Unfortunately, trainers that reads the slides and just do the motions without real world experience struggle with this.

Your students are very lucky to have you. You're absolutely right that having an instructor with the experience to go 'off script' and answer the tangential questions as well as those directly related to the course material is hugely beneficial. Not everyone learns the same way, and the slides and notes that are pre-prepared may not make the subject click for everyone.

White board sessions can sometimes be more interesting than any of the other material. We used to call them "Chalk and Talk" sessions (which I guess harks back to before whiteboards!)