Chapter 20. Creating an Online Training Application

In This Chapter:

• The VideoPresentations Architecture

• The Notable JavaScript

• Server Multimedia Basics

• The VideoPresentations Class

• The Demonstration Application

I love teaching and training. There's nothing like getting an e-mail from a former student who has been promoted to senior software engineer to let me know that my guidance was worthwhile.

Several challenges arise, though, as a result of teaching and training. What happens when students need to review the material? Their notes might be good enough, but their experience probably is not. The book will help, but I give my students things such as anecdotes from real life situations, which they can't get in a book.

What happens when students must miss a class? This absence is especially damaging for some topics, such as the start of ADO.NET, in which the subject of SqlConnection objects and connection strings is taught. Because the rest of the subject relies on these topics, missing them puts students in a precarious situation.

What happens if I want to teach an entire group of students who can't attend class? This happened to me recently when a contracting firm that's about 90 minutes away wanted training for its staff. It was impractical for them to drive that great distance on a regular basis, so an alternative strategy had to be developed.

This chapter teaches you how to use an ASP.NET class named VideoPresentations to create a training application. This class has lots of options, all designed to give you a powerful tool for creating an online training application. I'll talk about the VideoPresentations architecture, the salient JavaScript that makes it work, some server multimedia basics, and, finally, the demonstration application.