George Orwell

allowing them to concentrate better.

Business owners appreciate online tutorials because employees can learn at their workstations, saving time and money on the usual travel and work absence expenses. Students can use online tutorials as a pre-requisite or follow-up to traditional workshops. Internet courses also serve as effective refresher or remedial courses for anybody wanting or needing to learn.

Foster Coburn, president of Arizona-based Unleashed Productions, a site devoted to graphics on Macintosh computers, says online tutorials help participants apply a steady stream of knowledge without disrupting the workflow. "The toughest hurdle is convincing employees to learn online or convincing the boss to give them time to master the application," he says.

Too often, today's business climate focuses on putting out products or projects with little foresight given to training. This ill-prepared planning can stunt company growth. With online tutorials, employees can apply new skills to their jobs after each online lesson, giving businesses immediate results.

"If you spend an hour a week to learn online, you'll get that hour back next week," Coburn says. "But with product demands and deadlines, even that small amount of time is difficult to arrange. It's like learning to play the piano -- you need to practice every day."

Using it or losing it

Compare software training to learning a second language. Once you've mastered the vernacular, you either use it or lose it. The same principle applies to a practicum learned online.

"You can certainly buy the stuff that's wizard driven, but if you want to do the cool stuff with a particular program, you still need to invest the time," Coburn says.

Costs of online tutorials range from freeware to one-time course purchases to subscription-based. Subscriptions give participants unlimited access to lessons for a specified period, allowing them to begin and end lessons over an extended period.

Of course, fee-based tutorials usually offer more user options and flexibility than free ones and can cost more than $200. But they often provide access to experts in case participants have questions about a particular lesson.

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