Digitrain Institute.
Leading Edge Training.
Digitrain is a private training institution that is making rapid headway to a successful future by utilising a winning combination of Apple Inc resources and a unique philosophy.
Karen Mills, director of Digitrain, and her staff of highly experienced professionals make the business a success by emphasising a focus on people as well as using the right equipment. With a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, Digitrain is well positioned to tackle training issues within the digital technology field. It provides accessibility, quality and a distinctive membership structure that caters for real people with busy lifestyles.
Digitrain, Institute of Digital Training and Design hit the ground running when it was founded in 2000 as The Mac Club and has gone from strength to strength ever since.
Digitrain is a dynamic, growing entity and much the same could be said for the people involved with it. So much so, that Karen describes it as a ‘learning community’, where both students and tutors alike are encouraged to explore and grow their creativity together.
With a blend of different ethnicities everyone faces challenges and learning curves, but the resources provided by Digitrain support the multi-cultural environment. The Apple eMac and iMac computers are capable of translating both the operating system and application environments into the students preferred language. And manuals are provided in both English and Mandarin, as approximately 80% of the students are Chinese.Karen’s teaching philosophy is to saturate students with ideas and opportunities and let them ‘go at it’. 1on1 learning
She says, “As a teacher I know that people learn by doing things themselves.” An example of this in action will see Digitrain bid for overseas multimedia contracts (eg digital animation) that will be fulfilled by the students working in their own time. The ‘profits’ from such enterprise will be ploughed back into an educational trust to support New Zealand course members.
“ Doing it for real gives the students invaluable experience with real projects and real deadlines,” says Karen, whose students work on Apple Macintosh computers, giving them functional experience, as Macs are industry standard in creative and digital technology professions.
As well as nurturing student’s professional abilities, unique initiatives have been set in place at Digitrain to make it a thriving and pleasurable place to work and learn. These initiatives include training in health and safety issues such as OOS, and the employment of a full time masseuse that is available free of charge to any of the students and teachers!
The director doesn’t consider these schemes an extravagance; rather she explains the plain and simple practicality of them; this is an institution where people potentially spend hours in front of a computer screen.
An offbeat vibe is given out by the institution, its clientele, its philosophy and even its building. Karen accounts for this by saying, “All of the things I hated as a teacher, I’ve tried to do the opposite in my own school.”
There is an undeniable creative ambiance; original comics line the walls of the building. Original brick is artfully exposed in some places of the walls yet covered in others.
The student body is made up largely of international students, 95% of whom, says Karen, wouldn’t fit into the standard university structure due to factors such as language and lack of experience.
Both full and part-time courses are offered; at levels 3-5,and a flexible ‘membership structure’ that does not enforcepre-requisites for entry enable those who may have otherwise missed entry to be catered for. For example, part-time courses are offered during office hours for “at home mothers”, people who have left education, or people who, for one reason or another, would not usually fit into the traditional university model of education.
Karen describes herself as non-traditional, offering opportunities to anyone who is willing to learn.As a result of the success and growth of Digitrain in the three years it has been in operation, all of those involved with the institution are keen to see it continue to further advance. As well as the currently offered areas of computing and creative, Karen sees a future direction in graphics animation and multi-media courses. Other ambitions include having approximately 30 labs in operation by the end of 2004, and being able to offer 24-hour lab access to students.
Perched at the buildings entrance, in a glass office with her iBook, Karen is in the perfect position to keep her finger on the pulse of both the institution and the everyday issues facing her students. This fosters a very interactive atmosphere where she is very much involved in the student’s lives. She knows everyone and has a good idea of what issues that individual is dealing with at any given time both academically and personally.
“ I do feel responsible for my students in every meaning of the word, not just towards computing…”, with a large number of international students she stresses, “…if that was my kid overseas I’d like to know that someone’s looking after them.” In Karen’s opinion, “If you’re going to take them on you take them on in their entirety.”
Currently, Digitrain have 30 iMacs, 150 eMacs, a G4 Server, 2 Xserves and an Xserve RAID with 2.5TB of HardDisk space. Their primary applications are Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Photoshop Effects, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, Macromedia Freehand, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Go Live, Microsoft Office X and XP (for PC).
For more information about Digitrain, go to http://www.digitrain.co.nz
To see how Apple can work best for you, visit your local Apple Authorised Reseller to find out more.
