Mac Basics
Justin Pierce is an experienced Apple Professional with strong IT background. Justin created an Udemy course to educate all those who are new to Macs. We have conducted a short interview with him.
Besides the fact that you are an Apple professional, why did you choose to offer the beginner courses on mac/apple than PC?
When I worked at AppleCare I loved fixing the problems that people had, but there just wasn’t enough time to help them with everything they wanted to know about their Mac. With that in mind, I set out to create a course that would give those who were new to Mac, a well rounded lesson about what what their beautiful machine could do. Of course, I could’ve created a class on basics for PC, but Apple is the computing system I enjoy teaching and working on.
How long is the course and what is the most useful aspects of the content for a beginner Mac user?
The course is 4.5 hours long (you don’t have to watch it all at once) and spread throughout 30 lectures. The most useful aspects of this class are that the knowledge can be applied in both a home and business environment. That’s a valuable skill to be able to apply in today’s time because a lot of businesses have turned to a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) architecture. BYODs mean that your Mac is now your go-to machine for work and play.
Who are the most suitable people to enroll in your course?
All are welcome, of course, but the class is meant for those who just bought or received a Mac for the first time (or those who have had their Mac for a while but never had the chance to learn how to use it). I think the only other people that would be in the same boat as a first time Mac user, are those who are making the transition from PC. They may be transitioning because their place of work is switching out towers for iMacs, Mac Pros, or MacBooks, or because they have seen the cool things Macs can do, and just want to be able to do it as well.
What is your teaching methodology?
My teaching methodology is a relaxed one, which I know is a complete 180 from my military background. I purposefully didn’t construct the course with cue cards, because I wanted the student to feel as if they were really sitting down with a friend, who happens to be an Apple pro, and not the other way around. Too many courses are built to show you the information and not to integrate it into how you really learn. That means you learn from this course by doing (which is what you do in real life) and not by traditional lectures, which is to give you the information and have you figure it out.
(I always found teachers/professors that did that to have totally missed the point of learning.)
What is the exact problem you help to solve for people who are transiting from windows platform to mac?
To use a Mac to its full potential. That means, being able to understand how Macs work and the best ways to access information (files, documents, applications, etc…) on them. Having been in the I.T. industry for over a decade, I know that Windows and Mac users are different breeds. Each one uses their device for a certain function(s) and expect it to perform in a certain way when they issue a command, apply a shortcut, or use a multi-gesture. Knowing this I offer up multiple options on how to: search, open applications, organize, connect to networked devices, etc… All in all, It’s not so much a problem that I need to solve for a transitioning PCer, but more of a “here’s how you do this on a Mac and why it’s better / easier.”
When will participants receive their Certificate of Completion?
Students will receive their certificate as soon as they watch the last video. We (Udemy and I) trust that you understand the material.
