We have released our first-ever e-learning course, part of a new, interactive e-learning portal that we will continue to expand in the coming months. We will eventually link directly to the portal from the site, but for now, you can access it here for a free excerpt, or to register for the first full module, focused on Spain.
Make sure you are currently logged into GuildSomm, then go to the new e-learning site. From the "Log in" button at the top right-hand corner, you can log into the portal with your existing GuildSomm account.
Test out the content with a free excerpt of the Spain module, or register for the full course for a course fee of $35, which will help us build new modules. Payment is currently proceeded via PayPal, but you can pay with a credit card and it does not require a PayPal account.
Please let us know your feedback as we are planning many more of these courses!
Find the new content here: https://elearn.guildsomm.com
Hi Anne Marie,
You have an indefinite amount of time to complete the full course, and you'll continue to have access to the module to review once you've completed it. This is intended as resource to help you study, and once you've purchased the full course it's yours for good.
Had a few questions about how these courses and the e-learning site work. Once you register for the full course, how much time do you have to complete the course? After you've completed a module, will you continue to have access to it to refresh or review?
We have thus far made a conscious decision for pronunciations to be from a single native language speaker. Obviously regional dialects can be quite different and I’m sure somebody in Barcelona would roll their eyes at the way someone in Madrid pronounces their region. The same is of course true of how a sommelier in Rome pronounces a term from Sardinia. It would be great to have each region spoken in local dialect, but we decided not to try to do this unless we get to a point where we can be consistent in this approach. Not saying it’s not a noble goal, but it’s not in our current bandwidth.
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts. You are absolutely correct in that much of the content within the e-learning courses could be found within the study guide, expert guide, and compendium—in the same sense that much of the information that you find in a class could be researched from multiple sources. The motivation here is really mode of study. We’ve had a lot of feedback that many people like to learn from this approach. I don’t expect all members to find these fit for their style of learning. We have offered a free excerpt for this reason, and if people don’t find them useful, of course they shouldn’t buy them, and if no one finds them useful, we shouldn’t be developing them.
In terms of charging extra for this content, we do so specifically to be able to fund the creation of more of them. The more people find these useful, the more it funds us to hire people to create and verify the content for additional modules. GuildSomm does a tremendous amount of material for free, including features, videos, and podcasts. Personally, I think it’s the best free content on wine that exists. We also charge a membership fee to develop and maintain a vast amount of ever-expanding professional content. We make additional items available for a fee, such as courses, for those who are interested in them, and these are always done at an extremely low cost and within the structure of a nonprofit.
Americans don't usually learn IPA unfortunately but new audio would be great as "plah de bah-heys" is killing me.