Greetings Folks,

After living and learning (and lurking) quite a bit about my 7100 (first Blackberry) from this forum, my first post ever concerns a somewhat different instruction question. I have had absolutely no training on my Blackberry from Nextel and while I appreciate all the helpful hints here, I seem to learn best doing, not reading and also scheduling and dedicating time to learn. In many cases I have had positiver results from an individual demonstrating and teaching me how to initiate certain functions or answer questions immediately in an environment with few distractions. So, my question is, does anyone know of a good training class for Blackberry users located in the Midwest? Also, classes that were not as especially helpful would also be good to know. Thanks.

Try these links.

1) http://www.consilient.com/breakfree/ It's $75 USD, but I have heard it's a good self-paced online tutorial. It uses PowerPoint, audio, and a downloadable manual (which is critical from a friend I heard who went through this program). I believe you will be doing hands on learning following along with the presentation. There are 10 lessons so you can choose when you want to complete the lessons.

2) http://www.discoverblackberry.com/de...vId=H0,C61,P61 This features BlackBerry 101 which is a basic introduction to the features of your BlackBerry. You can follow along with this also and complete some of the activities.

3) http://www.blackberry.com/products/b...rry7100i.shtml
This online demo is another hands on interactive demo for your BlackBerry.

4) http://www.blackberry.com/support/tr..._courses.shtml Here's another free online class you can take. The 7100i is the second demo from the top.

Welcome to the addictive world of BlackBerry. Good luck.

Wirelessly posted (8700c: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Have you spent some time with my tips doc from my site. Free. Start there and see if you still need someone else. Most people only use 10 % so if go over 50 % you'll be a power user.

Stinsonddog - great tips for newbies!!

Thanks for the links and suggestions EricaJ. I have used quite a few of the tips Stinsondog and I appreciate all the great info!! I guess it is more of a time issue than an access issue.

That covered it all Great work!