YouTrain on YouTube (CAD Manager's Toolbox)

Though largely a source of entertainment, YouTube is also a good place to find a lot of useful resources, including CAD training materials.

One question I'm often asked can be summarized like this: "Where can I find training information on [fill in the topic here]."

Of course a quick Google search will help you find training materials but, increasingly, YouTube.com is a great place to find video training resources as well.

Here are some of the reasons I like using YouTube to locate training materials:

• You can easily search based on keywords -- just start with your software name. (The figure below shows an example for SolidWorks as a keyword.)
  

• Results are, obviously, video centric, which means you can actually see how the training materials are composed and whether you like the methods used. (Results for the SolidWorks search above are shown here.)
  

• You get to see and hear the training, which emulates a training room environment as opposed to trudging through pages and pages of Internet text.

Now obviously, many of the tutorials you'll find are samples from training providers who are trying to sell you their training materials, and that is fine if you like what you see, right? You'll also find a lot of free content put online by students, other CAD managers, and power users, which you may enjoy.

I find YouTube to be a much easier way to sort through the resources available without having to go to a bunch of web sites and figure out where the sample clips are.