Tech Republic has an excellent piece on how to get the most out of your IT training. It's worth reading in full, but here are the main points, briefly:
- Take advantage of on-the-job training whenever possible
- Go back to school for more extended learning
- Learn from the experts
- Use self-paced, online training for greater flexibility
- Use training that includes online lab simulations for practical experience
- Test yourself with practice exams to find out where you have knowledge gaps
- Practice on physical hardware if it’s available to you
- Use training that follows IT certification course requirements exactly
- Use training that tracks every action and scores results accordingly
- Overall, focus on the fundamentals
