education Tag Archive

  • Summer of Certifications

    2 Min Read

    I don’t really know why I’ve chosen to do this, but this summer will be forever known as the “Summer of Certifications” as I will attempt to complete various CompTIA certifications. I’ve had my A+ for some time — the old one, remember? Lifetime, never take again, certification? Well, I’ll talk about that later in another post. I’ve also had my MOUS (Expert level), MCP and a help desk certification. Long story short, my IT certifications are old but also unneeded in some ways as I have three Master degrees and have continued to teach in the field over these many years keeping my skills up to date. Needless to say, there has been some unknown desire to go forward and get these certifications from CompTIA.

    Now, I know most people would be considering the cost involved and would weigh this against that strange desire. I know for years I did but over the last couple of years I worked with our college to join the CompTIA Partner program. This program is:

    CompTIA’s Academy Partner Program is intended for schools, not-for-profits, job corps centers and correctional facilities. Our program provides resources for recruiting, training, certifying and upgrading the skills of students in IT.

    Among the various benefits for our students (better pricing!), marketing materials and news, instructors have access to vouchers depending on program use. It’s a good program that has reaped benefits for our students but the instructors have not truly taken advantage of the vouchers… until now. I’ll be taking several this summer and looking forward to seeing how closely the curriculum I teach relates back to the certification examinations.

    My plans for summer are to take the following: Security+, Cloud Essentials, Linux powered by LPI I and II, Server+, A+, Network+, Project+ and CySA, PenTest and CASP. I’ll make posts as I pass these exams with some thoughts of each. Here’s to a great summer!

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  • Woohoo! SNOW DAY!

    2 Min Read

    It’s amazing! As a polar vortex takes over 75% of the United States, we have been preparing for extreme cold temperatures, down below zero degree when taking into account the windchill. Schools everywhere have been closing for sickness the previous week and are now closing for extreme cold. How bad is it? Colleges across the country, including the ones I work for, are closing to ensure students remain safe during these tumultuous times.

    Of course, not everyone believes we should be closed. In fact, the Governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevins believes that we are going “soft” in these school closures. Not everyone agrees with the governor, in fact, many do not. Al Roker was one of these people and he went as far as to call Gov. Bevins a “nitwit”. I’m not one for calling names and in some isntances understand both sides. Growing up, we didn’t cancel school often and temperatures and snow was often worse than now. I walked to school, stood at bus stops, etc. and have lived to tell the tale. Was it right or wrong all of those years ago? I don’t know. The old saying, “I don’t have a dog in that fight” suits me well right now. I don’t have kids, wouldn’t have been at school anyway because of sickness, nor really care one way or the other… However, name calling is a bit childish either way.

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  • American Council on Education

    2 Min Read

    As part of my regular duties, I have various students that come in to the college with previous military experience and/or industry certifications that want to convert these experiences as college credit. Most of the time, we have a set guide for what counts as what, but some of the time it must be evaluated and recommendations given. I’ve been that person in my department that does the initial evaluation and then pass it along to my department chair who agrees most of the time with me. We then forward it to the registrar who will either sign off on and post the credit or seek more information. In a lot of these situations, the American Council on Education (ACE) has already given their guidance on military transcripts, certifications, etc. which just needs verified.

    It was through these transcripts that I was interested in how these credits were originally given recommendations by ACE. The more I looked at it, the more I liked what I saw. A general overview of how it works is as follows: An organization will contact ACE seeking a review of curriculum for credit. Depending on the situation, ACE will either fly a team to review or conduct a virtual review. A review team will spend three days looking at materials with first and second reviewers determining the what, how much and what type of credit is to be given, if any. The findings are then given back to the organization which can then decide what changes to implement if necessary and what to do with their recommendations.

    I immediately saw that this was something I would enjoy doing and when I saw how to become part of these teams, applied and was accepted as a subject matter expert in several areas of Information Technology. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a couple of these reviews so far and can say I am impressed with the process we go through to complete the job.

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  • Back to the Certification Game

    2 Min Read

    One of the great things of being in the education field is that once you get your Master’s degree, the other industry certifications aren’t really necessary to continue moving forward in your career. It’s easier many times to either add another degree or certificate, take more classes or even just attend conferences to gain the skills you need or want. The problem with this many times is that we don’t have an idea what the exams look like exactly as we aren’t necessarily taking them.

    Enter the CompTIA Academic Program. Once your school joins the academy (at no cost!), once your students take a certain number of exams, you will gain access to free exams for your professors. The goal is to have more professors have access to the exams so you not only know what you should be teaching for, but also how better to prepare your students. What’s even better, your students get a heavily discounted exam rate. You can get the current rates for students at your school here: Academic Store

    So, in the name of helping my students, I have signed up to take my first certification is more than 15 years later this month…. here’s to seeing what to expect!

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  • Back to Work!

    2 Min Read

    Well, the new semester is about to begin and I officially went back to work today in person. It’s been a week already from home with different questions, etc being answered, even during the break for that matter, but not yet to the college in person. For me, that’s a commute – a long one for that matter. I know, most people think, going back to work means in the classroom, working with students, shaping the future! Unfortunately, no it does not. Nope, not even close. Instead, I helped close out Day 3 of our bullpen advising session… for seven hours (originally scheduled for six!)

    The thing that most people don’t understand about teaching is that there is more to the job besides just teaching. One could always assume there’s prep time, teaching time, office time, etc. but it’s the other things that aren’t often thought about when someone asks what all we do. For instance, the advising session today wasn’t just for CIT students, it was for everyone. I helped advise primarily students as it’s my forte’, but I also helped transfer students, Associate of Arts degree students, Associate of Science degree students and even those just wanting to make changes to their schedule. Without getting these students registered, spending time with them, asking questions, we wouldn’t have students to teach. I believe we registered 1200 students over these three days.

    I love what I do. I love being able to help students, but some days, a three and a half hour drive there and back feels longer than other days… today was one of those days!

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  • It’s Almost Time…

    1 Min Read

    Time is almost up from our Winter Break… and as always, it was too short. Anticipation of things that were to get done, oh such wonderful thoughts come to mind from back at the end of November… Hopes of those fun things that would be done together, a short trip here or there, a visit to family or friends; perhaps, even a party at the house with friends. Alas, like many other breaks that come and go, very little was done to really set this break apart from the rest.

    As a teacher, our time is usually divided from one semester to another, one break from another, one week to the next or even a module of work to another module. In short, our time is segmented and as such, so goes our lives — living from Segment A to Segment B. How should we be living? How is it that we are always looking ahead for Segment B without wishing away Segment A?  How do we get to where we live “in the moment” instead? It’s these questions and more that I hope to get answers during this writing project.

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  • It’s in the Syllabus!

    1 Min Read

    [dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s almost that time again where school begins and the endless questions start about class.  “Where is this?” or “What is the grading scale?” or my favorite, “Is there a final in this class?”.  I typically want to answer each student quickly and precisely with, “READ THE SYLLABUS! It’s in there, I promise!”

    I’ve been teaching for awhile now and have really gotten used to teaching a class. I know what a student needs to know and what they need to succeed in class. It’s all in the syllabus. It has to be, that’s how classes work. It’s a contract between the professor and the student. Without a contract, the class is essentially not valid. Therefore, if you have a question, chances are… “It’s in the syllabus!”

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