I have decided to throw down and eat the proverbial "dog chow". I am certified as an MCP for Windows Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003. But technology has moved on and so have I. In December of 2007, I joined Microsoft Learning as the Program Manager for Courseware Library. I find myself in the heartland of certification. This is the source. This is where it happens. So, if not me, then who and if not now, when?
I intend to get an MCTS in SharePoint Server configuraton. I want to do this by August of 2008. I then intend to get certification as an MCT and deliver one of the Courses from Courseware Library by December of 2008.
Let me confess. I am really, really bad at the kind of test that Microsoft has used in the past for certification. I have failed many of them. That being the case, this is no small undertaking for me. I anticipate pain. Being pain averse, I am going to utilize all resources that are at my disposal but I am going to use only resources that are available to everyone else. In other words, no finding the answer sheet or pumping a subject matter expert for inside scoop. I'm going to do it the honest way.
I will document my experence here: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I started today by setting up a learning plan. If you haven't seen these yet, I really encourage you to take a look. You identify a learning objective. In my case, that was the MCTS in SharePoint Server Configuration. 11 steps have been identified for successful completion of this goal. I can add them or decide that they are not necessary. Trying to avoid the pain, I'm going to do this by the numbers. So, here are the steps:
- An Overview of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
- Which SharePoint Technology Is Right For You?
- TechNet Virtual Lab: What's New in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Feature Walkthrough Virtual Lab
-
- Course 5061: Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
-or-
Collection 5404: Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
- TechNet Virtual Lab: Getting Started with the Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
-
-
-
-
-
Stay tuned. I'll keep you posted about how it is going. If I encounter things that I do not feel are supporting my goal. I'll let folks here in MS Learning know. And I'll share with you what I hear back. If I find something that works particularly well for me, I'll be sure to point to that as well.
>< Mark Shea
When we created Next-Gen MOC, we began looking at ways to improve the classroom experience: we put the focus on the instructor and started integrating additional, digital (read: searchable) resources for students.
However, it has become apparent that we also overlooked an important component of the Next-Gen experience: Instructor Preparation.
Current MOC & Instructor Prep
The way instructor preparation works today is that MCTs have the ability to download the “instructor PDF” and use it for preparation or they can choose to purchase the Trainer Package. There is a secondary source of data used for prep: the instructor notes. However, we’ve heard that due to their brevity, these notes can often be ignored or simply skimmed on the side. The meat is in the “instructor PDF”. It’s basically the one-stop-shop for preparation.
Next-Gen MOC – Complications Arise
So one of the great things we’ve done with Next-Gen is that we’ve put the instructor notes where they should be: in the notes section of the PowerPoint slides. We’ve also added the CD that contains additional resources for students. But the problem is that instructors now have three different sources to use for preparation:
1. Slide deck (for the actual slides + instructor notes)
2. Student book (for the key points for the given lesson or topic)
3. CD (for additional resources content)
This is not the ideal situation.
The way I see it, instructors have four options (listed by amount of work required)
a) Wing it (read: don’t prep)
b) Use a sub-set of the materials for prep (e.g. only use the slides & notes)
c) Simultaneously have three things open on screen and keep them all in sync while making deft use of alt-tab
d) Print everything separately then collate to bring it altogether in a unified prep guide
In my opinion, these options all suck. Our bad. But there is something else: OneNote. (If you’ve never used OneNote or don’t know what it is, you can get some information on the OneNote product page or on Wikipedia)
OneNote – Possibly the coolest Office program…Ever
We’ve been working on a little stealth project for the past few weeks that would position OneNote as the new place for instructor preparation materials.
On one hand, the idea is simple: deliver an instructor prep guide that brings everything together in one place. This would be similar to the "instructor PDF" that’s there today but better because you get all the functionality of OneNote.
On the other hand, we don’t want to just do what we’ve always done (unless of course what we’re doing is already perfect J). OneNote offer much more functionality than a simple PDF: additional content can easily be added to the notes, content can be quickly changed or edited, notes can be typed or inked, multiple notebooks can exist (think different notebooks for each course or subject area). Plus, just like PDFs, OneNote’s content is fully searchable (and it’s got this killer OCR technology that makes text in images searchable too). And if you’d rather just stick to a static, single document for preparation, OneNote’s contents can be exported to either PDF or XPS as the press of a button.
You can get a free, 60-day trial of OneNote here.
So What Does this Mean for Prep?
We’ve taken one of the first courses that will come out in the Next-Gen form-factor, 6424A: Fundamentals of Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, and created an example OneNote instructor preparation notebook.
OneNote's object hierarchy maps nicely to our courses:
| OneNote Object | ILT Course Object |
| Section Group | Course |
| Section | Module |
| Page | Lesson |
| Sub-Page | Lesson Topic |
Here's an example showing course 6424A. The OneNote section group is "6424A". Each course module is a section.
This picture shows the course lessons (e.g. "Overview of AD DS") and the topics from each lesson are the indented sub-pages (e.g. "What is a Directory Service").
We've posted a single page in an example notebook here:
So what do you think? We’d like to hear from you to see if we’re on the right track. We'd really love to get some feedback from you by Monday, March 17th. Then we'll post what we heard and move forward from there.
Cheers
Ben
So Lonn's prior post really put the pressure on:
How does one live up to that? Fun and Interesting? Wow. I'll do my best.
Who Am I?
I was a software developer (VB, ASP, C#, ASP.NET, SQL Server) for about five years. I then went back to school and graduated from the University of Washington last June. During the summer of 2006, I had the privilege of doing an internship on the Courseware team at Microsoft Learning (MSL). I returned to MSL in July of 2007.
What Would You Say Ya Do Here?
I am the Product Manager for the Courseware Library (CWLib). The CWLib is the manifestation of the work I did during my internship. As an intern I was asked to propose a solution that would enable us to take advantage of all the content that exists in the world (internally at Microsoft and externally as well) on Microsoft's products and technologies.
Why Blog?
I've always had mixed feelings about blogs. To me they've always seemed part self-promotion and part information. My goals for this blog are:
- Share information - I want to share about MSL's Courseware business, our vision, new features, thinking, etc.
- Create a forum to connect in meaningful ways - I'm hoping that over time, this blog will enable us to connect with our Partners, MCTs, and students. This won't be the only way in which we connect, but I think this can provide a forum that offers different value than email, mailers, conference calls, or presentations.
- Gather feedback - We have some ideas about where we want to take our business but we can't do it without feedback.
Cheers
Ben
"I'll be back."...
And here I am. The Terminator reference is in honour of the new Terminator TV Series (Sarah Connor Chronicles) which I've been watching, and have enjoyed thus far. As the writers strike drags on, I've been spending a lot of time on Hulu.com with my beta account. Great stuff there... Anyways, I digress.
I'm back and ready to blog to the world about the following things:
1. Microsoft courseware. Everything from MOC to Courseware Library, MODL to the MCT Download Center and everything in-between.
2. Interesting tidbits about how people learn and innovations in the training industry. Some may be new to you, some may be old, but anything that I find interesting enough to discuss may find a paragraph or two in an upcoming post.
3. Life in general at Microsoft Learning and insights about how it feels to be the Product Manager for facilitated training products that reach close to 1 Million of the world's brightest minds via our network of super smart Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) and experienced CPLS Partners.
<Tangent>I love MCTs. These guys are as passionate and knowledgeable about technology as they come and I spend a lot of my time working with them within Microsoft as well as throughout the CPLS channel. I'll have a chance to address them in person at the upcoming Redmond MCT Summit in early Feb and look forward to a lively chat about all the things we're doing around MOC, both in the short and long term.</Tangent>
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Microsoft wide Learning and Technology Forum. Hats off the organizers for the terrific event that brought the top minds at Microsoft together for a day full of expert speakers and knowledge sharing. The keynote was delivered by Will Thalheimer, who is known for his expertise in training measurement. If you haven't already, you might want to check out his blog http://www.willatworklearning.com/. Another great presentation was delivered by my teammate and soon to be blogger Ben Lower, who talked about the innovative Courseware Library and the plans going forward.
I'll let Ben introduce himself shortly, but I guarantee that he'll be a fun and interesting read. He's a guy that everyone likes having around and is the life of the party... that being said, he's got great insights on the facilitated learning industry and I will enjoy posting along side of him.
Feels good to back. Have a great day.
"Hasta la vista, baby." ;)
Lonn
Last week (April 16-18) myself and many of my team members attended the MCT Summit in Redmond. I've had my notes from the event and haven't had a chance to until now to provide some of my observations from the event.
Highlights
Met a lot of friendly folks and had some great discussions on the direction of Microsoft Official Courseware (MOC).
Lively discussion as always from MCTs in attendance.
Early look at the upcoming Longhorn training content.
I got a boomerang from the Prometric booth. Cool.
In case I haven't described to you exactly what I do, I am currently the Product Manager responsible for our internal initiative codenamed: KonaH. This initiative is aimed at steadily evolving our MOC product to take into account student and partner (MCT, CPLS) feedback, while improving and enhancing the student, MCT and CPLS experience. Sharon made a great presentation about the future of our courseware products and during this session, she spoke about the KonaH initiative. I spent a lot of my time during the summit speaking with MCTs that had very useful comments, observations and feedback for what we're working on. A lot of this feedback has been used to refine the product. More on KonaH in upcoming posts.
This was the first MCT summit in North America in over 7 years! Let's hope that we don't have to wait that long again, as it seemed as though it was a great success.
(sorry didn't get a chance to publish this until just recently)
How Multitasking Affects Human Learning - Interview with UCLA Psycology Professor, Russel Poldrack
Using an MRI they monitored people's brain activity to see which areas of their brains were being used when they were only focused on the lesson v.s. when they were multitasking. They found that when we focus on learning something, the area of the brain that is active is the hippocampus (where we store rich concious memories). In contrast, when we multitask, the area of the brain that is active is the basal ganglia (where we store habits and more subconcious memories). Their conclusion was that learning is severely impaired when you are trying to do multiple things at once.
Personally, I feel that this is something that most people know already. It's tough because it is so tempting to try and write a quick email while taking an online training course, or watch tv while studying for your upcoming certification exam (okay, maybe I'm a bad example. :). One would think that with more information around, we'd be more knowledgeable. As we continue to be bombarded by information, which divides our attention, will the end result be that because we can never focus, we end up retaining a lot less?
My opinion is we're moving away from a 'storage' based society. Gone are the days where you were smart because you 'knew everything'. We have moved into the 'network' based society where you are smart if you know 'how to get to everything you need to know' using the tools and technology around you. Last night, I went with a group of my friends to a trivia night at a local bar, after our final dodgeball finals (we lost), and felt very useless without my internet connection (I did have my smartphone but didn't want to cheat ;). Sometimes it feels as though I put a ton of information in RAM but it never gets written to my HD.
I think this is an interesting topic because although we have entered this new information age, a lot of the techniques and tools that we employ in the classroom haven't changed very much. Do we run the risk of increasing the gap between the real world and the classroom? Our team is currently investigating ways to evolve our current products to keep ahead of the curve, but it's a big task!
Welcome to Microsoft Learning’s, “Education, Innovation and Inspiration” Blog. We hope that this site will serve as a virtual home for our team’s thoughts and observations on topics related to the technology training industry.
Our team is focused on curriculum and product planning for Microsoft’s instructor led training (ILT). We hope to provide you with a glimpse into our thought process and how we approach developing our course curriculums and evolve our learning products. We'd also like to bring your attention to interesting articles on innovative technologies and training topics or solicit feedback on ideas we’re mulling around. The upcoming Windows Server Codename: Longhorn course curriculum, Official Microsoft Learning Products (OMLP), Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC), Microsoft Official Distance Learning (MODL) and Microsoft Learning Official Courseware Library (MSLCL) are all things that we work diligently on.
As each team member posts for the first time, we’ll ask them to provide a quick introduction on themselves and hopefully you'll have a chance to get to know more about us and vice versa.
Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to drop us a comment from time to time.
Cheers,
Instructor Led Training
Business & Product Strategy Team
Microsoft Learning
