I THINK I'M DEAD!

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Mitch Garvis

Mitch Garvis

Well-known member
Jan 10, 2023
106
142
10,756
Addison, Texas
www.garvis.ca
#1
Wait... I am much better now. Let me explain:

Yesterday afternoon I logged into my CompTIA portal to make sure I could download the courseware for the class I am teaching next week. It wasn't listed... and neither were any other courses! Until a few hours earlier I had dozens of courses available and now... NOTHING. I asked the Chatbot and it said I needed to log in through my institution's specific login, and not the SSO page. I was a bit worried... it looked like I was no longer a student, let alone an instructor!

This morning it was all back where it should be. A sigh of relief could be heard above the din of the crowd.

Has anyone else experienced this wonky behaviour? Does anyone know if the site was experiencing hiccoughs yesterday?
 
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#5
Had a similar thing happen also but I couldnt access the portal. I got a http 500 error. I logged a ticket and it was resolved

Request:post (contentType application/json) withCredentials - /api/v1/authentication/signin_credentials?cacheBust=b643943e-38b4-4cef-8415-36113485e80d -- Bad Status: 500 - Data: {"login":"","pHash":"*****"}Http Status Code: 500Response: {"error":"The HTTP status code of the response was not expected (500).\n\nStatus: 500\nResponse: \n"}

Request:post (contentType application/json) withCredentials - /api/v1/authentication/signin_credentials?cacheBust=2109a841-95a5-4634-b0eb-a35cbd971c1d -- Bad Status: 500 - Data: {"login":"","pHash":"*****"}Http Status Code: 500Response: {"error":"The request was canceled due to the configured HttpClient.Timeout of 30 seconds elapsing."}
 
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#7
Mitch Garvis said:
That’s what I was doing… not teaching until Monday. I actually had the decks and pdf but wanted to see if the labs were working.
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I haven't done the labs in more than a decade. I tell the students that the labs will enhance the lecture, but they should do them outside class hours.

Most of the CompTIA certifications lean heavily on the theory and processes, but don't particularly require much technical depth with any of the products or services.
 
#8
Gregory Childers said:
Most of the CompTIA certifications lean heavily on the theory and processes, but don't particularly require much technical depth with any of the products or services.
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I do not disagree… but I don’t only want them passing the exam, I want them having some hands-on experience. It also gives me a break from lecturing.
 
#10
Gregory Childers said:
I just taught the 220-1201 and 220-1202 combined class in one week. I barely completed all the lecture in that time.
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Um, yeah...? The question I would have to ask is how much did the students actually retain in all that? Our school uses 12 weeks to go through both sides of the A+, including dedicated laboratory time. I can't conceive of packing all that into 20 hours of time we have or even a 40 hour boot camp format.
 
#11
Rick Butler said:
Um, yeah...? The question I would have to ask is how much did the students actually retain in all that? Our school uses 12 weeks to go through both sides of the A+, including dedicated laboratory time. I can't conceive of packing all that into 20 hours of time we have or even a 40 hour boot camp format.
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All of them were experienced tech workers at the SSA. They just needed the class to prepare for the exam.

I'll grant that it would be far too difficult for an inexperienced college student to handle, but I can't imagine dragging it on for an entire semester.

I taught a boot camp for advanced high school seniors in 40 hours and every one of them passed the exam.
 
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#12
Gregory Childers said:
All of them were experienced tech workers at the SSA. They just needed the class to prepare for the exam.

I'll grant that it would be far too difficult for an inexperienced college student to handle, but I can't imagine dragging it on for an entire semester.

I taught a boot camp for advanced high school seniors in 40 hours and every one of them passed the exam.
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Gotcha - so it's more of a review than an initial teach. That changes things quite a bit.

In the trade school demographic, we're not commonly dealing with 'advanced/AP' students. Many of them have GED's or are veterans looking for a new career, or are working some kind of job. Working single parents. Older folks who want to do something new. So, many of students need that extra care and grace to learn the content - and it can take that long for some.
 
#13
Rick Butler said:
Um, yeah...? The question I would have to ask is how much did the students actually retain in all that? Our school uses 12 weeks to go through both sides of the A+, including dedicated laboratory time. I can't conceive of packing all that into 20 hours of time we have or even a 40 hour boot camp format.
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It's more the boot camp vs the 40 hours. 40 hours is reasonable, but they need absorption time. Learning is not at the speed of me speaking or their reading. I found A+ to be the most challenging for this. I've had:: 16 weeks consecutive split 8 weeks Core 1 / 8 weeks Core 2, 10 weeks Core 1 / 10 weeks Core 2, 16 weeks Core 1 / 16 weeks Core 2, 16 weeks consecutive split 10 weeks Core 1 / 6 weeks Core 2. Even with 10/6 being very intense it was far more do-able because of better absorption in Core 1 providing better foundation for Core 2 than 8/8.
 
#14
KGreen said:
It's more the boot camp vs the 40 hours. 40 hours is reasonable, but they need absorption time.
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Absorption time and opportunities for multiple exposures to the same information - which is necessary for long-term retention. Most people cannot acquire/retain information from one or two exposures. The average human brain requires about seven from different sources and modalities to write information reliably.

I'm not a fan of boot camps because I feel they serve the organizations that put them on, not the students who come in with the hope of learning enough to be certified (properly).
 
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#15
Rick Butler said:
I'm not a fan of boot camps because I feel they serve the organizations that put them on, not the students who come in with the hope of learning enough to be certified (properly).
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I'll agree that there are lots of shady training companies. Just like there are shady institutions of higher learning. I see ads on social media from colleges and universities that have "Zero to Hero" programs guaranteeing that people will not only get certified, but also get hired right away for high paying careers.

As we all know, it doesn't work that way. I'm straightforward and honest with all my students. It takes hard work and commitment. There are no easy roads.
 
#16
Gregory Childers said:
I'll agree that there are lots of shady training companies. Just like there are shady institutions of higher learning. I see ads on social media from colleges and universities that have "Zero to Hero" programs guaranteeing that people will not only get certified, but also get hired right away for high paying careers.

As we all know, it doesn't work that way. I'm straightforward and honest with all my students. It takes hard work and commitment. There are no easy roads.
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Exactly. We had a college here in the Springs (who shall remain nameless here), who, back in the day, was touting fast-track paths to MCSE and the $65,000 starting salaries, etc etc. Even when I got my MCSE+I, I didn't see $65k for quite a long while.

Working in a for-profit higher ed institution, I, personally, have been very sensitive about not making promises that I know couldn't be kept, as well as delivering on what I could realistically do. I got our admissions team mad at me on a couple of occasions because I told a student prospect, "this is something you will have to work at" and "it's NOT going to be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy", only to watch that prospect walk out the door, afraid of a real challenge.

I remember one interaction where an admin rep was peeved because I "lost one of their prospects". My simple retort was, "well, I'm not going to lie to them, just to get them in the seat, only to watch them drop the program two terms later."

We come to this topic regularly here on CIN and I think it continues to serve as a great reminder to all of us that there is a lot of sweat labor that comes from this work. And unlike all those out on the CompTIA subreddit that are looking for the quick and easy way, we keep holding the line.

Because if it was 'easy', everyone would do it, right?
 
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