Corona of Corona
As a certified trainer for both Microsoft Platform and Amazon Platform, certification is a mandatory activity. The most convenience exam experience is by visiting testing center near you. However, because of Corona we should do certification in our home by using our computer. This article discusses how to prepare your certification in non-technical point of view. We discuss how to smooth your exam experience with the existing platform in Certiport and Pearson Vue. If you are looking more technical point of view take a look of my latest preparation such as here
NOTE: if possible, visit the testing center is the best experience for testing.
Problem that might be happen in Online Certification
Online certification is totally different with the offline certification. The online proctor monitors you through a webcam and a microphone. Therefore, you should be more prepared in term of infrastructure and software. In August 2020. I challenge myself to do hackathon for a certification. I pursued 7 exams on three days! I learnt 3 hours for each exam, and I got pass on every exam. However, I faced several technical issues such as:
Disconnected in the middle of the exam (on Pearson Vue)
Unable to start simulation
Cannot join an exam because some of running processes in the operating system.
Shouted / Halted by the proctor because your life in noisy environment
Calling by the proctor because, you are reading a question
Proctor is not coming more than 30 minutes (on Pearson Vue)
In this post, I will tell you a story how to eliminate that barriers and pass the online certification with a glory!
Before you Go in Online Certification
Here is checklist that you need to have before the online certification
A clean desk, without screen, cables, or anything just desk.
A closed room with good sound isolation.
A time when the noise is low (night, morning)
A dedicated computer.
If you join a simulation exam such as Microsoft Office Specialist, you should have dedicated computer so that it will not mess your PC.
Please separate your heavy use computer with the certification. Use your backup laptop. I use Samsung Galaxy Book for my daily driver and Lenovo X1 carbon for Certification. My certification laptop i7 8 series, 16 GB Ram, and 256 GB SSD. Please refer the Compass or On Vue software for your certification machine
A dedicated network (fiber is my recommendation). Please aware that the speed is not everything, stability is the key you can use 20 Mbps or less. My connection speed is
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Before you Start the Exam
Before the exam you should prepare many things such as
Your passport, driving license
Your smartphone to scan your environment. i recommend you never sent SMS for verification to avoid delay. Use your smartphone browser instead.
Bluetooth / wireless mouse. Avoid using cable mouse, because the On Vue software sometime interference with your USB port and sometime proctor request you to move your notebook to scan the area
No cable attached so be sure to charge your notebook. If you use all in one PC, you should use USB Camera.
Make sure your mic and speaker are working. You do not allow to use headset
Kill all the startup and running process.
Type msconfig – startup – make sure you disabled all the startup process
Kill all app except On Vue (Pearson Vue). You can open task manager by right clicking the taskbar
Disable the notification by right clicking the notification and set Alarm Only
You login as a local admin
On the Exam Day
Here are the tips on the exam day
Join 45 minutes before your schedule. 15 minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to join the exam. You can add up to 60 minutes before.
Kill all process in the background such as OneDrive, Windows Update, Office Update, Teams, WebEx or anything. You should kill them all
If you are using third party security rather than Windows Defender, you should disable it.
Do not put anything in your pocket or wrist
Tell your family, your son, your cat to relocate if necessary
Make sure your laptop battery and mouse battery are enough
Throw away your smartphone after you validate the environment
Be patient to wait the proctor. It takes 30 minutes in a busy day!
If your proctor cannot see your screen and your face. You can restart your PC by asking permission to the proctor. Input the same exam codes and wait the same proctor.
If you want to go to the bathroom, do before starting the exam.
That is it! Enjoy your online exam.
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The value of certification
Certification provides better preparation for us to face the real work situation. Certification also proves your capability to understand the topic. On this article, I will show you what you need to learn to pass SAA-C02. I failed once so this is my real experience to learn and to prepare the certification.
#1 Learn the Study Guide from Amazon
Download the study guide here. You can also see the exam question here. The full learning path can be seen here
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#2 Sharping your knowledge through video tutorial
Chad Smith, on Oreilly has a complete e-learning package you can join here
Linked Learning, on LinkedIn has learning path that you can join here
Pluralsight has a complete course to prepare the ACA here
Join for more than one course to prepare you better.
#3 Practicing and Practicing
Learn the knowledge by doing practicing test. You can join the practice at here and join AWS Academy at https://aws.training
Good luck for exam preparation.
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Microsoft has new brand of certification for educator like teacher, instructor, or lecturer namely Microsoft Certified Educator (MCE). MCE will cover your understanding to teach, to share, and to collaborate your knowledge with your peers or students. The certification will cover three main area which are
Digital Literacy
Teaching with Technology
Your knowledge with collaboration tools like Microsoft Office 365
Having MCE, it will not only boost your performance when you teach on a classroom but also give you fruitful experience connect with other educator in www.educatornetwork.com. In this article, i will share you five tips to pass your MCE certification.
Tips One: Finishing your digital literacy course. Join the digital literacy course to obtain fundamental understanding on any digital aspect on our life. You can join for free here
Tips Two: Finishing your Teaching with Technology course. You can get this course for free by joining educator network and visit this page
Tips Three: Explore your classroom activity and apply the TWT concept on your classroom. This can be hard, but adopting the TWT practices will help you finish the certification easier.
Tips Four: Learning 21st Century Learning design to understand how technology can fit directly with your teaching style. You can grab the free software here
Tips Five: Scheduling your exam, a week before and find a perfect time for your exam. it needs two hour spare time, so please spare about four hour in total to make you get perfect score on the exam
That’s it, happy certification.
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First time certification will be your first good or worst experience, but if you want differentiate yourself with the other. Certification will give you better understanding, better skill, and better insight about the technical competency. This tips will give you a non-technical tips about how to prepare your first innteranational certification. Tips 1. Find and understand your certification competency Visit Microsoft learning web site, find your certification that you want to obtain. For example, as a daily user of Visual Studio ALM, I might choose visual studio for my certification. Tips 2. Understand how many exam that you need to obtain your certification You will see several grade for your certification. For example, on Visual Studio, you will have MTA and MCSD certification. If you don’t have any experience on certification entry level such MTA will help you much to understand the ‘look and feel’ of certification, but if you already join others certification from other provider such as IBM, COMPTIA, or CISCO. You might choose direct expert level certification which are MCSD. On this step, you can choose your path such as MSCD: Applcation Lifecycle Management. You will see that you need to pass 496, 497, and 498. It means that you need to pass the three certification to get MCSD. Tips 3. If multiple exams exist choose the easiest one On this example, Visual Studio ALM has three exams. it depends on your competency that you already have to choose it first. You don’t need to pass incrementally i.e. 496, 497, 498. you can choose one for example you can pass 497 first after that 496 and the last is 498. it depends on your confidence which one is the easiest one between them. Tips 4. Find the preparation the skill measured on the exam On the exam page for example 497, you will find two valuable information. The first one is skill measured and preparation material. Skill measured will give you knowledge about the exam composition. it has percentage on each topic. For example Manage Test case will have 30-35% it means it will have between 12-15 questions (one exam has assumption 40 questions). The higher precentage means you should understand the detail of the topic. Tips 5. Preparing the exam by learning the materials On the same page, you will have the preparation material. it depends on the exam. some of the preparation material will have one of more resources such as Self paced book from Microsoft Press Video Tutorial from Microsoft Virtual Academy or Channel 9 Classroom or E-learning from Certified Learning Provider Solution (CPLS) if you have additional budget my advise is to join Classroom lerning. it will give you better learning experience and discussion with the traoner and former student that already join the certification. However, if you have limited budget like myself, I suggest you to find a book on MSPress and schedule yourself for MVA training Tips 6. Practices make perfect You need at least one or two week to prepare and to schedule your exam to certiport or pearson vue. please try to understand the type of question, practice with it, and try to pass any practice examination on MVA, Books, or any learning material. Tips 7. Join your exam and never cheat yourself Exam is to proof that you have a competency. Never put a cheat effort on it. Learn and prepare it well to obtain the certification and the most important things is your knwowledge that you can share to the ICT society. That’s it prepare your certification well
As the user of Visual Studio, you might know about SharePoint platform. SharePoint platform is a portal based web application that build for enterprise. Although, it has the foundation version for SMB which is free. SharePoint can easily scaled to the Enterprise or even the cloud. SharePoint has two main version the first version is On-premise and the cloud version. The on-premise version namely SharePoint 2013. The cloud based version namely SharePoint Online and is part of Office 365.
SharePoint become promising in the era of paperless, and the online version will help you to create the SharePoint solution easily rather than in the on-premise version
SharePoint Certification
There are two certification for the latest SharePoint namely MCSE (MIcrosoft Certified Solution Expert) and MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer). for SharePoints. MCSE is for IT professional and MCSD is for Developers.
MCSE : SharePoint
In order to become MCSE you should pass the MCSA requirements and then follow it with two exam
Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements (70-346)
Enabling Office 365 Services (70-347)
If you pass both certification, you will get MCSA (MC Solution Associate), you can join the course 20346B. Yes the course is look like Microsoft Office Specialist Office 365 but the MCSA more focused with the implmentation rather than usage. After pass the MCSA you can join
Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (70-331). You can join the offline course 20331B
Advanced Solution of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (70-332). You can join the offline course 20332B
Beside the offline course you can join microsoft virtual academy (MVA) for SharePoint
MCSD: SharePoint
In order to become Solution Developer for SharePoint you should pass four exam which are
Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 (70-480). You can also join the offline course 20480B
Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications (70-486), You can also join the offline course 20486B
Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions (70-488), You can also join the course 20488B
Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Advanced Solutions (70-489). You can also join the course 20489B
Book References
Preparing is a must and you should prepare by online, offline, or books like below
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This certification guide will cover several windows server adminsitration fundamental that discussed on Microsoft Technology Associate certification such as Understanding installation and device requirements for Windows Server Understanding Server role on Windows Server Understaning Active Directory Understanding Storage Mechanism on Windows Server Understanding Server Management The guide itself is on PDF and can be downloaded by clicking the link below. This contents is owned by Microsoft and translated by Microsoft Innovation Center for community purpose
This certification guide will cover several network security fundamental that discussed on Microsoft Technology Associate certification such as Understanding security layers Understanding security on an operating system Understanding security technique like Encryption Understanding Security features like NAP, Firewall, and DMZ The guide itself is on PDF and can be downloaded by clicking the link below. This contents is owned by Microsoft and translated by Microsoft Innovation Center for community purpose
This certification guide will cover several network fundamental that discussed on Microsoft Technology Associate such as Understaning network concept Understanding network topology and model Understanding Switch and Router Understanding network media Understanding OSI & TCP/IP Understanding IPv4 and IPv6 Understanding naming resolution and dns The guide itself is on PDF and can be downloaded by clicking the link below. This contents is owned by Microsoft and translated by Microsoft Innovation Center for community purpose
The number of IT students has resulted in labor market flexibility to choose the best and competent students. Students have a great challenge to prove the quality of their competence. One effort to shows competence is by following certification. Microsoft has a certification that is perfect for students which is known to the Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA). MTA is not as difficult certification Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) but provide roughly the same benefits. This document describes the introduction of certification and its benefits for students. Click the picture to download the document (pdf files)
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) certification is a certification that shows the competencies of software engineer by creating, planning, and managing a project. Fundamentally, it discuss how to manage a software project using Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation server. ALM certification is evolutionary of MCPD Enterprise application. It gives you, a MCSD title. Earning an MCSD: Application Lifecycle Management certification will qualify you for such jobs as developer, applications engineer, and IT project manager (Microsoft Learning, 2012). In order to get MCSD for this certification, he should pass exam 496, 497, and 498. Unlike the past, the are no MCTS grade available. Student should pass three exam to get MCSD. 496 show how you manage a project with TFS and how to solve specific issue in development process 497 shows how you create testing environment with Visual Studio 2012 in order to deliver quality software 498 examine how you can create an environment to create software evolution through innovation and continuous delivery Since, I’m also in the preparation to pass the exam. I will share you about the exam tips in the next post. Fighting @ridife