1

I work for a school district as an IT Supervisor. I have no certifications and no degree. I was recently told the school district would like to pay for me to get certified in one or more things and pay for the training. I was wondering where the best place to go for certification training would be. They said they could send us somewhere for a week or so, but I doubt they have budgeted to send me from Montana to the East coast for a week. It could be online training as well I don’t see why not. I need to get some information to the higher ups before the Tech Meeting tomorrow. Thank you.

7 Spice ups
2

It depends on what you want to get certified in but for a some certifications all you really need is a study guide and some free time.

I did A+ and Security + this way.

3

I’ve had good training at New Horizons. Knowledgeable instructors, good training materials… Never a complaint. The trainers even make themselves available for questions/assistance after the training is over (at least the ones I have had)…

4

Trainingcamp.com - They have almost a boot camp like training for a week or so and then you give the certifications. They charge for the whole package.

5

There are many places for IT certifications - some are good and some are bad. It depends a lot on what you or your team needs to be certified in. Is it for servers, or networks, or PCs - maybe MACs - is it databases, applications, etc…

Personally, I don’t put a lot of weight in certifications, but I can see how a school might.

CompTIA is a certification mill and you can get pretty much any certification you want through them, but again, what they are worth is a big question.

MS has a whole certification program and many resellers willing to sign you up, if you are a MS shop this could be helpful.

Just my 2 cents worth

6

There are many places for IT certifications - some are good and some are bad. It depends a lot on what you or your team needs to be certified in. Is it for servers, or networks, or PCs - maybe MACs - is it databases, applications, etc…

Personally, I don’t put a lot of weight in certifications, but I can see how a school might.

CompTIA is a certification mill and you can get pretty much any certification you want through them, but again, what they are worth is a big question.

MS has a whole certification program and many resellers willing to sign you up, if you are a MS shop this could be helpful.

Just my 2 cents worth

What really matters is whether or not they are important to your employer or potential employer. Some people don’t think they are worth much but my guess is those same people have never attempted anything like the CCNA or MCSE so they don’t really know what they are talking about.

7

Todd Wagner wrote:

There are many places for IT certifications - some are good and some are bad. It depends a lot on what you or your team needs to be certified in. Is it for servers, or networks, or PCs - maybe MACs - is it databases, applications, etc…

Personally, I don’t put a lot of weight in certifications, but I can see how a school might.

CompTIA is a certification mill and you can get pretty much any certification you want through them, but again, what they are worth is a big question.

MS has a whole certification program and many resellers willing to sign you up, if you are a MS shop this could be helpful.

Just my 2 cents worth

What really matters is whether or not they are important to your employer or potential employer. Some people don’t think they are worth much but my guess is those same people have never attempted anything like the CCNA or MCSE so they don’t really know what they are talking about.

As someone who has done everything from A+, to CCNA to MCITP I’ll offer my opinion - skip CompTIA.

CCNA includes networking basics so N+ is superfluous.

MCITP doesn’t, but then there is nothing much in A+ to help in higher level certs anyway.

CompTIA has also now changed their programs so anyone newly qualifying has to recertify every two years.

To the OP: what do you do day-to-day? As pchiodo said, what you need depends on what you do.

8

These are all great suggestions. What I do on a daily basis is troubleshoot PC’s mainly windows xp and now some Windows 7 machines, printers, scanners switches servers. It’s kind of an all in one troubleshooting/setup job. I work at a middle school which has about 300 pieces of equipment and I am responsible for all of them. An administrator for the school district approached me and asked if there was any type of training or certification that I would like to have and she said they have budgeted for it and she wants to put the plan in action before she retires in May. She also mentioned that if they had to send us somewhere for a week to do training and then get certified that they would. I mentioned to her that a lot of the certifications can be done by just studying and asked if she would allow us a week off from work for studying and certifications that way the two of us she offered it to wouldn’t have to miss a week of work at the same time. There’s only 3 Tech’s that support the entire school district and one is my boss so he would have to stay behind while two of his tech’s were gone for a week. I would like any sort of certification because I don’t have my degree completed yet and I think if I had to find another job, certifications (of any kind I would think) would help. But some help more than others I would assume but I just don’t know which ones would be good for someone that has taught themselves and has a little over 2 years experience in the field.

9

Community College.

Time of the quarters/semesters can be rough. Big cost difference between commercial outfits.

Been noticing a trend for colleges to use online training anyhow. Benefit remains: college credit which can be applied to a degree (AA or AS usually).

One in my area is using Testout.com software (~$500 retail) for the cost of a textbook. Too, they have an avenue for reduce price certificate testing (up tp 50% off; CompTIA, Cisco, etc)…

.

.

Question: What do you want to do — sysadmin, networking, development, spiceworks, linux, etc.?

10

See if any local Jr or Community colleges offer any classes geared towards getting certifications. A lot more are offering them now. Pricing is often better than a lot of the programs for studying for certs.

11

Super question. I personalty am looking at getting my CCNA by actually attending a Boot Camp. I have tried the self study and honestly that does not work for me…It might work great for you and definably less $$$. I am looking at going to a Global Knowledge boot camp as I have attended some of their stuff years ago and had a good experience.
In my case I am pursuing that just for my own knowledge and also possibly open some other doors.

To the point of your OP you are not alone in K-12 as I know this subject just came up recently on our State K-12 listserve about local training options with several of the same solutions mentioned in this thread mentioned there. This one was just mentioned for AD type training. Don’t know anything about it but it looks promising.

http://www.gpanswers.com/training.html

I know at one time some of the local collages were offering entry level IT type classes so definably look there as others have mentioned to at least get a start. Local User Groups are a big plus also in this area (A SpiceWorks group is awesome if you have one within driving distance.:->.)

Good luck!

12

I see bootcamps have come up several times - just be careful with those. I’ve yet to hear of a bootcamp respected by the larger community. A lot of them aren’t so much teaching how to use what you learn in reality but are geared at shovelling as much as possible into your head so you can pass the exam.

It’s like the adverts “Get your MCSE in 3 weeks!!!” I’ve done MCSE - from scratch it took me a 1.5 years & I worked fairly fast (1exam took ~6weeks with 700 page textbook a subject). Unless you already have all the skills you need ( it’s your day-day job for the last few years) I don’t think it’s possible to learn the theory & how to best use it in that time frame.

For things like the CCNA, look at Cisco academy. I’m fairly sure you can study online. The academy classes are good (did mine that way). You also get the Cisco app packet tracer which is fantastic. You use it to create virtual networks & it almost perfectly emulates actual Cisco device CLIs.

13

Based on what you said you do, I’d suggest something like a MCITP. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/mcitp.aspx#tab2

From what you describe, I’d think the Enterprise Desktop Administrator would be your best bet & then you could add MCTS exams for the server tech you work with e.g. - MCTS: Active Directory.

If you do any MS certs I’d really recommend the MS Press books. I’ve been using them since I knew nothing (now I know a little :wink: & I’ve found them to be really good. They have good practical exercises, theory tests, real-world examples where the authors have used a feature or tech plus they include the Measure-Up test, which guarantees a pass if you get ~90% on average in the test simulations. Oh, you also get 15% discount on your exam then.