Forum

Well, it?¡é?€??s the last day of the CWNA 3.0 course. Today we cover Chapter 12 ?¡é?€?¡° Site Surveys and the three course labs. Our instructor, David Coleman, and Devin Akin, course developer/CTO for the CWNP Program, tell us that instructors can choose whatever method they feel is best for the students concerning the labs. Some instructors choose to do them all at the end while others like to integrate them with chapters in the courseware. It doesn?¡é?€??t matter either way to me because we were able to make it through all the course material including the labs during the five days we?¡é?€??ve been here. I believe the ?¡é?€??students?¡é?€?? in this class raised a lot more interactive conversations than most instructors will see so it shouldn?¡é?€??t be a problem getting through all the material with a ?¡é?€??normal?¡é?€?? class. Remember, all the ?¡é?€??students?¡é?€?? in this class were certified instructors and there were many off-topic lively discussions.

Chapter 12?¡é?€??s discussion of site surveys covered lots of hardware and software solutions WLAN engineers could use before and during the WLAN deployment. We talked about spectrum analyzers, Bluetooth, software tools like AirMagnet Surveyor, AirMagnet Laptop, and Wireless Valley for predictive analysis. This was an interesting chapter because we were able to see some of these products in use as well.

We went over the labs fairly quickly and Devin Akin explained why the labs were set up the way they are ?¡é?€?¡° to allow the student to get up to speed quickly while allowing lots of troubleshooting and comparative analysis between different WLAN offerings and security types. Since this is the CWNA course, there are just a three labs but each has optional portions that allow the instructor to adapt them to the students as needed. In addition, it also gives the students the freedom to use whatever specific tools they might have available to assist in completing the labs. Also, the primary reason behind the CWNA course is to get as much knowledge into the student as possible so the lectures are likely going to be the most thoroughly covered areas ?¡é?€?¡° this will help the students pass the exam as well.

Overall I really enjoyed the class. I feel like it allows the students to do a deep-dive into the technologies that make up Wi-Fi wireless networking solutions. Students should come away from this course mostly ready to take the exam (with some follow-up studying) and should be well-prepared to attack the next level of becoming a WLAN engineer. For those of you who do venture down this path, good luck and keep at it!

Thanks for staying with me this far and I hope to do it again when the next CWNP course is released.

To Devin, Kevin, Scott and all the CWNP instructors who participated in this course -- excellent work! We all enjoy your commitment to making us better wireless gurus!

Joel