Can anyone recommend a good distance learning course?

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I'm right up the verge of booking the MCDST course from MicrosoftUK.co.uk (nothing to do with Microsoft).

They've offered me 12 months access to the MCDST course material, 12 months access to the CompTIA A+ material and my exams paid for for the MCDST - for £600. They provide the usual full tutor support, 24/7 IM support and staggered progress reports througout.

I just wanted to know what people's opinions are on the package they've given me and also whether anybody has any thoughts on other companies that I could approach?

Thanks in advance.

Ameel

 

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that company isn't actually called Microsoft.co.uk because if you type in compTIA.co.uk it will come up as being the same company. I was going to go with them when I first got an intrest in certifications.

I self study because it's cheaper you can get help on here for free and you know that the help you are getting is from qualified people where as with distance learning it could be some tool in a call center reading from a script.

 

How about I send you my notes and MS Press books for the MCDST and I'll only charge you £300...

:hhhmmm

 

You can have mine for £250

 

Whichever way you slice it, that's around £300 dearer than self-study.
Or, to put it another way, you could have both the A+ and MCDST certs for less than they're charging for just the MCDST.

MicrosoftUK.....mmm. Either a very ill-considered name or deliberately chosen to sucker people in. I know which one my inner cynic is going with, which means I would be very wary of this company.

 

err, isn't that the company from this thread ?

 

Yeah these guys have been discussed on here before and i dont recall much of it bein complimentary!

I say self study. Also, if you want to go down that route, MS were running a 90% off e-learning offer (which i think ends as part of the second shot offer on 31st of this month?)

Dave

 

Where shall I start ?

Well this is a rogue "company"! It doesnt surprise me that this is a one man venture run by a kid in his parents basement.

Have a look at the crap course material you will get:

Log in this page with demo / demo username and password respectively.
http://www.microsoftuk.co.uk/student-login.html

Now this will lead you to a tree structured website that has the available courses:
http://77.239.96.20/scorm/displaygroup.asp

Click the Technical General one and you will see now two more options, click the Comptia A+ and then on Computer Basics. You will land here:
http://courses.mindleaders.com/dpec...ACRO=apls01&SITE_ID=DEMO_ROL&scorm=T&access=0

Its like someone downloading stuff from the net, uploading and setting it up on a site, then making a page pretending to be a training company and then fooling (and thats the term) people like you to pay £600 for them...

Stay away from them dude. Its sad though, you at least came here to ask for opinions, now imagine the others who actually paid for that "service"...

*sigh*

Oh well, I hope we saved another soul at least!

EDIT: This is easier to do than most think, back in my deviant days when I was taking the Cisco Practitioners, that LAB/e-Learning course they had was actually over the network in a disk as an ISO/Scorm image...
All the material was there, all you had to do was to create the server for the linkage and bling bling comin'in!

 

Ok thanks guys, very useful. I think you just confirmed for me what I already had doubts over.

Looks like the self study route for me then. Any recommendations on the books I should buy etc?

Sorry but I am totally new to this so some of my questions may get tedious!

Cheers

Ameel

 

Oh, also, how do I go about booking the exams once I think I'm ready to tackle them? All I can find on the net is exam booking through companies like the one I nearly booked up the course with!

Ameel

 

Buy a prep guide off amazon, they normally explain it all, including booking the test.

Testing Centres are registed with two different providers, Prometric and PearsonVue.
The providers operate worldwide and have websites.

For MS exams you will need to go through Prometric.

 

Our pleasure to help dude.

As some would recommend to you, you should complete the CompTIA A+ exams first. That will give you a very good foundation (they are foundation exams) and they will allow you to think in a more "IT" way.

Ideally you should have some minimal experience with computers and hardware, but if you dont, then you can still study but it all depends on how much effort you put into it.

The materials for the CompTIA A+ can be books, e-Learning and Practical mock exams such as:

Books:
CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Sixth Edition by Mike Meyers
PC Technician Street Smarts: A Real World Guide to CompTIA A+ Skills by James Pyles

e-Learning and practice exams:
Preplogic
Boson
TestOut
Trainsignal

Now, if you really want to skip all this and go to the MCDST (which people here might advise you not to), then you can get:

Books:
MCDST Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-271): Supporting Users and Troubleshooting a Microsoft® Windows® XP Operating System by Microsoft Press
MCDST Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-272): Supporting Users and Troubleshooting Desktop Applications on Microsoft® Windows® XP by Microsoft Press

The e-Learning and practice exams, you can visit the sites I gave you for the CompTIA A+ and you can browse their section for Microsoft certifications, all of them also have.

Hope it helps!

But be warned that it is a big jump from no certification/experience to the MCDST straight away.

 

get the MS press books which included vouchers for purchasing the exams then you register with prometric where you will find your nearest test center then you book the exams.

Make sure you have a capable pc and download vmware or virtual pc and set yourself up a virtual networking using the free trials of xp that come with your books and you can download a free server 2003 trial from Microsoft and set yourself up a proper network

 

I am not aware of any!
Buy the books, training media, join excellent resources (like CF) and do it yourself. When you are in a position which has a training budget, they will provide training for you!

Best of luck.

 

If you have used MS XP before and know your way around it very well then go for MCDST, and bypass A+,N+, this will save you time and money(A+ exams costs about 130-150 quid each I think). I am sure other members will agree.
MS do e-learning courses for MCDST including vLabs, its around $350, excluding materials, but I would suggest self-study, get some books and good pc with XP and Office 2003 and off you go.
good luck

 

I do not agree. The A+ and N+ will prepare you for the MCDST and show that you have the basic skills down before moving on to other certs.

Also you can get discount voucher for the A+ from www.gracetechsolutions.com which cost £107 each.

 

No, I wouldn't agree with that, either. The A+ and Network+ are vendor-neutral certifications that assess your general knowledge regarding hardware, software, and basic networking. The MCDST covers how to administer XP desktops in a business environment. Not the same at all.

 

You all got me wrong here, I didnt say A+ and N+ arent good, what I meant was if you only doing them to prepare for MCDST then you can take the option of bypassing(under conditions). My idea was based on myself presuming that Abeshoori is aiming for MCDST cred, otherwise I wouldnt say something misleading like that.
Also I am aware the fact that comptia has nothing to do with MS.
I will be careful next time.

 

No, we completely understood what you said. We disagree that anyone should just bypass the A+ and Network+ and go straight for the MCDST.