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Blog: My IPexpert Voice Stuff Has Arrived!

My IPexpert CCIE Voice Blended Learning Solution (trying saying that three times fast!) has arrived! I got home on Tuesday night and I had this lovely little package waiting for me:

Woohoo! I’ve been waiting for this little puppy for about a week. It contained all the printed material for the Blended Learning solution: Workbook 1, 2, and 3 as well as a printout of the slides for the Video On Demand DVD.

Notice how I’m also showing off my brand new monitor that I treated myself too when I passed my CCIE (Not as big as the one Keith got when he passed…but hey its not the size that counts, its how you use it!).

IPexpert Blended Learning Solution Workbooks

Workbook 1 contains the “Focus Labs”. This is where all the individual mini-labs are that concentrate on all the technologies on the CCIE Voice Blueprint and where I will be spending the first couple of weeks of my preparation in. It is divided up into 17 different sections, each containing a mini-lab that goes through all the different technologies in a LOT of detail. I’m a strong believer in making sure your foundation is absolutely solid before moving onto doing full-scale labs, so I am planning to do these labs multiple times. This in conjunction with the Video On Demand DVD should make sure my foundation is solid.

There are labs on:

• CallManager fundamentals,
• CME Fundamentals,
• Gateways,
• Gatekeeper,
• Dial Plans,
• Media,
• High Availability,
• Unity,
• IPCC Express,
• CallManager Features,
• Qualtiy Of Service,
• Fax,
• CME Features,
• CUE Fundamentals,
• CUE Features,
• Security

Workbook 2 has full scale labs. 10 of them. I’ll be heading into this after I have gone through Workbook 1. My plan is to do all 10 of them, and then pick 5 of the best ones to do over and over again to really drill it in. I did something similar to this when I studied for my R&S and it worked out awesome. I’ll have to email Vik, or Mark on which ones they recommend.

I think Workbook 3 is the pick of the whole package. The detail in this thing is amazing. See that big pile of books on the right? Thats the proctor guide. Or should that be proctor guides. There are 10 labs and each lab has a book containing explanations as well as a corresponding video of a walk through! Holy crap. I spoke with Matt Brooks this morning and he told me that the first 5 labs of these work with the automatic grading solution that they have.

Here’s a couple of shots showing the format and layout. Notice the screenshots and the detail in the explanation. Also notice my l33t photography skillz!:

(Ohh photo taken at an angle…very arty!)

Check out the screenshots and explanations. Every lab has step by step screenshots detail in the explanations are very good. They are so good in Volume3 that I’m a bit undecided as to whether I should make that workbook 3 as the second phase of my study and then treat the workbook 2 labs as mock labs. With the sheer volume of explanations it would probably make the most sense. Only problem is Workbook 2 labs aren’t automatically graded yet. I think again I will talk to someone at IPexpert about my study plan once I’ve finished with this and get some advice.

DVD slides

You get a DVD workbook as well that has all the slides from the Video On Demand as well as notes on each slide.

It comes with a warning at the start:

This is fair enough. Its not a CCVP course but a CCIE level course. I can’t wait to get my hands on that Blended Learning Solution HDD so I can start watching them! (Anybody at IPexpert wanna throw me some free rack time?…my love can be bought! *evil grin* )

Room with a View

Here is the view from my study. That’s beautiful Melbourne in the background. When we first moved into the apartment I would spend hours looking outside. It was a bit of a distraction but not anymore. My biggest distraction at the moment is Call Of Duty4 (Damn you terrorists!).

Now I gotta get back to that OSPF tutorial. HTH! :

© 2008 Arden Packeer. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway. This material is not sponsored or endorsed by Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco, Cisco Systems, CCIE and the CCIE Logo are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and its affiliates