New CCNA and CCNP curricula address students’ unique needs to prepare for rewarding careers in IT networking

“With all the labs, games and activities, the new CCNA curricula will stimulate students to explore further and deeper into networking technology,” said Ana Chupungco, from the Philippine Science High School in Quezon City, Philippines.

The new version of Packet Tracer v4.1 provides students with the ability to create a network with a virtually unlimited number of devices, encouraging open practice, discovery, and troubleshooting only limited by a student’s imagination. Beyond simulation, Packet Tracer provides a way for the visualization of internal operations and data passing in a network environment to accelerate the learning of networking concepts.

“The integration of Packet Tracer into the curriculum makes it easier to acquire the details of complex operation, which is rather difficult to present by traditional tools and methodologies,” said Dr. Feher. He continued, “It is wonderful to partner with Cisco to educate students for hi-tech careers and provide industry certifications that are highly marketable in today’s economy.”

The updated CCNP curriculum provides the knowledge and skills necessary to deploy and maintain fully integrated network infrastructure services and applications. The curriculum focuses on the advanced skills required to manage the end-to-end network infrastructure and goes beyond core routing and switching to include applications deployed on the edge of the network, such as wireless, security and voice. It includes topics such as converged networks, quality of service (QoS), virtual private networks (VPNs) and broadband technologies. CCNP integrates next-generation network devices and services engineered to provide wire-speed delivery of concurrent data, voice, video and wireless services with optimized security.

To complement the introduction of these products, a student recruitment video is being launched simultaneously to peek the interest of students considering their next steps in IT skills learning and further reinforce the notions of significant job availability and cool careers. Students can also begin to acquaint themselves with Cisco Networking Academy by exploring AcademyNetSpace (www.academynetspace.com) and signing up for the NetSpace Challenge to test their IT knowledge against the global Networking Academy community.

To support the new curriculum, Cisco Learning Institute has partnered with the Networking Academy to produce a variety of instructor training materials, including the next generation of instructor resources called Interactive Course Guides (ICGs). ICGs provide customized instructional support and tools including teaching goals, critical concepts, suggestions for teaching difficult networking areas, discussion ideas, case studies, extended labs, videos on demand, and technical briefings. Cisco Learning Institute’s ICGs and other instructor training material can be accessed from the Cisco Networking Academy web portal.

Availability

On June 25, 2007, the new CCNA curricula (English versions) will be generally available: CCNA Discovery courses “Networking for Home and Small Businesses” and “Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP”; and CCNA Exploration courses “Network Fundamentals” and “Routing Protocols and Concepts.” English versions of CCNA Discovery courses “Introducing Routing and Switching in the Enterprise” and “Designing and Supporting Computer Networks,” and CCNA Exploration courses “LAN Switching and Wireless” and “Accessing the WAN,” will be available by December 2007.

For self-guided preview tours of CCNA Discovery and CCNA Exploration visit: http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/course_catalog/newCCNA.html

The curricula align with the new CCENT and updated CCNA certifications. Additional information is available at: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/prod_062507d.html

For more information about the Cisco Networking Academy Program, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/netacad

About Cisco Systems

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco, the Cisco logo, CCNA, CCNP, Cisco Systems and Networking Academy are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partnership does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

(pinoypress.net)