Promote Yourself to Write Effective Training Materials

During the time in providing services in your work environment (note 1), you may be encountered with the request to make presentation. The subject you are going to talk about could be (a) external training courses review, (b) project milestone tracking & status update, or (c) essential issues on technology architecture (in a product roadmap). The target learners jump into into your session may be your daily associates, functional manager(s), college professor(s), or Senior Executive Officer(s). Some unexpected audience may arrive in the very last minutes and, no surprise, raising questions.

Maybe this is a good time to ask yourself: when was last time you conduct a successful training session? How does your training materials contribute to the accomplishment of your activity?

Through the years of this type of presentation activities, many people may cultivate personal interests in being professional trainers. This is different from "Teachers College" in Academic Programs to be prepared as a teacher in elementary schools or high schools. It is more to bring up your skills to manage "instructor-led classroom training. Under such circumstances, writing training materials should be a good start. There are some questions to ask yourself: what needs to be highlighted in order to compose and develop training materials?

Learning Objective: What is the learning objective of this training course? It could be only a "Concept Generation & Delivery" session, or Hands-On Programming / Configuration practice. The former category expects training content will influence learner's behavior and (work) activities being involved. The latter item would put emphasize on the familiarity of a specific computer skill.

Learning Content: What kind of topics or domain know how we should put here?
If we are progressing Business Strategy courses content, should we not describe what we have completed? Maybe we can also use some real life case studies to elaborate

• Blue ocean vs red ocean strategies
• The need for change in our Organization (If our company does not go this way, customers will be leaving for our competitors)
• The process of decision making
• The process of influencing your associates in believing a good decision being made
• The modification link in the workflow
• Key Performance Indicators (to be followed)

Should we turn the attention to compose technical training. Take the topic of "Hands-on Programming with R" as an example, we can assist our students to build the knowledge on

• R user interface
• Available packages in R
• R objects and notation
• If statement and else-if statements
• Data visualization with RStudio

Information Display: What would be the sequence of the topics going to be laid out? Would you like to begin your session on some of the core concepts (prerequisite) of this particular subject, giving students a little bid of time to refresh their memory, knowing where they are? Are you taking "easy-to-difficult" flow to get your audience attention, or you prefer to pick up "Use Case" then go into configuration (technology) details?

The writer of this blog utilizes "read the content to himself" tactic to carry out his work here. Is he able to speak fluently and confidently on the continuation of those statements?

Head vs. Tail: The writer here refers to the Beginning Statements and Summary Statements. Your training contents, basing on the size being developed, should be categorized into several sessions. Each session might start with some beginning statements, to remind the learners (a) what had achieved from last session, and (2) what to expect in this session.

In the summary description, may trainers would only talk about what had been taught in this section. For example, in R, in the chapter of "Modifying Values" will relay to logical subsetting and missing information. However, the write of this blog is known as to build co-relationship among topics, especially the functions and topics being told. For example, if the subject is on a switch port settings, he will refer to PoE switch port setting, time schedule availability, coinciding with other parameters. Another example, on the subject of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), this writer will also reflect (a) the behavior in wired / wireless network, (b) Sub-fields in Wireshark from other vendors. Something like that. 

A delegated trainer is aimed more at winning the support (concrete response) of the learners. Composing training materials is always to be seen as powerful interests standing in the way of another (maybe better, maybe not) lives for the trainer's career. John Dewey once said, "We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience". To take the initiative in write training materials is your first step. Being aware how the learners knowledge can be enhanced, career being upgrade, due to your training materials, is another. 

Note 1: It does not necessary limit to an enterprise facility. School institutions, government agencies, even manufacturing industries are general samples.

Quiz Review: As a senior (network engineering) manager in one of the popular networking equipment manufacturers here in USA, you are assigned to conduct a two-day "TCP/IP Protocol Suite" workshop for the New Hires in Quality Assurance (QA Testing) Dept. 12-students, with relevant work experience less than three years. The objective is to cover all of the work related knowledge and skills as well as the familiarity of testing tools. What would be the course agenda in your training materials for this business engagement? What would be the statements / description in your educational materials?

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (802.11 Radio Information, Part 4)

Let's continue to cover additional details on 802.11 Radio Information within a Wireshark capture.

(Wireless) Channel: channels are frequently accessed using IEEE 802.11 protocols. Take 2.4 GHz as an example, there are fourteen channels being designated here.

2.4 GHZ channel allocation
Channel 1: 2,412 MHz; Channel 2: 2,417 MHz; Channel 3: 2,422 MHz;
Channel 4: 2,427 MHz; Channel 5: 2,432 MHz; Channel 6: 2,437 MHz;
Channel 7: 2,442 MHz; Channel 8: 2,447 MHz; Channel 9: 2,452 MHz;
Channel 10: 2,457 MHz; Channel 11: 2,462 MHz; Chann12: 2,467 MHz
Channel 13: 2,472 MHz; Channel 14: 2, 484 MHz

However, depending upon the regulation in each country, some of the channels may not be available,

Let's grab any available example to make such justifications. The following diagram shows frame is in channel 6, 2,437 MHz.

At the same time, the below example can view different frames populated in wireless channel, such as 1,3,4,5,6,11, and 13.

For any specific Wireshark capture, if we would like to see the number of STAs attempt to communicate with a specific wireless channel, we could take advantage of Channel display filter (wlan_radio.channel). For example, the underneath example is "wlan_radio.channel ==1", and we can see around 7 STAs over there, where most of the frames are in Beacon frames.

However, within a similar timeframe, channel 6 is also significantly utilized. As you may realize that  "Probe Response" occupies fair amount of proportion.

The 2.4GHz band is broken up into 11 channels (1-11), each 20MHz wide. That inevitably brought a concern of  overlapping channels. When overlapping channels are used (2-5, 7-10 in 2.4GHz), any stations (STAs) on those channels will transmit independent of what is happening on the other channels, causing a degradation of performance. The following images hot indicates the STAs use channel 2~5 to perform wireless communication.

As you can interpret from that diagram, the above data is sorted by Channel number. However, if we take source STA as the index, then, we should notice that some STAs are swifting wireless channel changes.

Auto Channel is a common management feature in some of the APs. By doing so, those AP would use less busy channels, in order to provide better services to wireless clients.

Quiz Review: The following diagram is a sorted result with the filter of "wlan_radio.channel >= 7 && wlan_radio.channel <= 10", how many identical STA(s) you are able to clarify?

Understanding Learner Behavior

To ensure success in your Learning Management System (LMS), you really should spend time to understand the learner's behavior.

The objective of setting up a LMS is to provide a useful environment, web-based application and/or mobile web apps, in today's language, for your learner to be more comfortable to learn. Unlike in most of the content management system (CMS), people tend to be reactive in viewing the content in that CMS database. If there is any article might relate to the learner's work, CMS user will just read it, but not to (a) identify the correctness of contents, nor (b) consequently apply to his/her work. It is similar like Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), those users just follow the index and allocate similar proportion in their portfolio.

However, learners in LMS should be different. They should have a similar activity, like greatest mutual fund managers, aiming to produce long-term, market-beating returns. As a result, these engaged learners would actively seek any available courses in associated LMS (and make course registration) (Note 1).There are times those learners would

• Discuss with the instructors how a learner's homework being graded? (this refers to "the Relationship with Self")
• Build close relationship with the administrators, by asking list of upcoming courses (free online courses/MOOCs) (this can be described as "Relationship with the Curriculum")
• Make feedback to the learning contents (typos or grammar questions), topics can be (in depth) explored and elaborated
• Seek opportunity to get exam voucher codes, in order to take exams for cheaper price or no pricing
• Be curious about how other students are doing? Are they downloading the learning contents? When did other people submit their assignment, even require clarification why home work grade being assigned (this can be explains by "Relationship with Others")
• Contribute business strategies and tactics to get students enablement in your LMS 

Of course, any readers can claim that this type of progressive learning activities are extra-ordinary, but not seen in their students profile. However, once you have realized significant achievements in your contents (well-established) and offered noticeable customer service, word-of-mouth marketing will be participated from your learners.

Note 1: Self enrollment is one of the features being provided in Moodle. Despite "Manual enrollment" is set by default, the Site Administrator is able to activate "Self enrollment (Student)" function, to ensure courses are open to the generate public (or target audience). The following diagram is an sample configuration page in Moodle.

Quiz Review: In some of the enterprise LMS, it is a common practice to allocate user into groups. Characters of groups might relate to "Same Dept." "Same Job Title" "Year of Service". As far as "Self enrollment" feature is concerned in your LMS, are you planning to create groups and assign users into groups? As such, a specific learning course will only "Open House" to named groups for course enrollment. If so, what would be the configuration steps in your LMS?

Do Training Providers Need a LMS?

A Training Provider is the business entity (or organization) that offers training to customers as a service being provided. With the popularity of IT technologies, most of the training centers pay attention to emergent technologies and generate business income via selling this type of courses. New Horizons or Itpreneurs should be the names easily to be identified.

Of course, there are other types of training provides whom focus on specific subject domain knowledge, such as Sales, Leadership, Change Management, and many others. For example, the British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities.

For those technology training partners, they tend to work with Top IT Companies, such as Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, SAP. By building a close business relationship, these training providers, most of the times, need to be awarded and recognized as: Microsoft Learning Partners or Authorized Learning Partners by Cisco. These companies then will purchase required hardware / software equipment as well as training kits (books) in order to conduct training to the general public. The writer of this blog has been lucky enough to get exposure on Learning Partners Business Development responsibilities during his service in two Network equipment providers. He has been visiting countries to build close business relationship with School/Universities and some IT solution providers in several big emerging markets.

With the development of open source and well-known corresponding popularity, many instructors would dedicate their personal time to compose some learning materials, with the purpose of getting familiar to those open source tools. Data Analysis in R, Writing Web Applications are only two of the many examples. Those instructors would attempt to local (regional) training centers and then build a different type of cooperation in getting students to attend courses. It is a common win-win strategy, where both sides, the training providers & instructors, should take long-term vision in their roadmap.

The above description should pretty much describe the business activities of a learning provider. The learning content are pretty operated in a mark up Buy-and-Sell Accounting records, meaning, obtain the training kits/books from IT companies with a cheaper price, then put it in a learning package to target customers. Students base can be coming from Enterprise, College/Universities, or individual. They pay the price, some with discount, attend the course. Then, participate certification exams to be awarded with "Azure Administrator Associate" or "Cisco and NetApp FlexPod Design Specialist" certificates.

As such, the LMS should be able to have the identify (database fields) on "Course Program (Certification Program)" "Student Profile with student name, contact number, payment record, course attending record, exam record." In some of the countries, their government would have tuition reimbursement program for some people, such as newly graduate or senior citizen, to obtain training. Of course, the training center may or may play some roles in assisting student to obtain such funding, where it may or may have a record shown in the student profile.

Under such circumstances, it is more like having a Customer Relationship Management (CRM), instead of a Content Management System (CMS) or LMS. This type of customer information is most valuable when you believe that customer retention is a great, though, invisible, asset to your business activities. The writer of this blog even see some training partners are using an Excel file, with all of these information. However, their instructors are embedded with professional knowledge & skills and the customer service in that training center is widely recognized, with which their success is pretty much understandable and expectable.

Quiz Review: Fashion trends come and go. Technology is ever-changing faster than that. How could a training provider sustain its existence in a dynamic condition?

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (802.11 Radio Information, Part 3)

Let's continue to get exposure on other sub-fields within 802.11 Radio Information, where we can refer to the below diagram for illustration.

Data Rate: The wireless transmit rate is the speed that data is being transmitted from an AP to a wireless device.
The maximum data rate for 802.11a (5 GHz) is 54 Mbps, 802.11b (2.4 GHz) is 11 Mbps, 802.11g (2.4 GHz), 54 Mbps, and 802.11ac can be up to 1,300 Mbps.

The below diagram is a collection of frames, in 802.11a, where you can see the data rate being displayed include 6, 9, 24 Mbps.

Within the very same Wireshark capture file, we also are able to realize 802.11ac frames, where the date rate stays pretty much the same, 780 Mbps, in the underneath diagram.

Quiz Review:

• For 802.11n connections, what is the maximum wireless transmit rate?
• According to below diagram, the Data Rate is only 1 Mbps, but the Wireshark capture does not have "Phy type" subfield, what would be a possible and smart guess on "Phy type" being utilized?

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (802.11 Radio Information, Part 2)

Let's continue our discussion on the section of 802.11 Radio Information inside a Wireshark capture. Allow me to attach a diagram here.

Turbo Type: Turbo mode increases throughput by utilizing a wider channel of 40MHz instead of the normal 20MHz. In this example, it shows Non-turbo being set up, which corresponds with other information, such as Static Turbo (display filter, radiotap.channel.flags.sturbo) and Turbo (radiotap.channel.flags.turbo) in the section of radiotap. We may also refer to the diagram listed below.

Turbo mode can be configured

• Static mode, or
• Dynamic mode

Despite the fact that channels 6, 40, 48, 56, 153 and 161 are suitable for Turbo operation, but it really depends upon whether AP or STA (1) is capable of having this feature, and (2) has activated such function. The following diagram shows, even in channel 40, that STA is not Turbo capable, as no information is displayed in Wireshark capture on such sub-field.

At the same time, the below diagram shows, WLAN packet in channel 157, not belonging to any one of the options indicated above. The turbo mode is not functioning either. 

Quiz Review:  If the "Static Turbo" subfield in above diagram is showing False, does that mean it is in Dynamic mode?

Building a LMS for Your Partners (Part I)

As your business activities are getting more complicated, only relying on the Sales team in your company probably could not timely serve the revenue generating purpose. Some of the companies would build business relationship with (Channel) Partners, whom will sell your companies on your behalf. This is a of common business practice in (1) Companies that have the best branding and/or (2) Global business opportunities.

The examples for the first category are Coca-Cola., Apple, Google, BMW, HTC, D-Link and many others. The latter items are describing Importing & Exporting,  Franchising, Strategic Partnerships & Joint Venture. We easily can identify Cisco, HP, Juniper, and D-Link being having this type of business engagements as they are exporting products to foreign countries.

Training to these partners are becoming substantial, as those partners require to learning your products and sell them well in their regions. In this type of situation, your LMS should cover the learning content on your product information (such as Sales Guide, Datasheet, comparison of leading product analytics vendors, if any), latest firmware to be downloaded. This type of business information may require to be separated, due to languages in the world. Of course, it is difficult to cover all of the languages, but at least some of the most popular languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindustani and the one most used in your region.

Under this use case, you can claim that your LMS is pretty much like a FTP (file transfer protocol) server to host those documents. However, many Fortune 500 takes advantages of technology to host Internet seminair to elaborate the strength, positioning, and selling points of their products. By learning the document download records, the companies are aware of Who, When, and How (often) the materials being downloaded. This is also a way to build contact with potential leads.

There are other companies might hold in-house Hands-on technical training sessions. Where the LMS would manage partner's profile, such as Name, Employer's name, Office number. If you are taking a course, and attend some Quiz sessions in LMS, if passed, some Professional Development Unit (PDUs) can be awarded and then recorded in your profile. Many enterprise put high mark to the partners after passing exam, usually with the means of product price discount. That would encourage those partners to stay close business affiliation.

The writer of this blog is managing a training service team in a technology company. He enjoys in composing and developing hundred and hundreds technical documents for world wide partners. Sometimes, he put a silent mode, without telling or broadcasting the availability of any newly release materials. However, the LMS under his management identifies a significant amount of partners (rather than the employees in their international offices) that instantaneous download his learning materials once it has been released/published. It is like fans chasing superstar. (Do not worry, the writer is not a handsome boy nor the learners are required to buy tickets for upcoming concerts) What this writer would like to encourage you is, if you are a content creator for the LMS on company partners: keep writing good staff. Continue to advance your professional knowledge and put into writing, your hard work eventually would be recognized.

Quiz Review: Some companies might adapt leading CRM software solutions. Examples of that include Salesforce CRM, HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, or Pipedrive (and many others). Are you able to activate either (1) Learning Management System (LMS) or (2) Content Management System feature in your CRM? If so, what would be a good learning management business practice you can recommend to executive managers?

Building a LMS for Your Employees (Part I)

This short article will address some of the implementation suggestions on corporate Learning Management System (LMS) for Employee Training.

The LMS should cooperate with corporate employee training program, where the training sessions are arranged for the entire workforce. The corporate LMS serves as a dedicated channel for all training related communication. The LMS administrator, in an enterprise environment, is responsible for interfacing with all functions within the organization that have training needs. It pretty much would manage the involvement on:

System Availability: The LMS should be available during the clock for employees to attend training. With latest technology, hosting your learning service in cloud computing solutions is recommended. Amazon AWS or IBM cloud, as referred to "Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)" are some examples on that. In regarding the Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment, it is a great idea to align the latest development of mature products and adapt learning process flow to over there. Talentlms.com & moodlecloud.com may be look into during your system evaluation activities. Of course, pricing of services should meet your corporate budget.

System Integration: The technical capability of Single Sign-On (SSO) could be your first concern. Is your LMS able to align the user account authentication corresponding with corporate IT infrastructure system, for example Microsoft Active Directory? In addition to that, any of the learning records can be feeding into your HR employee information database, as a way to link employee profile? How often do we expect database synchronization?

Regulatory Compliance: Some of the regulation requirements should fulfilled. For example, The Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or Personal Information Protection Act (Taiwan). You should have dedicated member(s) to ensure the regulation, required in your region, is meet.

Course Curriculum: The definition of course curriculum heavily involves with the communication and collaboration among other training areas, including HR, Sales, Manufacturing, and Customer Service in order to (continuously) improve training compliance across the company. In other words, the course content is recommended to discuss with the functional manager, in identifying the process and workflow on how to activate (1) training material development, (2) training activity engagement, (3) learner's feedback collection. This should apply to all of the courses, not only limiting to some genetic / standard training, such as Fundamentals of Health and Safety in the Workplace.

Course Codes and Naming Conventions: The definition of naming convention should look into course development plan and make proper reservation for scalability for business growth. One of the algorithm the writer has been experience is using 6-digit definition, with the consideration of the following elements. Please be aware that the example listed below is taking the position as a systems integration business entity.

• Curriculum Category: Switching Technology (200000), WLAN Technology (300000), Data Storage (60000), Data Security (800000).
• Course Category: By different product. For example, content on Cisco switch, 210000; content on HP Pro-curve switch: 220000; content on Aruba Networks WLAN: 330000, content on D-Link DSR series: 860000, something like that.
• Level of knowledge being presented: The third/fourth digit of a course number define the knowledge level of each course. 1x: Simple Course for Beginners; 2/3x: Medium Level on Configurations; 4x: Challenging Level on System Management & Control; 5x: Extremely Difficult for Advanced Study. As such, Cisco switch System Management: 214000; Aruba WLAN Design Guidelines: 335000.
• World language: The last two-digit of a course number is reserved. 11: English; 12: Italiano; 13: Español; 14:Português. For example, Aruba WLAN Design Guidelines in Português: 335014.

Despite the fact that Corporate LMS should provide services to (a) the orientation of new employees, and (b) to the on-job training for work performance, where the stated above standards, in this sub-topic, are more for "On-Job training."

External Training Resources: It is of possible that employees may seek training services outside of the company. Some enterprise may request the employee(s) who attend the outside training should convert the materials into a way that corporate LMS is able to recognize, of course, first ensuring no Intellectual Property concerns. By doing so, other employees are able to obtain the knowledge, even approach content providers to clarify information they may or may not understand.
The writer of this blog senses this is a of common situation and believes giving the trainer responsibility on a occasional basis is another wonderful way to train your employees.

Quiz Review: Upon your availability, you might want to think about

• In your corporate LMS, how do you define Training Metrics? 
• What are the considerations in realizing those metrics, and 
• How often do you track those numbers and make proper judgment with employee work performance?

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (802.11 Radio Information, Part 1)

We will continue our Wireshark wireless packet discussion, where this should be the first article talking about 802.11 Radio Information. The following diagram is an example of this 802.11 Radio Information session. As you can see, there are several sub-fields being covered here. The writer would like to take this opportunity to get more understandings on those sub-fields.

PHY type: describes type of PHY type being used on this network. The above packet indicates it is in 802.11a. Within IEEE 802.11 Standard, there are several types being defined:

• IEEE 802.11a provides wireless 54Mbps data rate
• Wireshark shows 5
• IEEE 802.11b provides wireless 11Mbps data rate
• IEEE 802.11g provides wireless 54Mbps data rate
• Wireshark shows 6
• IEEE 802.11n provides wireless 300Mbps data rate
• Wireshark shows 7
• IEEE 802.11ac (5-GHz) provides wireless 900Mbps data rate
• Wireshark shows 8

The following two screenshot should present one example on 802.11n, 802.11g, another one, 802.11ac.

Of course, you should be aware that the Wireshark display filter for "PHY type" is wlan_radio.phy.

In a Wireshark packet capturing file, for the same STA (the same MAC), it usually is transmitted by using the same 802.11 PHY type. For example, the underneath diagram describes a STA (MAC ended with 36:84:C1) is using 802.11a.

VRRP MAC Address: VRRP stands for Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol. The virtual router MAC address is usually in the following format:

00-00-5E-00-01-{VRID} (in hex in internet standard bit-order)

The first three octets are related to IANA's OUI. When you look into the next two octets (00-01), that indicates the address block assigned to the VRRP protocol. {VRID} is the VRRP Virtual Router Identifier, where 11 is an example in our lab facility.

The following image-shot presents another example, with the same source STA (MAC ended with 38:ff:22) and destination STA (MAC ended with VRID_11). As you can see, frame 478 attempts to utilize 802.11ac, however, it turns to 802.11n, as it may attempt to lower the speed and turn to be malformed frame.

In the source and destination, you may see TA/RA mark over there. TA stands for Transmission Address, where RA, Recipient Address. The following diagram shows frame#18,082, MAC address ended with 38:ff:22 is the Transmission Address (or Transmitter address) and Received address is the STA (MAC ended with 0c:67:58). (This is a 802.11 Block Acknowledgement frame) However, the frame#18,083, the Received address remains the STA (MAC ended with 0c:67:58). (This is a Clear-To-Send frame).

Review Session: If the PHY shows 4, which 802.11 technology is presented?

Review Session: According to the following capture, 802.11b is used. Does that mean 802.11b being utilized by those STAs with D-Link name in the source address, or the laptop being managed to collect all of those frames?

Learning Content Development Guidelines

As we approach to the implementation of our Learning Management System (LMS), one thing we should never ignore of its importance: Learning Content Development. In this short article, the writer would like to list several ingredients of building a good learning content.

The spirit in the Content: We have reason to believe that User Needs Analysis has been (pre)planned and (pre)conducted (by your team), in order to reach the understanding your target audience. When we are dealing with Technology Training Courses, are we generating the content all on Theories or Step-by-Step Hands-on practice?

If it is on Theory of a Subject, do we clearly explain the concept of that theory and collaborate with auxiliaries elements, such as RFC 1531 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Is this type of theory a proven technology, or we tend to explore the possibility of more involvements? (That shows the strategies of our company, and of course, influence to any possible working activities inside an enterprise.) Does any specific mentioned term/technology being offered in our product line? If not, when would it be in the road map?

If the content is on Step-by-Step Hands-on configurations, does the content in parallel with hands-on equipment user interface? Most of the learners would position this type of training materials as a reference guide and conduct their job in the field with the assistance here. As a result, timely update the material and correctly identify setup steps is extremely cruel.

There is a great possibility that most of your learning content is on video/audio basis. When this type of learning content is hosted in a corporate LMS serving channel partners (Field Support Engineers), the exact step / configuration should be clearly illustrated. Field engineers are working under extreme pressure and you will KNOW if they are experiencing any harsh conditions. Yes, they will.

Amount of Content: What would be the optimal length of your training course as well as (e-Learning) training materials? When would be our learners attempt to this training course? At work during daytime, or after work, in the evening home resting periods. During night time self-study, 1.5 hours in writing and maybe another hour in practice. That probably would be a better arrangement. The writer used to attend several courses in Coursera. Self-promoted to learn is the motivation and that 2.5 hours during evening, 3~4 times on a weekly basis has been a routine schedule to get involved.

Learning Content Formats: In a corporate LMS, yes, the learning content should stick with the very same (or professional) format. It needs to follow the guidelines from Marketing Dept. or Public affairs Dept. However, if your are attempting to make some course in those fee-charged online education platform, such as Udemy, edX, Pluralsight, and many others, then, your personal brand should be packaged into a occupational style.

Role of Responsibilities: Are you playing multiple solos in learning creation, or you are the project managers on learning materials collaboration?

If you are doing all by yourself (which the writer admires your courageous to manage such magnificent responsibilities), make sure you have plenty resources to cover the project scope. In the writer's own observation (and humble opinion), people tend to be good at one of the following expertise: (1) understanding of theory framework, (2) equipment or device testing, (3) working result collections in a logical way, (4) overcoming language difficulties to put content into WRITING. Yes, it is one of them. Owning all of the characters definitely makes you a "Most Wanted Profession" in this modern society.

If you are working within a team, what is the size of this team? If the size of this team easily to be managed and controlled? (This bring the ideas how the publishers from those most popular newspapers perform their jobs. Again, they are working under the pressure on a daily basis) Are you good at quickly add and re-order stated content and categorize into appropriate display.

Lessons Learned: We believe that identifying the opinions of our training program’s participants is one the best ways to continuously improve our training program. Most of the Learning Management System (LMS) have the capability setting up "Feedback Form" to either proactive or reactive collecting customer satisfaction survey. Thus, technological constraints will not (and should not) make excuses not to do so.
As of learning content, some of the questions can be presented in feedback form should cover whether (1) the training content is completely presented during the training sessions, (2) the learning activities (i.e. exercise, hands-on practice) closely match to the materials being mentioned, (3) the knowledge being instructed can be digested within limited training time-periods, (4) the possible / achievable benefits that the learners can obtain reliable response from the learner's work (or potential employers). Making proper interpretation between the lines drives another success factor to improve your learning content.

Values being Generated and Recognized: The writer of this blog is administering a team in building training materials, for a popular networking equipment manufacturer. Brainstorming discussion is always fun, but extremely energy-consuming. Common stereotypes or frequently asked questions to the team include

• What have we learned from our content?
• What are the values being embedded in our contents? (What are the benefits our learners would receive from our work?) 
• How could we differentiate our work from others? (Excellent reference from a vast amount of materials in competitors' website / Youtube)

No matter which direction we are heading, in creating learning content, the conclusive goal is to ensure the final output meets the competencies proficiency to any specific knowledge and skill being required. And, your learners would be happy to review the same session, involve with other (or advanced) topics, and, most importantly, make recommendation to others.

Review Session: With the discussion on Artificial Intelligence these two years, would Learning Content being created and composed with the assistance of AI? If so, how would we prepare for such changes?

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (Radiotap Header Section, Part 5)

With all of the above 4 articles regarding the subject of Radiotap Header Section, the writer of this blog believes that "Channel Flags" should reserve a good space to explore concepts.

Channel Flags: displays the information about characteristics of the channel itself, such as the modulation type used, spectrum being used, half/quarter rate channel. The following diagram shows an example on Channel Flags.

Complementary code keying (CCK): is a modulation scheme used with wireless networks (WLANs) that employ the IEEE 802.11b specification. In our example as shown above, CCK is not being used. However, the below capture, CCK is in used.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM): is a digital multi-carrier modulation scheme that extends the concept of single subcarrier modulation by using multiple subcarriers within the same single channel. OFDM takes advantage of a large number of closely spaced orthogonal subcarriers that are transmitted in parallel.

This example also shows the WLAN capturing device (an Apple MacBook) is using 5 GHz spectrum. 5260, as precisely indicates in below image.

Even with the same laptop, we may be landing in different channel frequency. The following diagram, captured in the same day, different time-periods, of course, shows 5785 channel frequency being used. (Since they are in different channel, we will talk more on "channel" in incoming articles).

Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) is also a modulation method for digital communication found in many standards such as Bluetooth. It (GFSK) filters the data pulses with a Gaussian filter to make the transitions smoother.

This article should pretty much serves the last item on Radiotap Header Section.

Hands-on participation:

• Please take the time to reexamine your captured packet, what kind of messages being delivered in this section?
• Please kindly borrow another laptop, from your associates, and obtain similar Wireshark packet collections. Please don’t assume what worked for you in the first file will make same-items deliveries in the second file.

Is Blog a Learning Management System?

According to Wiki's latest description, a blog is a discussion or informational website published on the Internet consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). (resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog). The tactics aren’t limited to the enterprise, nowadays, any person can write an article, build a fancy blog, and push to general public in receiving Facebook Like "Checker".

In a blog, we often see an individual's viewpoint on specific topics, or his/her record of daily activities, such as Places to Visit. Food to Take, something like that. As such, those articles might be embedded with the characters of randomly composed/distributed, topics may irregular selected, no mandatory motivation for learners to proactively involved. (misspelled word might be vivid, even it is believed that all of the blog writers attempt to prevent) A blog can be viewed by a small portion of people who may be attracted by specific topics. However, his/her learning (not viewing) record will not be classified, no particular business purpose would be developed even fulfilled. With that, the writer of this blog does not think a blog can be classified as a Learning Management System (LMS).

There are some techies or professionals spent time to contribute their understanding on technology into writing and make a blog to be available to the general public. They (those writers) are empowering themselves with sharing, sharing what they know, sharing what they think other people might want to know. It coincides the beauty of Internet, cause we share with the viewers (target audience) and help them to learn, from a specific statements or articles. This is of common strategies and quite a few success cases that this type of blog turns into subscription economy generating corresponding monetary feedback. It is true that type of blog creates a fine resource for the viewer to quickly (1) understand a concept, (2) get a step-by-step (configuration) know how, and (3) may apply to work-related issues and enhance work performance. However, there is no communication among (enterprise) stakeholders, nor the engagement from either LMS administrator or the senior management, in fact, those type of blogs are not a LMS.

There are some LMS in the market nowadays carry the feature of hosting a blog.  For example, in Moodle, under the menu of Site administration > Advanced features, the Admin can build the blog in a timely manner (see below diagram for configuration illustration)

Make it alive is not a technology challenging. The thing whether we are planning to invite all of the learners to (1) write their own blogs in our LMS system, and/or (2) contribute to any of the messages from the course creator/instructor. Would any of the opinions be recognized coming from the owner of this LMS, a corporate or enterprise, most of time. Should there is any undesirable outcome being generated, coming from those blogs, who should be hold responsible and manage any  lawful activities being involved?

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (Radiotap Header Section, Part 4)

Let's continue our discussion on Radiotap Header Section.

Present Flags Words: this is like a summary information regarding any particular information is presented or not. The underneath diagram is an example regarding this field. Since TSFT and Flags sub-fields are explained in another article, we will continue with other items, especially the ones which are shown "Present"

All of the "Present" items are shown here.

Rate (or Data Rate): deals with TX/RX data rate. According to above diagram, we have 6.0 Mb/s. MCS rates (used on 802.11n/HT channels) have the high bit set and the (Modulation and Coding Scheme) MCS in the low 7 bits.
The Wireshark display filter of Data rate (Mb/s) is "radiotap.datarate" where we are able to see 9 or 24 Mb/s in other frames, from the same capture file.

Channel: describes Tx/Rx frequency in MHz. We have 5260 (5 GHz spectrum channel) here.
The Wirehark display filter of Channel frequency is radiotap.channel.freq, where we have seen a fixed 5260 in this capture file.

Antenna Signal: RF signal power at the antenna. The RF signal power at the antenna is described in decibels difference from 1mW. The following diagram shows different Antenna signal being collected from this capture file, in a range of 29dBm ~ 82 dBm.

Question: Out of the same data rate, 6 Mb/s, as an example, are you expecting the same Antenna signal from the following diagram?

Antenna Noise: refers to RF noise power at the antenna. The Antenna noise should remain the same, despite the constant changes on Antenna signal. The below diagram should justify this statement.

Antenna: Contains a single unsigned 8-bit value to declare which antenna was used to transmit or receive the frame. The primary antenna has the lowest number, 1, as stated in our example.
The value of zero may be seen here, it means means antenna selection is left to the device. The writer used "radiotap.antenna" display filter to generate below diagram.

Workflow Learning in LMS

In an enterprise environment, employees training and development tasks usually administered by HR dept. This type of learning is recognized as Workflow Learning. It (Workflow Learning) describes how the learners receive the learning from their employers and then to be applied on the job activity.

 If this type of customers serve the main attention to your LMS, then, some of the LMS design concern you should be aware of:

• Design of Learning Content: It is important to ensure the content being described in a way making people easily to understand about the required skills. The learners are required to immediately apply the knowledge to the performance support. The learning content should cover the most common scenarios / use cases which would be involved with any specific type of work. (for example, hole drilling, cement mixing)
• Learning Session: In most of the work-related trainings, employees are attending courses during day time. 1-day or 2-day are very common practices. In that type of scenario, team playing or attendees collaboration can be practiced and received benefits as a result of such activity. However, in e-Learning environment, most of the learners are acting alone, more like one to one (virtual) session. As such, collaboration activity is not easy achieved. (self-discipline or self motivation are more likely to be the success factors.)
• Duration of the e-Learning: Each session is suggested to be able conducted within 1.5 hours. Audience tend to lost focus longer than that. In most cases, the senior managers would request the learners to attend the e-learning course, after working hour. As such, ensuring the network connectivity / Virtual Private Network (VPN) access is also important. Additional LMS System Administration workforce, during off hours, are also recommended. 

In some of the instructor-led technical training the writer has been conducting, it usually consists of the sessions on rich subject of domain theory, HW/SW GUI operations and management, Hands-On practices and emulations. For the first two items, it is easy to convert the materials into e-Learning formats. However, to activate the spirit of learning by doing, it tends to be very challenging, as

• It is difficult to make the judgement in understanding, when Hands-On practice is not being involved.
• To ensure all of the settings are correctly input is also a laborious job, as computing devices are tend to be more dynamic, comparing to the static motion of a learner in a certain specific time-period encounting a topic.

For example, if the course objective is to ensure students are able to install a software WLAN controller, for example, D-Link Nuclias Connect (DNC) in various OS environments, such as Windows, Ubuntu Linux, Oracle VM VirtualBox, or Amazon Web Services (AWS). Learning content can be designed and developed in a step-by-step video/audio, where some of the key commands are explained and exercised. However, any learner may have different OS release environment or environment parameter settings (in their personal testing facility), where improper use of commands causing process flow not able to continue, then, frustration from target audience is pretty much expected. Some company may claim to utilize emulator as a solution, that probably can clean some of the situations, but not all of the possible scenarios.

                            WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (Radiotap Header Section, Part 3)

Let's continue the topic of Radiotap Header Section on the sub-item: Flags.

Flags: describing the properties of transmitted and received frames. The following diagram shows an example of Flags:

As you can see, there are several sub-items, including

Contention Free Period (CFP): Indicates whether frame was sent/received during the Contention Free Period. It (CFP) defines a period of time during which access to the Wireless Medium is free of contention.

Preamble: Shows whether frame was sent/received with short preamble. Preamble Type setting means that it adds some additional data header strings to help check the wifi data transmission errors. When it is set to short, shorter data strings would be added, resulting faster speed. However, some of the STA in your network might set Preamble to "Long", as displayed in underneath diagram.

WEP: informs whether a frame was encrypted. Despite the fact that the above diagram shows "False" in that captured frame, the below screenshot describes an AP (MAC ended with 97:78:6c) frame is encrypted.

When you take a closer look, you would identify that QoS / Data Frame are encrypted.

Question: In your Wireshark capture, in "Beacon Frame" "Probe Request" "Probe Response" frames, are they encrypted or not?

Fragmentation: is a way to partitioning an MAC Service Data Unit (MSDU) or an MAC Management Protocol Data Unit (MMPDU) into smaller MAC level frames, MPDUs,

Frame Check Sequence (FCS): A FCS refers to an error-detecting code added to a frame in a communications protocol. As you can not, not only the specific frame shown in the top diagram, the below screen shots tells that most of the frame here with FCS.

Data Pad: Frame contents has padding between the 802.11 header and the data payload to align the payload to a 32-bit boundary.

Bad FCS: Frame was received with an invalid FCS.

Short GI: Frame was sent/received with Short Guard Interval. The guard interval is the space between symbols (characters) being transmitted. It is used to eliminate inter-symbol interference, and increases throughput.
However, according to the below diagram, this AP, even the short GI is not set, is hardware capable with such features.

CMS vs. LMS

For those who may not quite understand, CMS stand for "content management system" and LMS, "learning management system". Some of the individuals believe they are about the same, where the writer of this article attempts to provide better explanation on the differences.

By definition, any user can start his/her document management, and then upload to a CMS where editing, viewing, deleting task can be practiced. Then, the owner(s) of the system can invite other audience to read (most limited to content viewing privileges) in the content displayed in that application (most of them in web-based).

LMS, on the other hands, is taking the learning as an initiative. It usually consists of learning materials, in different formats (PDF, Video, Audio), and learner profile, as well as any learning activities associated with each learner. The learning activity deals with Course Registration, Training Attendance Record, Examination Grade, Multiple File Downloads, as well as others.

What are the main differences between CMS and LMS? The following statements should assist you on that:

• User Behavior: CMS tends to be more passive, awaiting for the end user to visit this application and obtain what they are interested in. On the contrary, LMS provides an environment where learners are actively involved. More interaction between course instructor and learners are appearing in LMS. Tracking the progress of each student and view their activity in LMS is more possible and attainable.
• Motivation to Learn : Learners in LMS are more self-motivated. They want to learn new technologies, new concept, and want to have a chance to approach professors from Ivy League. Coursera is an example of that. Learners in LMS even would request some of the new courses being activated in LMS, even with expensive charge. The users in CMS are more like to search for answer, when there is any misunderstanding of a concept, or How-to case scenario.
• Organized Learning Content: In CMS, most of the information tend to be sporadic displayed, with minor attention to layers of access and presentation. Product name is usually a key index being identified where all contents are sorted by creation date/time. However, in LMS, we tend to collect content, by specific topics. For example, Fundamental Concepts of Networking, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), Internet Protocol Security (IP Sec), How-To in a WLAN controller, something like that. However, layers of access and presentation.

Most of the enterprises start with a CMS, where there are a lot of technical guidelines, troubleshooting know how, even customer support cases. With a significant amount of "knowledge" in context, many senior managers would take another approach by converting those materials into a "LMS". That serve the purposes of (a) expanding the target audience basis, and (b) building a brand (of this company, or the "knowledge transferring" services being provided). Well, some of the professionals would interpret those information is only "Data" not "Knowledge", where re-write tasks are required. There is no right or wrong in this type of relationship, as long as intended (learning) purposes can be served and provided to target audience.

Building The Relevant Quiz Activity On Your LMS

To measure the effectiveness of learning (or skill competence level), setting up Quiz (or examination session) becomes a very common practice inside a Learning Management System (LMS).

Types of Interactive Quiz Formats: Multiple-Choice Questions, True/false, Match-The-Pair, Fill-in the gaps are only some of the sample questions formats. The following diagram shows available Quiz format from Docebo.

Most of LMS vendors come with excellent process flow for the course creators to design Quiz. Some of the related parameters include: "Set Level of Difficulty (of each question)" "Score of answer mark correctly" "Score of answer mark incorrectly" The underneath diagram, also from Docebo, can elaborate that.

Quiz Time Limit (Quiz Duration): Each LMS does offer flexibility in setting up quiz time limit, where it definitely has something to do with the number of questions to be displayed, level of knowledge being involved, the length of question statements, and course arrangement. The writer of this blog senses that 15-seconds would be a good arrangement for single-selection question, 30-seconds, multiple selections questions.

Quiz Availability: In some of the courses, the instructor will set the time frame where a Quiz session can be started and when it will not longer be available. This is a good practice for "Class-room oriented" sessions. It is believed that some of the courses in Coursera is managing the very same way. However, in some of the LMS, courses are delivered to Channel Partners or System Integrators. Under such circumstances, we shall allow greatest availability for each Quiz session, if any, to meet their most work schedule convenience.

The following diagram shows the Quiz Availability in Moodle.

Quiz Reviews: Are you providing the function for the learners to review the Quiz being taken? Some of the LMS is able to show the correct / incorrect, right after each question being answered. That would give the learned immediate refreshment. However, some of the course instructor prefer the students to retake the Quiz a few times, once the passing score is reached.

The writer of this blog also creates "Feedback" session for the Quiz. It allows the Quiz takers to make some of the comments or even address questions. They assist the Examination Committee getting a different thoughts when designing those questions.

The following diagram presents Question behavior options in Moodle.

Again, the purpose of developing Quiz is to make an assessment, ensuring the understanding of stated learning materials. Ensuring your learning materials would be clearly digested and practiced, that would make much sense. Your Quiz really should point to that direction.

WLAN Analysis with Wireshark (Radiotap Header Section, Part 2)

Time Synchronization Function Timer (TSFT): is utilized to fulfill timing synchronization among (wireless) users.

The TSFT sub-field under the Present flags (of Radiotap Header Section) indicates its capability to show this information.The right-hand side diagram indicates this frame (7) is able to deliver that data.


The Wireshark MAC timestamp display filter is "radiotap.mactime" it is is a sequence number where the latter frame is embedded with higher TSFT. In 802.11 standard, Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS) defines a distributed Timing synchronization function (TSF). What that means, any two stations in an IBSS network are physically located in the signal reachable area, from the other station’s point of view.
A TSF keeps the timers for all stations in the same basic service set (BSS) synchronized. All stations shall maintain a local TSF timer. The diagram in below indicates, each station has a counter which will be used for two stations to exchange timing information on BSS ID (06:20:17:11:22:52).

The right-hand side diagram, with the filter of "wlan.bssid == 40:9b:cd:0c:67:58" could present more information. As you can see several STA are in the range of "40:9b:cd:0c:67:58," including MAC address ended with 38:ff:22; 97:78:6c; 00:01:11. 

The type of counting is in increments of microseconds.

Frame 39182 & 39183, with below diagram, show the same MAC timestamp. It turns our 39183 is a malformed fame where the radiotap data goes past the end of the radiotap header.