Basic Skills Lab - A New Fiber U Online Self-Study Course FOAs Fiber U free online self-study courses are quite popular and our experiment with offering certificates of completion to the Basic Fiber Optics course has been extremely successful. We plan to offer certificates of completion for other FOA courses and several new applications courses in 2015. FOA just started a new course on Fiber U that is different and unique, called Basic Skills Lab. In the FOA Online Guide, there are dozens of tutorials that give instructions and hints on the basic processes used in fiber optic installation: preparing cables, splicing, termination and testing. Many of these use a format we call Virtual Hands-On (VHO) where we analyze the process, break it into small steps, describe each and give hints on how to make it easier/faster/better. Weve used these in teaching these processes in the classroom for years. By combining them with YouTube lectures and hands-on videos, this Basic Skills Lab provides an online way for novices to learn the processes we use every day in our work and let experienced techs review them and learn new tricks of the trade. At FOA, we have always adhered to the requirement of KSAs for technical training and certifications. KSA means knowledge, skills and abilities. Knowledge you can learn either in a classroom or online, skills you learn in a lab with an experienced teacher, abilities are innate - you have to have certain abilities to do skilled work. The Fiber U Basic Skills Lab is not a substitute for a lab with an experienced teacher, but if you have your own equipment and supplies and like to learn on your own, the Fiber U Basic Skills Lab can guide you through the processes you need to know and then you can practice on your own. There is an important point here. To use the Fiber U Basic Skills Lab online training properly, you need to have your own equipment and supplies and like to learn on your own. FOA sees the Fiber U Basic Skills Lab as being best for those already working in the field who want to learn new skills or novices who have just started at a company that has equipment and some personnel who can provide advice and guidance as they learn these new skills. Here is what the Basic Skills Lab covers Lesson 1: Introduction, Safety in Working With Fiber Optics Lesson 2: Fiber Optic Tools and Equipment Lesson 3: Fiber Optic Cables Lesson 4: Fiber Optic Splicing Lesson 5: Fiber Optic Termination Lesson 6: Fiber Optic Testing Each lesson has several sections to cover various processes and components. For example, termination covers epoxy/polish, anaerobic/polish, HotMelt, prepolished/splice connectors and a final section on singlemode splicing. Testing includes OLTS and OTDR testing, of course, but also fiber tracing and visual fault location, visual inspection of connectors, optical power and calculating loss budgets. In total there are 24 separate lessons so it would take a long time to complete them all! Most users will pick and choose the ones they need most, but we highly recommend you do every lesson in the testing lesson. Typical lessons will instruct you to read some materials from the FOA Guide or textbook, watch a video and then use a Virtual Hands-On (VHO) lesson to step you through the process while you actually use the equipment to teach yourself the process. This Fiber U Basic Skills Lab is quite different from most online courses but weve gotten a lot of input on the course and those who have tried it like the approach. We hope you find it helpful and will give us feedback on how we can improve and expand it. The Fiber U Basic Skills Lab is one of the FOA Fiber U free online courses: fiberu.org/Basic%20Skills%20Lab/index.html fiberu.org/
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:05:41 +0000
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