Widespread Internet Outage – 08/30/2020

Greg Greiner August 30, 2020 No Comments

An internet outage affected the electrical training ALLIANCE systems today, (8/30/20) as it did many other providers.  The issue was found to be with a third-party internet transit provider incident with Century Link that then cascaded to affect many other services.  This meant services like Cloudflare, Hulu, the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Feedly, Discord, and dozens of other services, like ours, reported connectivity problems Sunday morning.  Please see this post for more details.

We saw issues appear on our monitors with the LMS, TMS and the IC systems just after 6:30am EDT Sunday.  These issues were intermittent but began to stabilize fully just after 11am EDT.  A notice was posted to the login pages of all systems, as well as status on onlinesystemstatus.org.  These notices were pulled down following recovery of the programs.

We have a team continuing to monitor the situation and will post updates as needed. We know how important these services are and will continue as always to monitor and communicate regarding site access.

 

What’s in it for you – vNTI 2020 July 27th-31st

Greg Greiner June 24, 2020 No Comments

vNTI 2020 is fast approaching and you want to be sure to be left in.  There is much to offer to all those supporting the IBEW-NECA industry and training.  There are Committee, Technical and Instructor Professional Education training sessions available throughout the week [July 27th -July 31st].  There are just too many highlights to list them all, but here are a few for each group.  For a full list check out the event booklet here. https://bit.ly/vNTI_2020_InfoBooklet

Just a Handful of the Highlights:

The Committee Sessions:

  • State of the Apprenticeship with Executive Director Todd Stafford
  • The Apprentice Startup Challenge with ELECTRI
  • An Update with NECA and IBEW with NECA CEO David Long and IBEW International President Lonnie Stephenson
  • Safety Update including OSHA and ET&D with Palmer Hickman and Wes Wheeler
  • Many Legal Sessions covering topics like Substance Abuse Policy and EEOC Guidance on  COVID-19 Testing; ERISA and Potential Relief during COVID-19; Standards & EEO Policy Changes
  • A Roundtable with Milwaukee
  • And so much more

The Technical Sessions:

  • Updates to the NEC® and associated training content
  • Clarifications and communications on worker safety and the NFPA 70E®
  • Explanations from the authors on Grounding and Bonding and Code Calculations
  • Fundamental aspects of the LMS and curriculum planning tools like the CLCS

As well as interactive sessions planned regarding:

  • Conduit Level II Labs and Calculations in support of AC Theory Trig
  • The PLR and Instrumentation Desktop Trainers
  • Transformer Simulation use for the Inside and the Outside Simulator
  • The new Motor Control Simulator on what it is and how to use it
  • The Electrical Theory Simulator for use in training on AC and DC Theory

Instructor Professional Education Sessions:

The virtual NTI professional education and experience for the I Group (or Instructor Program) have single day sessions created for Instructors.

  • Monday is First Year,
  • Tuesday is Second Year
  • Wednesday is Third Year
  • Thursday is Fourth Year and Advanced Studies
  • Thursday is also for the Pre-I Group

Participants will enjoy interactive sessions with the Lead Instructors from each year focusing on:

  • Reconnecting with professional education topics and with peers
  • Reflecting on how previous skills have been successful or not
  • Reconsidering practices from both the Professional Educators and peer attendees
  • Reinvigoration for success on the next school year – no matter the challenges.

 

Please note that instructors will attend for the year they last completed; if you were in First Year in 2019 (or an earlier year), you should register for First Year in the vNTI 2020.  If you are a new instructor or new to NTI, there will be a Pre-I Group session on Thursday.  The Pre-I Group will meet with several Professional Educators who will offer them a tour of what NTI offers as well as providing insights into upcoming changes in the way apprenticeship training will be conducted.

 All I Group participants will have the option to register to attend Technical sessions on the other days.

Yep…There’s More! Because you attend you will also receive…

Some time-slots for each day have multiple sessions running concurrently.  To avoid concern of picking one thing and missing out on another.  All sessions will be recorded and reposted to the days event packaged course.  This means those who register will have access to everything presented that day.

Registration is just a click away.  To register access  https://electricaltrainingevents.org

  • If you do not remember your log-in information, simply go the site and click Sign In located in the top right corner. After that, select the Forgot Password link and enter your email address. An email will be sent to you with a link to reset your password.
  • For even more information visit our NTI website at http://nti.electricaltrainingevents.org

Can’t wait to see you at the vNTI!

 

Thanks for Reading!

2020 Curriculum and Planning Tools Are Ready

Greg Greiner June 8, 2020 No Comments

The 2020-21 electrical training ALLIANCE curriculum continues to roll out some new and exciting resources. First, the ’20-21 Training Essentials catalog was released in April, and made available for download by logging into the member’s area of our site. The ’20-21 student Syllabi, and the Course Level and Credit Summary (CLCS) Catalog and Roadmap view worksheets are also available… well…in the CLCS. Now as we near the July 1 date for the ’20-21 content use, many courses have been made available. (more…)

2020 Curriculum Catalog Planning Guide is Now Available

Greg Greiner April 22, 2020 No Comments

The new electrical training ALLIANCE 2020 Training Essentials catalog is now available from the electrical training ALLIANCE website. When you are ready and the time is right – Planning can start now for the next school year. To access and download the catalog, log in to the member’s area of the site. Once there, click on the Resources tab and then click the Downloads link. You will find the Catalog as a list item and from there both the current catalogs as well as the new ones are there for downloading. — As a reminder: Placing orders from the new catalog may not begin until July 2020. Orders needing to be placed before then need to be made using the 2019 catalog.

(more…)

LMS and TMS Maintenance Notice

Greg Greiner March 26, 2020 No Comments

Maintenance Outage Notification Saturday April 4th 4am EDT to 9am EDT

The Learning Management System (LMS) and the Training Management System (TMS) will be undergoing basic maintenance.

During this time the system may undergo a number of restarts and refreshes.  Even if accessible, the system is

Under Constructionto be considered off-line.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.

Maintenance Outage Notification — Please avoid using the system

Saturday April 4th 4am EDT to 9am EDT

This notice is also posted on the login pages to each the TMS and LMS.

Thanks For Reading!

 

Electrical Theory Simulator Updated

Greg Greiner March 20, 2020 No Comments

The Electrical Theory Simulator (ETS) continues to be improved upon.  Besides supporting nearly all platforms, it now has better circuit viewing and saving functionality.

Realtime use of the ETS saw a change in meter lead display where the leads are offset to support ease of seeing what is being measured.  Next, we improved upon the ability to save and then share circuit builds.  For example, (more…)

Adobe Flash and the Final Updates Regarding the ETS

Greg Greiner February 3, 2020 No Comments

On December 31st, 2020, Adobe Systems will officially stop updating and distributing Adobe Flash.  Several industries and businesses have been built around Flash technology — including gaming, education and video.  To be ready for this change, the LMS team at the electrical training ALLIANCE began planning and revising system components over three years ago.  Today we are excited to share that we are nearing the day where (more…)

Support for Windows 7 is nearing the end

Greg Greiner December 20, 2019 No Comments

Machines Running Windows 7

Do you own or work from a personal computer running Windows 7? If so, keep reading. As presented at the past two NTI’s and all regional seminars, the end of support for Windows 7 has come upon us.  Beginning January 14, 2020, Microsoft will no longer provide support for the Windows 7 operating system:

  • No tech support for any issues
  • No software updates
  • No security updates or fixes

Although a Windows 7 computer will still function, it will be at a much greater risk for viruses and malware. Not good. So, we do recommend that if you own or work from a Windows 7 computer that you upgrade to Windows 10 before January 14, 2020. Optionally and depending on its age, you might consider purchasing a new computer.  Can you believe when Windows 7 was released, the iPhone 2 was one of the new cool gadgets?

The landing page of the LMS will soon undergo an upgrade and while this upgrade occurs, one of the changes to note will be the devices that are considered recommended and compatible.  Windows 7 will no longer show as compatible and changes to what is deemed recommended will come soon as well due to the system continuing to become more system agnostic everyday.

For more information for Windows users out there, check out this video for a full explanation of what it means when Microsoft ends support for one of its Operating Systems and how to prepare.

Microsoft Windows 7 End of Life Support site

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful Holiday Season!

LMS Performance Issue – Dec. 15, 2019 11:55am – 12:27pm Eastern

Greg Greiner December 15, 2019 No Comments

The Learning Management System experienced erratic performance on Sunday, December 15, 2019 from approximately 11:55am eastern until 12:27pm eastern affecting some users and their interaction with the system.  Sensors alarmed the support team immediately and troubleshooting was begun. The team found and fixed the problem and confirmed performance had returned to acceptable metrics.  As soon as the team was able to provide a reason for the disturbance, a notice was placed on the login pages to both the TMS and the LMS to alert users that we were aware of and working on the issue.

We understand the importance of the LMS for our users and are very sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused.  All systems began to run normally at approximately 12:27pm Eastern Sunday and continue to function acceptably.  We continue to monitor the system and again, apologize for the system issue.