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Sign Up Now for NACTEL’s Mobile Technologies Certificate

 

February 17, 2012

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An online learning program focused on mobile technologies is the latest offering of NACTEL, the National Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning, a partnership of leading corporations, the IBEW and the Communications Workers of America that has trained thousands of union members since 1997. Courses are also available in operating systems.


Topics in the mobile technology curriculum include basic radio concepts, analog cellular,digital, emerging wireless technologies, mobile devices, mobile operating systems, VoIP in mobile networks and high-level convergence.

Students may choose to take individual courses to supplement job skills without committing to full degrees .Or they may apply the courses at a later date to 19-credit hour certificates or 64-credit hour associate’s degree in mobile technologies.

All NACTEL courses are online and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As a member of the NACTEL coalition, IBEW can offer a tuition discount for its members.

For more information, visit: http://www.nactel.org/ibew/as-mobile.html

In addition to the mobile technologies curriculum, NACTEL invites workers to sign up for two-and four-credit courses on operating systems provided by Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science. The courses are 100 percent online and will help prepare industry students to troubleshoot the various operating systems they see in clients’ homes.

IBEW Media Department Director Jim Spellane, a member of NACTEL’s executive board, alongside a representative of the CWA and industry managers from Verizon, Frontier, CenturyLink and AT&T, says: 

Every year since 1997, the board has received glowing testimonials from IBEW members who have advanced their skills and confidence through their participation in NACTEL courses. This is a program that is both unique and highly effective. We urge members to check out NACTEL’s offerings now and sign up before it’s too late for 2012’s schedule.

In a 2009 survey, the Business Roundtable painted an alarming picture of the state of training programs for high-tech careers in the U.S. Employers, the study reported, are demanding better skilled workers. But too often, the same employers fail to provide or design training that is both affordable and convenient for employees. Says Spellane:

NACTEL is a model for other industries and unions to follow. Just as joint programs to improve worker safety have succeeded by separating collective bargaining conflicts from the overall need to protect workers’ lives and health, NACTEL’s progress has depended upon unions and companies in the telecommunications industry putting our differences on hold to spread the skills that will help our members thrive in a super-competitive world economy.

Each year 550 students take an average of 2,500 NACTEL courses. Five hundred students have earned an associate’s degree. Two hundred have earned a bachelor’s degree.

 

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user SimonG.