@nformer

Capilano College
Faculty Excel at Novell

Submitted by Diane Blaney

ast January, 10 intrepid Capilano

College instructors from Applied
Business Technology, Business
Administration and Computer Science
attended a three-day workshop led by
Stephen Ibaraki, Business
Administration instructor and a certified
Novell instructor (CNI). Steve attempted
to give us the lowdown on becoming
CNI’s. Hundreds of hours of preparation
were expected, 92 per cent on each of
three written exams, plus an instructor
performance evaluation (IPE) with only
two technical and two presentation errors
or omissions permitted.

As aresult of (or should I say despite
those) encouraging words, eight faculty
members (including myself) proceeded,
meeting in May for a one-week intensive
course. Throughout the next seven
weeks, the group met weekly over pizza

and practised for the upcoming instructor
performance evaluation. We knew that the
presentation had to fit into a 43 to 45
minute time frame. For some, keeping it
down to 45 minutes was nothing short of
impossible!

Finally, the last week of preparation
arrived. The final weekend found the
group here from dawn to well past dusk.
We just couldn’t seem to get enough! Test
day dawned. On Monday, June 26, the
“test evaluator” arrived and lulled us into
a false sense of comfort before allowing
us to draw an unknown presentation topic
from his prepared selection. Everyone
breathed a sigh of relief when no one got
the dreaded “Printer” topic, although each
of the topics had a tremendous amount of
detail which needed to be covered.

Starting at noon, we began creating
overheads, testing media and practising
presentations. We thought we’d be home

for dinner, but at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning,

Pictured from left to right: (Back
row) Test evaluator Ron Mott, Chris
Watkiss, Dave Bonser; (front row)
Gord Simon, Diane Blaney, Bill
Inkster, Yvonne Coady, Tony Carter,
Bawn Campbell and Stephen
Ibaraki.

we were still here!

Ron Mott from Novell had asked
earlier if we could start our
presentations at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday
morning. Had we known we’d still be
working on them only four hours
before, we might not have been so
agreeable. Straws were drawn and Tony
Carter went first followed by each of
the other candidates in 45 minute
intervals. By 3 p.m. that afternoon it
was over! As everyone calmed down
and recognized just how completely
exhausted we were, Bill Inkster
summed it up when he said, “It was a
one in a million experience. I wouldn’t
take a million dollars to repeat it, nor
would I pay a penny.”

All the CNI candidates passed. This
is an extremely rare achievement as a 0
- 50 per cent passing rate is common.
According to Novell, the world’s largest
company in the burgeoning field of
“Information Highway” (Networking)
technology, “The Capilano College
Certified Novell Instructor Group is the
strongest and best prepared group
they’ve tested.”

None of this would have been
possible without the support of the
College administration — Greg Lee and
John Potts, as well as the leadership
and tireless support of super CNI,
Stephen Ibaraki, who was with the
group night and day. The camaraderie
that grew amongst the group that
consisted of myself, Dave Bonser,
Bawn Campbell, Tony Carter, Yvonne
Coady, Bill Inkster, Gord Simon and
Chris Watkiss, was fantastic, and
everyone agreed with Bill -- they
wouldn’t have missed it for anything. i

@ @ Capilano
@€e= College

Vol. XVII No. 8
September 22/95