[Tfug] New VoIP Class at Pima

[George Cohn]

Angus Scott-Fleming wrote:
> On 10 Jun 2008 at 19:12, George Cohn  wrote:
> 
>> [Blatant advertisement for a new Pima Community College Class]
>>
>> After two long years we finally got the Intro to VOIP class on the fall 
>> schedule at PCC.  Here's the official description of the class:
>>
>> CRN 15065 CIS 298T8
>> ....
>> It's only a three credit class on Wednesday night at West Campus from 
>> 5:40pm-08:30pm.  While telephony isn't the most exciting application in 
>> the world, it's one that is ubiquitous in that everyone has some sort of 
>> phone service.  ;-)
> 
> When does it run?
> 

It runs from 08/27-12/21 on Wednesday nights from 5:40PM to 8:30PM at
West Campus in room A228 as a 3 credit course.

This is one of the computer equipped classrooms in the Santa Rita 
building.  It will meet for 16 sessions.

While attendance is not required, it is a hands on class so attend as 
many sessions as possible.  There will be Linux installs, Asterisk 
installs, a lot of configuration and some networking as well as some 
configuration of real phones.

When you get through, you should have a solid feel of how IP telephony 
works and be capable of building a server of your own for home, SOHO, or 
small business use.  We may also explore some neat applications like 
parsing the local weather report and having the phone system "read" the 
weather forecast for you as well as displaying it on the phone display.

We will get into an in depth look at building a dial plan, some security 
issues, and a discussion of QOS issues related to VOIP.  Depending on 
the class desires, we may cover some GUI tools but most of it will be at 
the Linux command line.

If we get enough people signed up, we will build several servers and 
network them together to be able to place and receive calls from each 
server.

I think it will be a fun class and something that any Linux geek will 
enjoy.  I have been assigned as the instructor and I have more than 30 
years of telephony experience including some four years of Asterisk 
experience.

Unfortunately, it didn't get on the schedule in time to make the printed 
class schedules and even now it doesn't show up if you list the CIS 
classes. But do a search for CIS298 and it will show up as CRN 15065. 
There are no prerequisites although some knowledge of Linux and 
networking would be helpful.

I would really like to see a lot of folks sign up as I think it will be 
fun and give you the opportunity to see what many businesses are 
currently using for voice communications.

In case you are wondering, adjunct faculty gets paid diddly-squat so 
this is more a labor of love than a job.  ;-)

George Cohn