MS-600 Exam Prep: About this course

Hey, and welcome back. In this lesson, I want to explain what you can expect from this course. I'm going to start with the course syllabus. The first chapter is the only one that there's that's not about the different workloads. And as you've seen, this chapter contained an overview of the certification, the exam, and this course. Then, I'm going to have one chapter for each of the different workloads that are covered on the exam. The chapter on Microsoft identity, that includes Azure AD. But we're going to ignore all the parts of Microsoft identity that's not specifically related to Azure AD. I'm also going to skip all of the consumer stuff and all the business-to-consumer stuff known as B2C. And Microsoft accounts or Microsoft or MSAs as well. I've got a chapter that covers building apps for Microsoft Graph. And then there's a chapter on SharePoint. It's mostly about SharePoint online. There's nothing about SharePoint on prem because the exam covers only SharePoint online as that's what's Microsoft 365. There's a chapter on Microsoft Teams. And finally, I'm going to wrap up the course with two chapters on the workloads that were added to the exam in August of 2022. These cover design collaborative app solutions and or integrating existing apps by extending them into Microsoft Teams. And another chapter on testing, deploying, monitoring, and maintaining modern enterprise-grade app solutions. Now, let's talk about how I've broken up or structured each one of the chapters in this course. Each chapter contains an overview lesson. And this lesson defines what the workload is and what you can what you need to know and how Microsoft approached it. I'll also cover what things you can avoid to save you some time in preparing for the exam. And finally, if I've got any recommendations in approaching this workload, I'll cover them in this overview lesson as well. Now, some chapters will have a lesson that includes links to a ton of additional resources that you can use to learn about topics that you might not be familiar with. These resources are for Microsoft documentation about the feature, developer documentation, as well as resources available in Microsoft learning. Microsoft learning contains many modules and learning paths available that you can use as self-paced study guides. Recall that earlier in this chapter, I told you that I'm not trying to teach you everything you can do in Microsoft 365 for these different workloads, as well as how to do it. And instead, I want to focus on covering the specific things that you're going to be tested on in the exam. If you don't know how to do something that I cover as a need-to-know, and you want to learn more, use the resources that I provide to get you up to speed until you feel like you have enough experience to go answer the questions or complete an interactive exercise on those tasks. And yes, I have heard that some exams have interactive labs where you're either completing a fill-in-the-blank code example, or you're working through configuring an app in Azure AD's portal, such as selecting and granting permissions. Remember that this is a preparation course. I know what's in the Microsoft learn modules like the back of my hand because Microsoft hired me to author over 30 of them. These make up the self-paced learning option from Microsoft for the MS-600 exam. Now, with that being said, they're not exhaustive and cover everything that you need to know. There are some things in the Microsoft learn or MS learn modules that you won't need to know for the exam. So, throughout the course, I'm going to point out different hands-on labs that you'll want to review if you need more practice in specific areas. Therefore, this course will help you streamline your preparation by telling you what to focus on and what to ignore. You can also rest assured that the labs and modules are always current because Microsoft hires me to go through these modules and refresh them to make sure that the content is is current on a quarterly basis. And by the way, while most chapters in are going to include the mention of these resources in a separate lesson, some of the smaller workloads may include it at the end of the overview lesson. Now, once past the overview and resource lessons, the following lessons will then dive into the skills assessment topics that Microsoft says you need to know for the exam. And I also include things that I think that you're going to need to know based on my experience of when I took the exam. Because I saw some questions on the exam that were not included on the skills worksheet. Take note of the notes under each video for each lesson, as I'll include resources to both in the notes as well as links to the external resources to help you in your preparation. And in addition, there's a place under the lessons where you can leave a comment, or you can join us in the Voitanos community on Discord, where you can where you can have a discussion with me as well as with other students who have taken or also preparing for the exam. If your comment is about a specific topic covered in a specific lesson, just make sure that you include a link and a time code from the video, if applicable, when you post your question to Discord for some context. Now, the MS-600 exam will test you at varying depths of knowledge on the various workloads. I think it's going to help you if you understand how Microsoft measures education and quantifies your experience or knowledge level. And this is going to help you understand how you can prepare to be in the best position possible to pass the exam. In 1956, Benjamin Bloom, along with a bunch of other collaborators, published a framework for categorizing levels of knowledge. Bloom's taxonomy, as it was referred to, was also refreshed and updated in 2001. Now, this framework has been applied for generations by kindergarten through 12th grade teachers, also known as K-12, and college instructors in their teaching. Microsoft Learning also uses Bloom's taxonomy to quantify learning. This taxonomy, it consists of six major levels of know- knowing things, from basic knowledge to comprehension to application analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The levels after knowledge are presented as skills and abilities with the understanding that the knowledge is the is the necessary precondition for putting the skills and abilities into practice. Each of these categories contains subcategories along with a continuum of concepts ranging from simple to complex and concrete to abstract. The taxonomy is a very popular way to conceptualize lower order thinking at the bottom up to the higher order thinking at the top. What are these different thinking skills? Well, it starts with remember section, and this is where you can recall facts or and basic concepts. Next is understanding the concept, and that means being able to explain ideas or concepts. And then next up, that's being able to apply that information in new situations. The next level is analyzing, which is having the ability to draw conclusions and connections among different ideas. You want to be able to evaluate things to justify a stand or a decision. And finally, being able to create or produce new original work, that's the highest level of knowledge on a topic. Now, this is going to be important to understand because I'm going to reference these levels when I cover the depth at which you need to know the different workloads on the exam. Now, before we dive into this course, I think it's going to help if I explain how I've approached building this course because as with everything in life, and especially in this industry, knowing the why also helps in providing some perspective as you begin your preparation for the exam. Now, let me share with you what my goals are for this course. Or another way to say it, let me explain what this course is. Now, my goal with this course is to provide you with all the tools that you'll need to pass the exam and become a certified Microsoft 365 Teams application developer. But, I don't want to just charge you a fortune for this course. I don't think that's necessary. I also don't want to repeat what is already available to you. Think of this course and me as your guide in utilizing these available resources that I'm going to share with you. I'm going to guide you to what you need to know and what things you can skip to best prepare for the exam to become a certified Microsoft 365 Teams application developer. But, it's not just what the goals are. You're going to learn a lot about this course if I explain what this course is not intended to be. This course does not teach you every single topic that you could be tested on. I've mentioned this a few times, but what do I actually mean by it? Let me take SharePoint for example. You need to know how to build a web part with the SharePoint framework, but I'm not going to teach you how to build a web part and all the properties that are associated with the different APIs in this course. Why? Well, first of all, there are a ton of resources out there that show you how to do that. And second of all, I don't think that you should have to pay for all of that when those resources are already out there free and readily available. Instead, I'm going to show you where you can learn at your own pace and on your own time. And all those resources I point to, they're entirely free. Yes, I do have a SharePoint framework course that I do sell through Voitanos, but that goes into a lot more depth on building solutions with the SharePoint framework than you would be tested on with the MS-600. So, I'm not telling you not to buy the SharePoint framework course. This course is about preparing you for the exam and sharing resources that you can use to learn additional information about the workloads that you're going to be tested on if you're unfamiliar with an area that I'm going to cover. Now, I also have not included any instructor-led training or hands-on labs in this course. Why is that? Well, while I show you some code, we may look at and we may look at some interfaces and while I may call some things out that you need to be aware of, we're not going to build anything. And again, there are a ton of resources that are already out there. And you know what? Actually, hold that thought. That brings me to my next point. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Do you remember when I told you how Microsoft creates the certification? I was involved with helping create the certification and I helped come up with a list of all the topics that micro that developers should know to become what's considered a certified Microsoft 365 Teams application developer. Remember, that was the JTA and those OD groups that resulted in those big spreadsheets. I was involved in both those groups. Microsoft took that spreadsheet and they gave it to three different groups of people to build three things. Remember we talked about this earlier? First is the exam question writers and there's a really good firewall between those guys and people that did everything else because they didn't want anybody to be able to see the questions that were being written. I also didn't get to see the questions that were written. I've only seen them by taking the exam, just like you would see them. But they did also give that spreadsheet to the authors of the instructor-led course. And while they asked me to build the instructor-led course, I declined to do that because the timeline that they wanted the course to be written in was really compressed. It was much too fast and I didn't think that I could do a good job delivering a quality body of work. However, that course that was written, that is now the Microsoft official curriculum that they sell to vendors to help prepare you for this course. And this is what other training facilities used and sell as the instructor-led training for like $1,800, $2,500, up to $3,000 in 3 days and or 5 days in the classroom. But Microsoft also gave that spreadsheet to someone to build all the self-paced study content. And guess who they hired to write all the self-paced study content? That's right, me. That's the content that I wanted to write. It's all published on Micro- as Microsoft learning modules, complete with lectures, hands-on labs, sample project projects, and screencasts. And while it's not positioned as the here's what you need to know to pass the exam, nor is it designed to be definitive and exhaustive. So, what I've done in this course is I've built that whole checklist of what you need to learn and explain where you need to focus your preparation for the exam. This way, you're learning on your time at your own pace. And when you need to get a little bit more detail because I'm not covering it in depth enough for you, or when you need a hands-on lab to practice these things, I give you links and recommendations to those self-paced modules and the labs. And this way, you can work on them outside of this course and you're that you're watching right now. And unlike the instructor-led Microsoft curriculum that vendors use and charge you thousands of dollars for, that I might mention is not kept current, I'm not going to charge you for content that's already published and freely accessible. And to top it off, Microsoft maintains a contract with me to refresh those Microsoft learning modules every quarter. So, you know that they're always current. Oh yeah, by the way, that instructor-led Microsoft curriculum that was written, they actually used a lot of my content from the Microsoft learning modules because they didn't have the time to build the entire course. Now, let me talk about the mechanics of this course. And when you subscribe to this course, you've got access to all the content for as long as your subscription is active. Unlike some of my other courses, you don't have a lifetime access to the course. Why? Well, quite frankly, once you take the exam, you don't really need the course anymore. And while you subscribe to the course, you may have questions about some of the topics that are covered. Let's talk about how you can get answers to your questions. And first of all, please don't send me a question via email. I have thousands of students who have who have enrolled in my various courses, and I simply don't have the ability to answer everybody's question on a one-to-one basis in a timely manner. So, instead, let me tell you what I do, and I found this to work really well. Below every lesson video, including the one that you're watching right now, there's a section for notes that I've written, and there's a section for where you can leave a comment where you can post your questions. And I check them on a weekly basis and I respond on every single comment that comes through. Furthermore, I also have a set of channels in the Voitanos community on Discord that students for this course can use to discuss topics related to the course and the exam to ask questions. This is the best place for you to ask your questions because fellow students will also see them and offer their input. Feel free to join uh the Discord server, but you need to make sure that you link your Discord account with the Voitanos account, and you can learn more how to do that from the link that I'm including here. Why do I handle questions like like in this way? Well, because one-on-one conversations about technical questions like that, it isn't very effective as I'm only able to help one person at a time. But, if you leave a question in the comment box or in Discord, our conversation and the answers are going to benefit others who see it, and that's what I'm striving for. And plus, you're going to hear from more than just me. A few days after you enroll in the course, you can expect me to reach out to you via email to find out when you plan on taking the exam. And once you take the exam, let me know how you did. Share it in our Discord server. Let us all celebrate your success when you pass the exam. All right. Welcome to the course. Thank you for entrusting me to help you achieve the Microsoft 365 Teams application developer certification. In the next chapter on Microsoft identity, we're going to learn what parts of the identity platform that you need to know in order to pass this section of the MS-600 exam. So, I will see you in the next chapter.