Tjeerd and I took the train from Kings Cross Station (no, there is no Platform 9¾, I checked) to York. We had to get from the event with MS Employ in London to the University of York in 2 hours in order to participate in an early bird session that Andrew Bettany, one of Microsoft Learning’s strongest evangelists, put together. We were meeting with MCTs, members of our ITA program, and several institutions who are interested in both programs. Before we arrived, Rhys Hines from Prodigy Learning introduced Microsoft’s IT Academy program and Andrew described how the ITA was implemented at York. When we arrived, Tjeerd described the MCT program and Microsoft Learning’s vision for tools that we can provide educators and I discussed exams (I may be a one trick pony :)).
Near the end of the session, Tjeerd demoed our MCT Readiness portal and linked to an MCT LiveMeeting on Windows Server 2008 that was occurring at that very moment. MCT Readiness support is a key part of our MCT program. When Tjeerd logs in, he is immediately greeted by various MCTs, the chat screens pop up everywhere J. The audience immediately responded that this type of training and online interaction would be very helpful. Tjeerd was excited by that, and tonight he will likely dream about plans for an academic training program.
England has a very strong ITA program. Although Microsoft usually partners with companies, we are trying to do more partnering with educators and academic institutions, and England may be a great place to start given the passion that the audience had about learning and finding the best solution to help their students get the education they need for success. It’s clear that there’s a strong need for Microsoft to create a program that will help educators with technical readiness, support, and learning tools
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