Microsoft IT Academy Program membership provides you with the resources you need to plan the right technology courses, align with industry hiring needs, and deliver dynamic learning experiences to a diverse community of students. These resources help you streamline class preparation and reach students in new and engaging ways. Explore the tools available to you as an IT Academy educator.
As an educator at a Microsoft IT Academy Program school, you now have access to the most relevant and time-saving resources designed to help you customize your instruction and better engage students at all technology skill levels. Download free, customizable lesson plans to save time on class preparation and hone in on which topics are most important for a given technology.
These lesson plans are ready to use as is, or you can customize them to fit your specific teaching and learning goals. They provide suggestions for how to get the classroom ready for each day’s presentation and which topics to cover each day. They delve into typical issues for students, and they include quiz material, student projects, and references to videos to be used in or out of class for reinforcement.
The lesson plans have been written independently, and you can use them with Microsoft Official Academic Courseware (MOAC), reference books, and E-Learning.
View a sample lesson plan (Microsoft Word 2010 ZIP file, 1.39 MB)
The Microsoft Learning Content Development System (LCDS) is a free tool that enables you to create high-quality, interactive, online courses and Microsoft Silverlight Learning Snacks.
The LCDS allows anyone in the Microsoft Learning community to publish e-learning courses and Learning Snacks by completing the easy-to-use LCDS forms that seamlessly generate highly customized content, interactive activities, quizzes, games, assessments, animations, demos, and other multimedia.
The LCDS offers a library of templates to help you design e-learning courses. Access LCDS sample courses to understand how you can use different course structures and a variety of templates to create engaging e-learning courses.
As an IT Academy member, you can download our course completion certificate, add your school logo, insert the course and student information, then print and distribute. Refer to the image below to see the customizable fields of the certificate template.
Course completion certificates are a great way to recognize the achievement of students that take and pass your course.
Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) are the premier technical and instructional experts in Microsoft products, technologies, and solutions. The MCT community spans more than 150 countries and includes classroom and e-learning instructors, learning consultants, authors, conference presenters, user group leaders, and more. All are united by passion and talent for helping Microsoft customers and partners realize their full learning potential. MCTs must meet rigorous certification requirements.
To teach the resources provided as part of IT Academy, your institution is not required to employ educators who have an MCT credential. The Microsoft Certified Trainer program offers tools and benefits that help educators prepare for and deliver top notch training.
As part of your IT Academy benefits, you may enroll one of your educators free of charge and additional educators may enroll at a 25 percent discount.
Access to the complete library of Official Microsoft Learning products
Substantial discounts on exams, books, and Microsoft products
Members-only newsgroups and online community resources
Invitations to exclusive events and programs
Savings on annual fees
Find out more about how the MCT program can benefit Microsoft IT Academy educators
Download the brochure (PDF file, 1.11 MB)
Learn more about the MCT program
Partners in Learning is a 10-year, nearly $500 million commitment by Microsoft to help education systems around the world. Since its inception in 2003, the Partners in Learning program has reached more than 196 million teachers and students in 114 countries. Online programs that support Partners in Learning include:
Partners in Learning Network, one of the world’s largest global professional networks for educators, connecting millions of teachers and school leaders around the world in a community of professional development.
Partners in Learning for Educators helps teachers effectively use technology in the classroom. It gives them opportunities to develop their technology expertise, create an environment that helps accelerate student’s 21st century skills, and to join a global community of education innovators. Educators can share insights and best practices and learn how to more effectively use technology to improve their teaching practices.
Microsoft Partners in Learning for Schools is a program that helps school leaders develop a vision to transform their school community into an environment that fosters 21st century learning and innovative teaching practices. The program helps innovative educators thrive by offering system-level support to discover, share, and scale best practices, develop models and assets that help students achieve their potential, and create a collaborative community of school leaders.
Get started and get inspired! Create your profile on the Partners in Learning Network.
Research shows that innovative teaching practices, supported by the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom strongly predict students’ acquisition of 21st century skills (Innovative Teaching and Learning Research, 2011) Part of Microsoft’s Partners in Learning professional development offerings, the Teaching with Technology Curriculum is online learning that supports an educator’s professional development in this area. This curriculum focuses on helping educators integrate ICT into their teaching and learning practice and is aligned to the global standards of the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (UNESCO ICT-CFT), Technology Literacy Approach.
Created to help set a foundation beyond learning to use technology tools, educators will develop a deeper understanding of how ICT integration can enhance the teaching and learning experience and enable 21st century skill acquisition via six e-learning Courses:
Why Does the UNESCO ICT CFT Promote Technology Literacy?
Selecting ICT Resources to Support Curriculum Outcomes
How Technology and Pedagogy Mix
Using Basic ICT Tools to Support Teaching and Learning
Organize and Manage the Use of ICT in the Classroom
Technology Literacy and Your Professional Development
The Microsoft Teaching with Technology Self-assessment and Curriculum are competency-based and can be customized to meet each educator’s needs:
The Self-assessment helps educators identify the specific learning that they need
Each unit of study stands on its own so educators can focus on a specific area of interest or need
Using the Self-assessment can help with both online and offline study. By starting with the Self-assessment, educators can determine the best way to fill their learning gaps and then retake the Self-assessment to confirm progress
Created by subject matter experts from around the world, the curriculum includes a range of learning scenarios. Whether a classroom has one computer or a laptop for every student, the educator will be able to apply what they have learned to their individual context
The Microsoft Teaching with Technology Self-assessment and Curriculum are competency-based, which means they help build both skills and the ability to apply those skills to perform a particular job or task. Combined with the global network of educators found on the Partners in Learning network, they help provide six key components for effective competency-based professional development:
A common set of competency standards defined by role or educational goals.
Methods for identifying learning gaps.
Help filling competency gaps with a rich and varied set of aligned resources, such as job shadowing, classes, workshops, and eLearning.
Assessments, observation, or portfolio work that help verify improved teacher competencies
Peer support or mentoring to help teachers carry forward ICT use to the classroom.
Ongoing refinement of teacher competency materials
Governments worldwide are striving to improve student outcomes and meet the challenges of preparing a 21st century workforce for a global, knowledge-based economy. The UNESCO Competency Framework for Teachers is a response to these challenges. In 2008, in partnership with Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, and ISTE, UNESCO formalized the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT) with an aim to measure the ICT proficiency of teachers against a common international standard and to aid in their professional development. These standards were updated in 2011.
As an IT Academy member you will have access to the six e-learning courses and Self-assessment via the IT Academy member’s E-learning site. The amount of time required to develop professional skills using the Self-assessment and Curriculum depends on an educator’s learning needs.
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