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Earlier this month I had to conduct an online training event as part of my entry to the Online Learning Facilitator of the Year 2012 Award.

The session was “interesting” and I enjoyed delivering it and sharing my passion for the upcoming Windows 8 OS.  As part of the session, I demonstrated the User Interface and did this by using the WebEx Share Application feature to share a Remote Desktop session to a purpose built Windows 8 laptop.

The technical set-up was quite cool, considering that there was a Hyper-V server in the background in case any of the three laptops that were being used failed.

The aim of the session was to “humanise” the transition to a new OS and provide a platform to ask questions. As a backup, I had uploaded my slide deck to SlideShare, which can be viewed below. Enjoy!

On 19 October 2011 over a hundred educators, teachers, technical trainers, decision makers all descended on Microsoft HQ UK in Reading. The one thing that bound all these people together – they all represented UK Microsoft IT Academes from all corners of the UK.

The event was hosted by Greg Pearson (UK Lead, Microsoft Learning). The day was filled with sharing best practice and giving glimpses of the future of Microsoft certification and technologies. Here are some key points from the event:

Key Note

Karen Price OBE (CEO e-skills UK) and Stephen Uden (Head of Skills and Economic Affairs, Microsoft) presented the Key Note. They highlighted how the rate of unemployment (especially youth unemployment) has increased dramatically. Another grim aspect is that the number of young people taking ICT related A Levels had decreased by 14% in the last year. There were plenty of statistics that can be found at:

http://www.e-skills.com/technologyinsights2011

There were a certain number of initiatives that have been launched in order to ensure that the next generation IT workforce will be ready:

A brand new IT GCSE: http://www.e-skills.com/behindthescreen

This will change the focus from the GCSE which has become all about using Office to actually doing coding, understand cyber security and generally getting “behind the screen”.

Computer Club for Girls: http://www.e-skills.com/education/teachers/online-club-cc4g/

To encourage more women to enter the IT industry.

Also some bodies have been set up to “up-skill” the IT workforce:

The National Skills Academy for IT: http://www.itskillsacademy.ac.uk/
Skills Framework for the Information Age: http://www.sfia.org.uk/

ITA Benefits and Certifications

After all this, Greg once more took the stage and ran through the benefits of the ITA programme which can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/itacademy/default.aspx

Greg also highlighted how the “Cloud” is going to drive forward the Microsoft certification track. A summary of current certifications can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-cloud.aspx

Greg mentioned that approximately 10,000 MTA exams were delivered worldwide in the last year – the coolest point of this statistic is that over 4000 of those exams were delivered by Zenos!

Some key dates were mentioned at the ITA summit regarding new MTA certifications:

Mobile Development Fundamentals (98-373)

• Release: 30 November 2011
• ERK & SSG: January 2012

Gaming Development Fundamentals (98-374)

• Release: 17 November 2011
• ERK & SSG: January 2012

Office 365 coming in June 2012

OCR

Simon Garratt (Qualifications Manager, OCR) gave an update of how they have incorporated MS Certifications as part of their Competency Diplomas – to the point an entire Competency Diploma can be gained by completing a MCDBA – a bit of a tall order!

Lync Demonstration

Ewan Dalton (Partner Group Technology Manager, Microsoft) gave a great demonstration of using Lync in an enterprise. Educational institutions can get this as part of Office 365 for education:
http://www.microsoft.com/liveatedu/learn-about-office-365.aspx

City and Guilds

Ken Gaines (ICT Portfolio Management, City and Guilds) mirrored the talk from OCR and said that they have also incorporated MS certifications completely into their qualifications portfolio.

Best Practice

Best practice case studies were given by:

Alan Stevens, Headmaster at Sawtry College
Julian Brunger, MCT at Walsall College
Richard Seaton, Senior Lecturer at the Open University

You can watch video case studies for Sawtry and Walsall here:
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/schools/curriculum-resources/IT-academy/the-programme.aspx

Microsoft Evangelist

Lee Stott (Academic Developer Evangelist) gave a great overview of a range of technologies that can be used in teaching and learning. Lee talked about a range of technologies including:

Kinect: http://kinectforwindows.org/
Gadgeteer: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/gadgeteer/
Windows Phone: http://create.msdn.com/en-US/home/getting_started
Windows 8: http://www.buildwindows.com/

Microsoft Academic Service Partners

If you need help with harnessing your benefits then in the UK you have access to:

Prodigy Learning: http://www.prodigyuk.co.uk/
IT Skills Management Company: http://www.itskillsman.co.uk/

More information

If you want to know more about the topics discussed at the event, you can view all the presentations at:
http://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/presentations

Hot on the heels of the UK Microsoft IT Academy Summit 2011 is the CompTIA EMEA Member conference. This year the conference is taking place on the 9^th of November at the Hilton Metropole London. The conference has three different tracks:

• IT Channel – aimed at businesses
• Learning and Development – aimed at training providers / educators
• Training and Certification – aimed at anyone who wants to learn more about CompTIA’s certification portfolio

Last year the highlight for me was meeting best-selling author and A+ guru, Mike Meyers. This year, Mike is joined by Professor Messer and Todd Lammle. The giants of the CompTIA authoring and training world are all going to be in one place for what truly seems like a fantastic event.

CompTIA certifications are vendor neutral so they have a holistic view of the IT industry and are the market leaders of predicting what is going to be the next big technology that will shape the industry.  So it is no surprise that this year the focus of the conference is on the Cloud and mobile computing.

I’m really looking forward to the event as the agenda gives tantalising glimpses of what there is to come from CompTIA in the very near future.

Hope to see you there!

For more information and registration, please visit the official website: http://www.comptia.org/events/emea/home.aspx

Back in 2005 I remember sitting in my tiny apartment in Japan coming across a new command language being developed by Microsoft called Monad. Unfortunately, I dismissed it without thinking twice about it. Hindsight is definitely 20-20 as Monad wasn’t something to be ignored as it transformed into one of the most important technologies to know as an IT Professional – PowerShell.

Over the last few years, I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks in PowerShell but haven’t had the time to “join the dots” – just never had time…until now.

On the weekend of 26 March 2011, Thomas Lee (PowerShell MVP and Guru) is delivering a Master Class at the University of York. From the course outline it seems that it will be a deep dive into leveraging PowerShell for the Enterprise environment. I’ve seen Thomas present during a T-Prep at Microsoft EMEA HQ in Dublin – he is amazing. I’m confident that after the weekend I will have increased my PowerShell skills a hundred-fold!

I’m attending – if you’re serious about being an IT Professional and need to enhance your PowerShell skills then I’ll see you there!

Last November, I was fortunate to be selected as a TLG (Technical Learning Guide) for Microsoft TechEd Europe 2010. It was held at the Messe in Berlin, Germany. Ever since I learnt German at school, I always wanted to visit Germany; however, I never had the opportunity. So, with a spirit of finally using my GCSE and A’ Level German, I was all set…or was I?

One slight problem had emerged over the years. My German vocabulary and grammar had slowly and unconsciously been replaced by Japanese. I never realised that it was such a big problem until I opened my mouth to say “Danke” (Thanks), and would automatically say “Arigato”. Fortunately, by the end of the week the “problem” had subsided somewhat. I think the coolest thing that happened as part of this linguistic nightmare was calling up a Japanese restaurant (Sa-Sa-Ya) in order to make a reservation (unfortunately they were full).  This amused my friend from Microsoft whose next question was “How many languages can you speak?!”

Anyway, this is supposed to be a technology blog, so what did I learn from TechEd:

• The Cloud – it’s here to stay! So time to get familiar with Windows Azure
• Office 365 is here – Office for the cloud!
• Microsoft Learning’s current focus is on using IT certification to improve career prospects
• Windows Intune is quite possibly the best thing for any business – It includes a licence to upgrade each PC to Windows 7 Enterprise AND you get access to MDOP!
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC headline grabbers are Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX
• The Windows Deployment Gameshow showed me that I still need to learn a LOT about deployment
• Lync Server is already HUGE – and the hands on labs for it were pretty cool
• PowerShell – time to learn it!
• Get yourself the Works with Windows Server 2008 Logo
• MCTs ROCK! Especially if you find yourself invited to parties where everyone talks Swedish, you can be sure to bump into Jeremy Moskowitz (GPO guru) while waiting for the lift.

All in all, it was a very productive week.