Microsoft is best known for its Windows operating systems and Office software. But the company has a much broader product portfolio that includes online services (Bing, MSN, advertising), gaming (Xbox 360), hardware (tablets, PCs, keyboards and mice) and more. The company also has a sizable certification program that turns out qualified administrators and technicians to support its system and application products.

Achieving IT certifications through the Microsoft Certification Program shows a person’s competence in a specific IT role, and it can result in all kinds of work-related and personal benefits. For example, studies show that IT certifications increase the chances of landing a job (or getting a promotion), and over 80 percent of hiring managers report IT certifications are medium to high priority in hiring decisions.

Microsoft certification program overview

Currently, the Microsoft Certification Program is divided into seven main categories:

• Cloud Platform and Infrastructure: This category encompasses business intelligence, Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Azure, machine learning, cloud data platform solutions, data analytics and big data, software-defined data centers, server infrastructures, private and hybrid clouds, DevOps, and more. This is the “new mainstream” for Microsoft certification.
• Mobility: This category is for end-user and desktop topics, including Windows 10, desktop and enterprise applications, working with System Center Configuration Manager and Intune, and planning for and managing devices in an enterprise setting.
• Data Management and Analytics: This arena now incorporates machine learning, business intelligence, business applications, and data management and analytics, along with Microsoft SQL Server 2016 and other Microsoft database technologies. Database development is also important and includes working with Transact-SQL and developing SQL databases. Business applications include extensive coverage of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics AX. Data management and analytics cover a range of topics, including cloud data platform solutions, big data analytics solutions, database solutions, implementing data models and reports, and various aspects of business intelligence solutions.
• Productivity: This category brings the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) credentials together with those related to Microsoft productivity offerings, such as Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and Skype for Business, as well as Office 365 identities, requirements and services.
• App Builder: This is a development-oriented category that covers the ins and outs of using Microsoft solutions and platforms to build compatible software. syllabus in this category include architecting, designing, testing and building solutions around Azure, programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, developing ASP.NET MVC Web apps, managing development throughout the entire software lifecycle, and more
• Business Applications: This category focuses on Microsoft Dynamics 365 platforms and technologies, including Dynamics 365 for Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Distribution and Trade, Trade, financial management (Finance and Operations), Retail, Talent, and Field Service and other focused applications.
• Core Infrastructure: Core Infrastructure focuses on virtualization, storage, networking, system management, identity management, and modern data centers.

Certifications within the Microsoft Certification Program include the following credentials:

• Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA)
• Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA)
• Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE)
• Microsoft Solutions Developer (MCSD)
• Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS)

After you pass your first qualifying Microsoft certification exam, you are deemed a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). MCP status provides access to a benefits and exams dashboard, with certificates and transcripts, downloadable certification logos, promotional offers and lots more. You also get the MCP designation on your Microsoft transcript. It’s important to understand that only the MCSA, MCSD and MCSE qualify as MCP certifications. Neither MTA nor MOS certifications qualify for MCP status, and none of those exams are prerequisites for MCSA, MCSE or MCSD certifications.

In addition to the certifications outlined above, Microsoft offers its MCT: Microsoft Certified Trainer and MCE: Microsoft Certified Educator credentials to those interested in teaching others about Microsoft technologies and products.

Microsoft recently released a new set of role-based certifications focused on Azure and Microsoft 365 developers, administrators, and solution architects.

Microsoft Cloud certifications

The Microsoft Cloud certification track includes MTA and MCSA credentials. Within the MTA program, there is one relevant certification: Cloud Fundamentals. To earn the MTA: Cloud Fundamentals credentials, candidates must pass a single test that validates knowledge and skills using basic Microsoft cloud services. Candidates should have experience using firewalls, network ports, Office 365, network topologies and devices, and Microsoft Intune.

The MCSA Cloud track includes BI Reporting, SQL 2016 BI Development certs, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016 credentials. The Windows Server certifications require three exams each while BI Reporting and SQL 2016 BI Development require only two exams.

Microsoft Mobility certifications

The Microsoft Mobility certification track includes MTA, MCSA and MCSE certifications. The MTA program has just one relevant certification – MTA: Mobility and Device Fundamentals. —The MTA: Mobility and Device Fundamentals certification is earned by passing a single test that attests to a candidate’s knowledge of mobility and Windows devices. Candidates should possess practical experience with Active Directory, Windows devices, Windows-based networking, network topologies and ports, firewalls, and antimalware products.

MCSA: Windows 10 is the only MCSA Mobility track credential available. Earning the MCSA: Windows 10 requires passing two exams.

The remaining credential in this track is the MCSE: Mobility. This requires earning the MCSA: Windows 10 plus passing one more exam, from a list of two possibilities that deal with Windows desktops and enterprise applications, or administering System Center Configuration Manager and Cloud Services Integration.

Both the MCSA: Mobility and MCSE: Mobility credentials retire on March 31, 2019. If earned prior to the retirement date, the credentials will continue to show as “active” certifications on your transcript. The MCSA: Windows 10 will be replaced by a new role-based credential – the Microsoft Certified: Modern Desktop Administrator Associate. Two exams are required to earn this credential. At present, no announcement has been made regarding whether the Modern Desktop Administrator Associate credential will become a prereq to the MCSE: Mobility. There’s a lot of ongoing ferment in MS certification programs right now. We expect 2019 to see major changes in MS’s cert programs and offerings. Next year’s update should be a big one!

Microsoft Data certifications

Microsoft’s Data certification track includes the MTA, MCSA and MCSE. (To see the Data track, go to the Microsoft Certification page and click Data from the Category dropdown menu.) The MTA program requires one test on database fundamentals. There are six certifications in the MCSA Data track– namely, Data Engineering with Azure, Machine Learning, SQL 2016 BI Development, SQL 2016 Database Administration, SQL 2016 Database Development, and SQL Server 2012/2014. All certs require two exams except for SQL Server 2012/2014, which requires three. The Data Engineering with Azure and Machine Learning certifications both retire on June 30, 2019.   

The MCSE Data category includes a single certification, the MCSE: Data Management and Analytics.

The prerequisite MCSAs that qualify for MCSE: Data Management and Analytics are SQL Server 2012/2014, SQL 2016 Database Administration, Database Development, BI Development, Machine Learning, BI Reporting, or Data Engineering with Azure. One additional test from a list of 13 possibilities must be passed to earn this credential. syllabus covered include cloud data platform solutions, big data analytics solutions, developing or designing SQL Server databases, implementing data models and reports, designing business intelligence solutions, implementing a data warehouse, developing SQL data models, analyzing big data with Microsoft R, cloud data science with Azure machine learning, data engineering with Azure HDInsight, and implementing with Azure Cosmos DB solutions.

Microsoft Productivity certifications

Certifications in the Microsoft Productivity category vary widely, from proving competency in using a single Office product to managing Office 365 services and user login credentials. This track is also fairly large; it includes an MCSA and MCSE certification as well as Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) offerings.

The MCSA Productivity track includes a single certification – the MCSA: Office 365. Two exams are required to obtain the credential. This credential is targeted to retire on Mach 30, 2019. The MCSE: Productivity certification requires candidates possess either the MCSA Office 365, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2016 credential as a prerequisite. Candidates must also pass one additional exam, from a list of eight possibilities. syllabus covered include Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and Skype for Business, for multiple versions of these platforms.  

Microsoft offers a MOS Office 2016 certification for each Office application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and Outlook). Office 2013 credentials are still available, but unless you have a specific reason for achieving them, focus on Office 2016.

The MOS 2016 Expert certification identifies individuals with advanced Office skills and requires candidates to pass two exams. The MOS 2016 Master certification is the pinnacle of the MOS Certification Program and requires successful completion of six exams.

Microsoft App Builder certifications

The Microsoft Developer certification path includes MTA, MCSA and MCSD certifications. The MTA program recognizes individuals who are entry-level software developers. The certification requires candidates to pass one of five exams. Possible syllabus include software development fundamentals, HTML5 app development fundamentals, and intro to programming using block-based languages, Python or JavaScript, and using HTML and CSS.

There are two credentials in the Microsoft App Builder MSCA track. The MCSA: Universal Windows Platform (UWP) credential prepares candidates to tackle professional development projects. They must pass two exams, one on programming in C#, the other on developing mobile apps. The MCSA: Web Applications credential prepares candidates for building web-based applications. They must pass two exams, one of which is required while candidates may choose from two possibilities for the second exam. All candidates must take the test relating to developing ASP.NET MVC Web applications. syllabus for the second test include programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 or programming in C#.

The MCSD Developer track consists of the MCSD: App Builder certification. It requires earning either the MSCA: Web Applications or MCSA: UWP as its prerequisite, followed by your choice of one test from a list of five possible options. syllabus covered in include architecting and developing Azure solutions, developing Azure and web services, developing mobile apps, programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, programming in C#, developing ASP.NET MVC Web apps, or developing MS Azure and Web services.

Microsoft Business Applications certifications

The Microsoft Business Applications certifications include MCSA and MCSE certifications. There are two MCSA options: MCSA: Microsoft Dynamics 365 and MCSA: Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations. Each requires passing two exams. The plain vanilla Dynamics 365 certification draws from a list of two exams, both of which are needed to meet its requirements. One test covers Dynamics 365 customer engagement online deployment, while the other covers Dynamics 365 customization and configuration. The MCSA: Microsoft Dynamics 365 credential retires on April 30, 2019.

The Dynamics 365 for Operations draws from a list of three exams, one of which is required while candidates may choose the syllabu for the second exam. syllabus covered include administering a Microsoft SQL database infrastructure, provisioning SQL databases, and development, extensions and deployment for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (required).

The MSCE: Business Applications credential is the sole MCSE item for this certification track. It takes either of the Microsoft Dynamics MCSAs covered in the preceding paragraph as its prerequisite, then requires candidates to pass another test drawn from a list of eight possibilities. syllabus covered include Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, customer service, marketing, distribution and trade, trade, financial management (finance and operations), retail, talent, and field service.

Core Infrastructure

Microsoft offers a single credential focused on core infrastructure – MCSE: Core Infrastructure. The MCSE: Core Infrastructure certification validates a candidate’s knowledge and skills related to data centers, virtualization, systems management, storage, networking and identity management. The credential requires either the MCSA: Windows Server 2016 or MCSA: Windows Server 2012 as a prerequisite. In addition to the MCSA, candidates must pass a single test from seven topics. test syllabus include designing and implementing Cloud Data Platform solutions, designing and implementing Big Data Analytics solutions, securing Windows Server 2016, implementing software-defined datacenters, designing and implementing server infrastructures, implementing advanced server infrastructures, and configuring and operating a hybrid cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack.

Microsoft Trainer and Educator certifications

MCT: Microsoft Certified Trainer

Folks who teach others about Microsoft technologies and products should consider (and are often required to have) the Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) certification. The MCT can be obtained by submitting an application to Microsoft that proves that you hold a current Microsoft certification, one year of instruction experience (supporting reference required), plus verifiable instructional skills in the form of an acceptable instructor certification (such as CompTIA CTT+, Microsoft Certified Trainer Instructional Skills Certification (MCT-ISC) or IAMCT Approved Technical Trainer).

To renew, credential holders must possess at least one current Microsoft credential, meet the minimum instruction requirements of teaching at least one class, and maintain a Metrics that Matter quality score of at least seven. (Check the MCT website for a list of qualifying certifications and instructor certifications.)

As an MCT, you have access to the MCP benefits and exams dashboard, prep kits, the MCT community, Microsoft Online Labs and much more.

MCE: Microsoft Certified Educator

The Microsoft Certified Educator (MCE) credential is aimed at educators in academia, such as colleges, universities and training facilities. To become an MCE, you must demonstrate technology literacy by passing at least one exam.

The literacy competency is mapped to the UNESCO ITC Competency Framework for Teachers, Technology Literacy and includes education policy, curriculum and assessment, pedagogy, ICT/technology tools, organization and administration, and professional development.

IT professionals who earn Microsoft certification often receive extra recognition from hiring and supervising managers, and enjoy improved on-the-job success and promotion opportunities. Companies that negotiate large volume purchase or subscription agreements with Microsoft (or its partner resellers) often include funding for official curriculum training and Microsoft certification test vouchers as part of what’s covered therein.

Here are how the various Microsoft certification areas shake out, job- and career-wise:

• A Microsoft Cloud certification is ideal for the IT professional who designs, deploys, configures and/or manages a Windows Server environment, stand-alone or cloud-based, which may include various desktops and devices. Folks who achieve this type of certification work as systems administrators, systems analysts, technical specialists (often with a platform focus such as SQL Server, Skype for Business or Exchange Server), and the like.
• A Microsoft Mobility certification is designed for those who deploy, configure and/or manage a Windows desktop environment and related devices, whether on-premises or in the cloud. IT professionals with this type of certification usually fill positions such as help desk technicians, support personnel and systems administrators, to name a few.
• Of late, Microsoft Productivity credentials have been gathering interest, coverage and momentum. People who pursue these certifications work with key Windows platforms such as Office, Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365, which covers CRM, ERP and more. They are usually responsible for making sure that rank-and-file employees are able to work effectively and productively, and that technology provides a boost to the bottom line.
• Microsoft Data certifications cover a lot of ground. Database design, creation and maintenance are particularly important to organizations today, considering that data storage is key to most business computing, and nearly every website is supported by one or more databases running in the background. A database administrator is in charge of all kinds of database-related functions, from development to storage and retrieval, troubleshooting and security. Now, Microsoft’s database coverage also integrates business intelligence and big data/data analytics components, too, so IT professionals interested in these subject matters will find a lot to chase down and learn here.
• Microsoft App Builder certifications aim at application and mobile app developers who use programming languages and source code to create software. A developer may work independently or, more often, with a team, to develop, prototype, deploy, test, and modify applications for computers and many types of electronic devices. This certification portfolio also includes development for Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure environment and for software lifecycle management as well.
• Microsoft Business Applications certifications aim at those involved with back-office, line of business systems and applications built around Microsoft Dynamics 365 (including the “for operations” version of that platform). This credential aims at those who upgrade, configure, and customize such systems as well as those who develop custom applications for specific, proprietary uses in-house or on behalf of clients. Such professionals also support customized configurations for various organizational units, including sales, field service, retail operations, finance, distribution and trade and more.
• Trainers (MCTs) and educators (MCEs) also play a vital role in the Microsoft ecosystem as well. MCTs populate the front lines of key training for IT professionals across all of its platforms, tools and technologies with an emphasis on cultivating workplace readiness and imparting skills and knowledge suitable for on-the-job deployment. Arguably, MCEs are even more important, by helping students at all levels of education – primary, secondary and beyond – to understand and make the most of Microsoft tools, technologies, platforms, and development environments.

Training and certification preparation materials

Microsoft offers training to candidates directly, both in the classroom and online. The company’s Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is a great place to start poking around: it offers a huge range of free training courses, many of them at least relevant to various certification syllabus if not directly focused on such topics.

There’s also a huge aftermarket for Microsoft training, self-study and certification preparation. Pearson operates Microsoft Press on Microsoft’s behalf, where you can find self-study guides for all the popular Microsoft cert exams (and many of the not-so-popular exams as well). Pearson’s IT Certification imprint (online at PearsonITCertification.com) also offers study guides, test crams (a series I invented), practice tests, video training materials and much more for Microsoft certification candidates. Wiley/Sybex and Osborne/McGraw-Hill also offer certification focused imprints, book series and generally provide good coverage of major cert syllabus as well, also including most popular Microsoft certifications and related exams. Pearson’s mindhub online store also offers “official” practice exams approved by Microsoft.

There’s a wealth of excellent material available to help candidates prepare. Look to online and peer reviews, study groups and rating sites to separate the wheat from the chaff.

How do you teach an autonomous drone to fly itself? Practice, practice, practice. Now Microsoft is offering a way to put a drone’s control software through its paces millions of times before the first takeoff.

The cloud-based simulation platform, Project AirSim, is being made available in limited preview starting today, in conjunction with this week’s Farnborough International Airshow in Britain.

“Project AirSim is a critical tool that lets us bridge the world of bits and the world of atoms, and it shows the power of the industrial metaverse — the virtual worlds where businesses will build, test and hone solutions, and then bring them into the real world,” Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft corporate vice president for business incubations in technology and research, said today in a blog posting.

The platform can take advantage of data from Bing Maps and other providers, plus processing power from Microsoft Azure, to create millions of detailed virtual 3-D environments. Customers can build their own spaces, or draw from a library of specific locations around the globe.

Microsoft’s Project AirSim builds on an earlier open-source tool from Microsoft Research that required deep expertise in coding and machine learning. The newly unveiled commercial platform makes it easier to test and train AI-powered aircraft. Partners in the project include Ansys and MathWorks, two companies that provide software for designing AI-based simulations.

One of Project AirSim’s early-access users is Airtonomy, a North Dakota-based company that received a $100,000 TechSpark grant from Microsoft and has been training drones to inspect wind farms and oil tanks across the Midwest.

“You don’t want to fly drones into wind turbines, power lines — or really anything, for that matter,” Airtonomy CEO Josh Riedy said. “Coupled with the fact that winter can literally last seven months in North Dakota, we realized we needed something other than the physical world to design our solutions for customers.”

Project AirSim helped Airtonomy train drones to cope with environmental conditions ranging from snow and rain to strong winds and high temperatures.

Another early-access partner is Bell, which is using Project Airsim to hone the ability of its drones to land autonomously.

During a accurate test flight for a NASA project aimed at accelerating the integration of drones into the national airspace, Bell proved that its Autonomous Pod Transport could maintain contact with ground-based radar monitoring systems while flying through a corridor in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

“AirSim allowed us to get a true understanding of what to expect before we flew in the real world,” said Matt Holvey, Bell’s director of intelligent systems. “It’s going to be one of the tools that will accelerate the timeline for scaling aerial mobility. If we have to test and validate everything by hand, or in a physical lab, or on a flying aircraft, we’re talking about decades, and it’s going to cost billions. But Project AirSim pulls that forward through high-fidelity simulation.”

Microsoft’s Pall said that the company is working with civil aviation regulators to figure out how Project AirSim could help with the certification of autonomous flight systems. For example, the flight software could be put through a series of simulations to check on how it handles bad weather or loss of GPS connectivity.

“A ton of data gets generated when an aircraft flies through space in Project AirSim, said Ashish Kapoor, who created the original AirSim at Microsoft Research and is now general manager of Microsoft’s autonomous systems research group.

“Our ability to capture that data and translate it into autonomy is going to significantly changes the landscape of aviation,” Kapoor said. “And because of that, we are going to see many more vehicles in the sky, helping to monitor farms, inspect critical infrastructure and transport goods and people to the remotest of places.”

Customers interested in trying out Project AirSim can contact Microsoft’s autonomous-systems team to learn more about the limited preview.

Several years ago, Microsoft Research offered an open-sourced tool called AirSim, which was a simulator for drones, cars and other autonomous vehicles. After years of experimentation, Microsoft ended up archiving the repository for the original AirSim platform. But today, July 18, 2022, it launched a new AirSim simulation platform for the aerospace industry called "Project AirSim."

Project AirSim, like the original AirSim, uses AI models to build, train and test drones and other autonomous aircraft using 3D simulation. Officials say one key difference between the original AirSim and the new Project AirSim is the original required "deep expertise in coding and machine learning." (The original AirSim was integrated with the company's Bonsai machine-teaching technology, plus reinforcement learning from Azure Machine Learning Services.)

Project AirSim will offer libraries of simulated 3D environments and uses Azure to generate "massive amounts of data for training AI models on exactly which actions to take at each phase of flight, from takeoff to cruising to landing," according to the company.

Microsoft officials said they see a number of potential use cases for Project AirSim, ranging from hobbyist drones to aircraft carrying passengers. Autonomous aerial vehicles can be used to inspect the equipment, carry packages and more.

Project AirSim is in a limited preview at the moment. For more information, fill out this form.

When Jenna Conan Simpson went through her highly regarded teacher preparation program about ten years ago, she took just one “very basic” technology class covering use of tools like Microsoft PowerPoint. It did little to prepare her to use tech to Excellerate instruction.

Years later, she was floored when a colleague, a brand-new teacher who had just come out of the same program, said her technology preparation looked exactly the same—same single course, same tools—even though she graduated from the program nearly a decade after Conan Simpson.

In all that time, Conan Simpson had hoped the preparation program would have shifted to helping prospective teachers learn to manage a classroom in a 1-to-1 computing environment and master other tech skills they would need once they entered the classroom.

But the teacher prep program still focused on tools that had felt outdated even when Conan Simpson went through it.

Conan Simpson wondered if the program was an outlier, despite its positive reputation. She soon learned it was not.

“Most preparation programs are not keeping pace with what’s happening in classrooms and schools with regards to technology,” said Conan Simpson, the director of instructional technology at All Saints’ Episcopal School in Fort Worth, Texas. That’s a “huge problem,” given how central digital tools have become, she said.

Incoming “teachers need experience with technology,” she added. “It used to be kind of a nice to have. Now it’s required. It’s nonnegotiable.”

To get a picture of how preparation programs across the country get their students ready to teach using tech, Conan Simpson, who is pursuing her Ph.D. in learning technologies, surveyed 217 early career teachers who she identified largely through social media groups. She then did intensive follow-up interviews with ten respondents.

New teachers told her that most of the teacher educators they learned from hadn’t been in the classroom in ten or even 20 years. “So, of course, they don’t know how technology is being used,” said Conan Simpson, who is scheduled to present her findings on June 28 at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in New Orleans. ISTE is the largest ed-tech conference in the country.

What’s more, teacher prep programs didn’t appear to consider whether a particular school or mentor teacher could help prospective educators master tech. “There were teachers reporting that their cooperating teacher [in a student teaching placement] was writing on a chalkboard. And this was in the past three years,” Conan Simpson said.

One educator she interviewed said the only tech she saw during her student teaching experience was a CD player. In fact, the number one piece of hardware new teachers reported learning about was a type of technology so outdated that it’s unclear whether it’s still being manufactured.

To be sure, some new teachers described deep experience with iPads, Seesaw, and other widely used digital tools. But that was the exception, Conan Simpson said.

Though her study was qualitative in nature, Conan Simpson crunched some numbers and found that only about a fifth of the new teachers surveyed felt well-prepared to teach using technology when they exited their programs.

Teacher prep programs, Conan Simpson suspects, may simply assume that because their mostly 20-something students have grown up with digital tools that using them in the classroom will be second nature.

But that’s not the case. Prospective teachers, “might be personally reasonably tech savvy, but that doesn’t mean that they know how to use technology to teach students,” she said.

Increasingly, programs have recognized tech preparation as a trouble spot, but their solutions weren’t particularly helpful, according to Conan Simpson. Some decided to cut the course or two they required in the subject, and instead integrate technology throughout the curriculum. But that didn’t happen in practice, she found. Instead, technology fell off the radar altogether.

Instead, teacher preparation programs should consider hiring tech coaches for their professors and other staff, Conan Simpson said, just like K-12 schools do. They should work much more closely with local school districts to stay up-to-date on how they are using tech.

They may also want to offer training in use of some of the most popular devices—Chromebooks and iPads, for example—as well as educational software such as Nearpod and Pear Deck, which help educators create digital lessons with interactive elements.

Those tools are “kind of like our low hanging fruit, right?” Conan Simpson said. “It’s not going to be the exact same as what their district has, but it’s going to be close enough that the preparation would really help” once they enter the classroom.

Programs also need to make sure that their graduates “see a teacher model how to effectively integrate technology in the classroom effectively” during their student-teaching placements.

“I think we’re doing them a disservice if we don’t provide this information to them,” Conan Simpson said. “Most of these people are figuring it out on their own, but I think if we gave them a lot more prior to entering the classroom that they would be able to focus on things like the students and not on learning the technology.”

She’s heartened that ISTE agrees.

Earlier this month, the organization released a voluntary pledge to encourage teacher preparation programs to Excellerate their work in this area. It makes a list of recommendations that mirror some of Conan Simpson’s own, including a push for closer collaboration with school districts on tech.

The pledge has support from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, and both organizations that accredit teacher education programs.

Though the pledge is voluntary, Richard Culatta, ISTE’s chief executive officer, is hoping it will be a way “for us to get some attention from the rest of the dang world about this big problem that nobody’s talking about.”

Ben Kepes is a Canterbury-based entrepreneur and professional board member.

OPINION: At the risk of showing my age, and giving away just how long ago Cactus Outdoor was founded (30 years this October, just FYI), let me tell you a story of technology in days gone by.

Back in 1995 when Cactus first shifted from its birthplace in Wellington to its new home in Christchurch, we decided that having an email address would be handy.

The fact that my then girlfriend and now wife was back up in Wellington while I was in the south may have played a part as well, but I digress.

Back in those days an email address was relatively rare. As for a corporate website, in our industry it was genuinely unheard of.

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Cactus founder Gwilym, in a move of inspiration, decided that it would be worth teaching ourselves to code and to build our own website. Cue a bunch of experimentation and some old-school web hosting with early Christchurch internet provider Planet.

I was harking back to the old days recently when I witnessed the launch difficulties that a particular internet-based company experienced. The sector that this organisation works within isn't really relevant to this story. What is important, as we will soon see, is that it was in a space that was likely to see big spikes in traffic due to it being a fairly likely candidate for widespread media coverage.

The people behind the business were very smart and had created a solution that had very real applicability and a high likelihood for great take-up. Unfortunately they hadn't factored this into their technology planning.

You see, back in the aforementioned early days of technology, setting up a website meant buying a server and trying to estimate what sort of traffic would be needed. It was a game of crystal ball gazing and trying to avoid having to spend more money than was necessary. Back in those days, internet capacity was a big ticket item.

Also back in those days cybersecurity wasn't a thing. We didn't need to worry about nefarious parties trying to launch denial-of-service attempts, phishing campaigns and other such dastardly plots on our websites.

Fast forward to the present and, thanks to the creative thinkers sitting inside companies like Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft, increasing capacity for a website or webservice is a simple thing that often doesn't even need human intervention.

Thanks to a myriad of different product and service organisations in the cybersecurity space, and a growing awareness of cybersecurity risks - we can mitigate against those risks.

Those services all fall under the category of cloud computing, a term that is very much become common parlance. I still chuckle remembering when buddy Raj Manji, now leader of The Opportunities Party, introduced me to a gentleman who was formerly the Member of Parliament for Ilam. Raf introduced me as a global cloud computing expert to which our elected representative asked me if I worked for the Meteorological Service - ah democracy, such a wondrous thing.

Anyway, back to computing. We now live in a world where infrastructure is, in tech parlance, available and controllable programmatically. In language we commoners can understand, what that means is that the days of old, where people had to stack physical servers one on top of each other and do technical stuff with wires and things, are over.

Today all that is needed is a few simple lines of code, and internet capacity can miraculously ramp up and down according to demand.

It's the reason that services like Google, Facebook and well-built internet banking solutions can handle huge spikes in load and still remain available. The corollary of course is that there is little or no excuse for a website to be unavailable - there are a bunch of tools available that can alert management to outages or issues (hat tip to awesome Wellington tech company, Raygun) and the aforementioned cloud computing vendors who can do all the heavy lifting to ensure automagically scalable infrastructure is available anytime.

In this case, however, the heroes of our story made two mistakes - firstly they didn't plan for huge spikes in customer demand and hence computing load. Secondly, they failed to get really good advice from a trusted cybersecurity partner (tipping my hat in the direction of State Owned Enterprise Kordia) to ensure that the nasty guys couldn't do bad stuff to bring their service down.

I'm not wanting to cast a shadow on the subject of my article - hence not naming them. But it is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to deliver a message or a service via the internet - the great thing about the 'net is that one can have virtually limitless reach. The bad side of the internet is that incredible reach can do crazy things to your demand curve.

Fortunately with the advent of cloud computing, that's an issue we need no longer lose sleep about.

Ben Kepes was a cloud computing evangelist before most knew what the cloud was.

Years later, she was floored when a colleague, a brand-new teacher who had just come out of the same program, said her technology preparation looked exactly the same—same single course, same tools—even though she graduated from the program nearly a decade after Conan Simpson.

In all that time, Conan Simpson had hoped the preparation program would have shifted to helping prospective teachers learn to manage a classroom in a 1-to-1 computing environment and master other tech skills they would need once they entered the classroom.

Conan Simpson wondered if the program was an outlier, despite its positive reputation. She soon learned it was not.

"Most preparation programs are not keeping pace with what's happening in classrooms and schools with regards to technology," said Conan Simpson, the director of instructional technology at All Saints' Episcopal School in Fort Worth, Texas. That's a "huge problem," given how central digital tools have become, she said.

To get a picture of how preparation programs across the country get their students ready to teach using tech, Conan Simpson, who is pursuing her Ph.D. in learning technologies, surveyed 217 early career teachers who she identified largely through social media groups. She then did intensive follow-up interviews with 10 respondents.

New teachers told her that most of the teacher educators they learned from hadn't been in the classroom in 10 or even 20 years. "So, of course, they don't know how technology is being used," said Conan Simpson, who is scheduled to present her findings on June 28 at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in New Orleans. ISTE is the largest ed-tech conference in the country.

What's more, teacher prep programs didn't appear to consider whether a particular school or mentor teacher could help prospective educators master tech. "There were teachers reporting that their cooperating teacher [in a student teaching placement] was writing on a chalkboard. And this was in the past three years," Conan Simpson said.

One educator she interviewed said the only tech she saw during her student teaching experience was a CD player. In fact, the number one piece of hardware new teachers reported learning about was a type of technology so outdated that it's unclear whether it's still being manufactured.

To be sure, some new teachers described deep experience with iPads, Seesaw, and other widely used digital tools. But that was the exception, Conan Simpson said.

BEING A DIGITAL NATIVE DOESN'T MEAN YOU KNOW HOW TO TEACH WITH TECH

Though her study was qualitative in nature, Conan Simpson crunched some numbers and found that only about a fifth of the new teachers surveyed felt well-prepared to teach using technology when they exited their programs.

Teacher prep programs, Conan Simpson suspects, may simply assume that because their mostly 20-something students have grown up with digital tools that using them in the classroom will be second nature.

But that's not the case. Prospective teachers, "might be personally reasonably tech savvy, but that doesn't mean that they know how to use technology to teach students," she said.

Increasingly, programs have recognized tech preparation as a trouble spot, but their solutions weren't particularly helpful, according to Conan Simpson. Some decided to cut the course or two they required in the subject, and instead integrate technology throughout the curriculum. But that didn't happen in practice, she found. Instead, technology fell off the radar altogether.

Instead, teacher preparation programs should consider hiring tech coaches for their professors and other staff, Conan Simpson said, just like K-12 schools do. They should work much more closely with local school districts to stay up-to-date on how they are using tech.

They may also want to offer training in use of some of the most popular devices—Chromebooks and iPads, for example—as well as educational software such as Nearpod and Pear Deck, which help educators create digital lessons with interactive elements.

Those tools are "kind of like our low hanging fruit, right?" Conan Simpson said. "It's not going to be the exact same as what their district has, but it's going to be close enough that the preparation would really help" once they enter the classroom.

Programs also need to make sure that their graduates "see a teacher model how to effectively integrate technology in the classroom effectively" during their student-teaching placements.

"I think we're doing them a disservice if we don't provide this information to them," Conan Simpson said. "Most of these people are figuring it out on their own, but I think if we gave them a lot more prior to entering the classroom that they would be able to focus on things like the students and not on learning the technology."

She's heartened that ISTE agrees.

Earlier this month, the organization released a voluntary pledge to encourage teacher preparation programs to Excellerate their work in this area. It makes a list of recommendations that mirror some of Conan Simpson's own, including a push for closer collaboration with school districts on tech.

The pledge has support from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, and both organizations that accredit teacher education programs.

Though the pledge is voluntary, Richard Culatta, ISTE's chief executive officer, is hoping it will be a way "for us to get some attention from the rest of the dang world about this big problem that nobody's talking about."

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