CompTIA is preparing the IT industry for transformation of tech talent to fill the IT skills gap. The CompTIA Partner Summit is an event for CompTIA partners such as academic educators, commercial trainers, government agencies, corporate learning leaders and instructors. The event provides partners with the opportunity to learn new skills, engage in face-to-face communications and build new contacts with other CompTIA partners. The main goal is to drive businesses and the IT workforce forward.
The 2019 Partner Summit has multiple areas of focus:
- Transforming tech talent
- Understanding CompTIA career pathways and official content
- Gaining new skills and knowledge
In our morning session, we learned about classroom strategies for hands-on skills, employability and industry certification. The session examined strategies for classroom learning including hands-on labs, exercises, and scenarios. The speaker, Walt Jaqua, mentioned that he prefers daily hands-on experiences for his students. As the creator of the South Bend Community School Corporation’s Information Technology program. Walt knows which strategies help students learn best. He grades students on their progression, not on their test scores. The program he created provides training for high school students to prepare them for CompTIA and other provider certifications. Walt mentioned that one of his students completed his two year program with 18 IT certifications! This is the type of education the IT industry needs in its workforce to fill the huge skills gap.
Throughout the Partner Summit, we have met many IT/IS instructors teaching at high school and university levels, and many industry experts. We also met a lot of great vendors at the ChannelCon Tech Vendor fair. Many of them are interested in adding online training to their product offering.
All attendees and presenters are eager to learn how to help students and employees prepare for industry certs. We join the fellow professionals we’ve met at this conference in our passion for proper IT education. With two days of the conference remaining, we have a lot more to learn. Stay tuned for further updates!
