Designing an IT training programme

I'm currently working on developing an IT training programme that would take someone from beginner (no IT skills) through to expert (fully trained and qualified) and would be grateful for some ideas, feedback and so on.

The requirements of the programme are as follows;
- must result in industry recognised certifications / qualifications.
- training material must be readily available, reasonably priced and in a variety of formats (self study, instructor led, books, videos etc).
- at the bottom end (beginner) it must cater for zero IT skills (think someone who has never seen a computer before).
- at the high end (expert) it must get the person fully trained (think someone working in a support role unaided).
- work experience will be a part of the programme, but my main interest here is the training angle.

I do have my own ideas and rough outline and will share this but would like to hear from others first.

Note that this is not for what I would call commercial uses, it would be used by a non-profit / community type organisation for the purpose of helping unemployed and young people get the training they need to find employment and to help those in jobs further their careers. I'll also be sharing all the work I do on this with anyone that is interested and if the programme goes ahead I'll be sharing information on that as well.

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Comments

Darril

Good luck on this project.

You may like to start with an A+, Network+, Security+ program. That would meet most of your needs. There's a wealth of material out there and it provides a solid foundation. However, if you have someone that has never seen a computer, you may need to do a short familiarization seminar.

Graduates can branch off into a separate specialization such as a Microsoft track.

An alernative is Microsoft's relatively new Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) track
Microsoft Technology Associate Certification l MTA Exams l Entry-Level Developer Exams

If you search on Amazon (use "Microsoft Technology Associate"), you'll see that there are several reasonably priced resources available on this track.

Darril Gibson
Security+ blog

NetworkingStudent

jonny72 wrote: »

I'm currently working on developing an IT training programme that would take someone from beginner (no IT skills) through to expert (fully trained and qualified) and would be grateful for some ideas, feedback and so on.

The requirements of the programme are as follows;
- must result in industry recognised certifications / qualifications.
- training material must be readily available, reasonably priced and in a variety of formats (self study, instructor led, books, videos etc).
- at the bottom end (beginner) it must cater for zero IT skills (think someone who has never seen a computer before).
- at the high end (expert) it must get the person fully trained (think someone working in a support role unaided).
- work experience will be a part of the programme, but my main interest here is the training angle.

I do have my own ideas and rough outline and will share this but would like to hear from others first.

Note that this is not for what I would call commercial uses, it would be used by a non-profit / community type organisation for the purpose of helping unemployed and young people get the training they need to find employment and to help those in jobs further their careers. I'll also be sharing all the work I do on this with anyone that is interested and if the programme goes ahead I'll be sharing information on that as well.

Have you taken a look at free geek? I think they have good volunteer program that teaches volunteers how to tear down and build computers. This might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s a start.
Note-I volunteered at Free Geek while studying for my A+ certification.
Free Geek » Education

In addition to educational opportunities throughout the Build and Adoption programs, Free Geek offers a wide variety of computer classes to our volunteers and community members. Please check out our class offerings below (click on the name of the class for details) and call the front desk to sign up for a class! If you don’t see a class you’re looking for, please let us know by submitting a Class Request Form. We are always gathering requests for new classes! If you are an expert on a topic and you would like to teach, please complete this form.
Free Geek Locations
Free Geek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In addition to Portland, a number of other cities have started their own Free Geek organizations.[5]
• Portland, OR ("the Mothership")
• Fayetteville, AR
• Central FL
• Chicago, IL
• Columbus, OH
• South Bend, IN (Michiana)
• Vancouver, BC (Canada)
• Seattle, WA
• Murfreesboro, TN (Born Again—no longer recycling)
• Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN (Twin Cities)
• Toronto, ON (Canada)
• Providence, RI
• Ferndale, MI (Greater Detroit area)

This video shows you how train signal creates their videos..this might help too..good luck

TrainSignal Celebrates 9th Anniversary

Good website for people with no experience with computers what so ever.
BBC - WebWise - a beginner's guide to using the internet

UnixGuy

I really think that any successful IT training program should have some kind of practical involvement like internships. Try to get partnerships with companies so you can help the students get an internship, that will be a great thing.

jonny72

Many thanks for the replies.

I'm going to do some more research in to the Microsoft MTA track, it looks perfect at first glance especially if coupled with the Microsoft IT Academy programme (not sure how easy it is to get on that and meet the requirements though). Though I still need something more basic, which I think will be covered nicely by the ECDL courses.

The Free Geek programme is very similar to what I'm hoping to do, I hadn't heard of this before and it's good to know about it as it will add some weight to the business case I need to prepare (to get the funding). One idea is that we will run a recycling programme with our students performing the recycling - so we get recycled computers (to put to good use or to resell) and they get decent experience of the insides of a computer.

One of the main reasons I'm working on this is the poor quality of IT courses offered by colleges and universities. I've interviewed plenty of people that have just completed these courses and they have all been lacking in skills, experience and it seems to have pretty much been a waste of their time. Whilst there appears to be a lack of relevance in the course material the main issue is the lack of real world experience. So a major part will be work experience, either internally (through the provision of IT services to individuals and companies) or by finding work experience / internship positions in larger companies.