You've likely heard the buzz about our newest certification program: the Cisco Certified Support Technician. You can see the full announcement, launching the new program at https://certiport.pearsonvue.com/Blog/2023/January/Meet-Cisco-Certified-Support-Technician. We are offering these certifications in collaboration with Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking technology with one of the most respected certification programs in the IT industry.

Cisco is dedicated to empowering all people with career possibilities, and offers incredible resources to educators teaching networking, cybersecurity, and IT skills in the classroom. These resources are available through the Cisco Networking Academy program. We wanted to get an inside look into Cisco Networking Academy, and we were so excited to learn from Networking Academy expert, Rebecca Chisholm. Rebecca is the Regional Manager of Cisco Networking Academy North America. In this role, she leads the Networking Academy team for North America where her team works with colleges, K12 school systems, universities, nonprofits, and state agencies to provide Cisco sponsored workforce development education and courses to a broad spectrum of students. The Cisco Networking Academy has been delivering IT focused workforce development education for 25 years and focuses on the latest networking, security, data science and programming technologies, while promoting business and entrepreneurial skills. Their courses and workshops provide foundational skills as well as job readiness skills for students of all levels, particularly those wanting to pursue a career in this growing and essential industry. Rebecca and her team are dedicated to closing the IT Skills gap by providing equal access to digital skills and job preparation.

In this episode, Rebecca showed us the history of the Cisco Networking Academy program. We talked more about Cisco's mission and vision for a skilled future, plus what resources they're offering (for free!) to educators to teach needed skills in the classroom. Plus, Rebecca talks about the simple steps to becoming a Cisco Networking Academy! If you're interested in free IT curriculum, resources, and lesson plans, this one is for you.

Learn more about Cisco Networking Academy at http://netacad.com/. You can also dive into resources through Cisco's Skills for All initiative at https://skillsforall.com/.

Dive into the new Cisco Certified Support Technician program at https://certiport.pearsonvue.com/Certifications/Cisco/Certified-Support-Technician/Overview.

Ready to connect with your fellow educators for new ideas for teaching Cisco in your classroom? Join educators in the CERTIFIED Educator Community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8958289/.

You can also find new ideas for your class on the Certiport blog: https://certiport.pearsonvue.com/blog.

And of course, don't miss your chance to network with new teachers at our CERTIFIED Educator Conference this June! Get all the details here: https://certified.certiport.com/.

This podcast is managed and edited by Haili Murch LLC.

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