There A.R.E. Ways to Prepare an Educated IT Workforce
Dennis Bonilla (He/Him/His)
Safecracker Unlocking Human Potential l Talent/Leadership Alchemist/Mentor/Coach l Standup Comedian l Not a cookie-cutter, follow the herd Leader, the opposite A visionary, innovative, looking over-the-horizon executive!
I want to take a minute to talk to you about the advancement of technology. During this minute, 204,000,000 emails will be sent, Amazon will make $83,000 in online sales and 277,000 tweets will be posted[1].
Today’s technologies were unimaginable to most people just a few decades ago and technological advancements continue to be made at lightening speed. Consider the following:
- In 1993, there were 130 websites. By 2012, there were 634 million[2].
- As recently as 2009, only 31 percent of American adults used their cell phones to go online. Today, nearly two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone[3].
- In 2012, Google received more than 2 million search inquiries per minute. In 2014, that number had doubled to more than 4 million search inquiries per minute[4].
There’s a reason why companies invest billions of dollars annually into information technology. What’s relevant today may not be in six months. Tapping into current trends is mandatory for companies to stay relevant – accurately predicting future trends and being ready for them is the real challenge.
How do you prepare a workforce to meet the challenges of an industry whose very existence is based on change? How do you ensure that the education you are providing students is relevant six months after they graduate, and six years after that? As the executive dean of the University of Phoenix College of Information Systems and Technology (IS&T), these questions are constantly on the forefront of my mind.
My job, and the job of my colleagues and other educators across the industry, is to prepare students to work in an industry where tools and platforms at our disposal today will be obsolete in just a few years. Our challenge as leaders in IT is to ensure we A.R.E preparing the next generation through education that is Agile, Relevant and Experiential. To do so, industry and higher education leaders must work together to prepare a pipeline of professionals to create a workforce that is productive from their first days on the job with the skills to navigate technological innovation and evolution well into the future.
The challenges facing IT education today (being Agile, Relevant and Experiential) will soon be mirrored across all business verticals as the adoption and dependence on technology continue to be essential to maintain a competitive advantage. One way to create synergy between educators and industry is through curriculum that aligns with competencies and standards that are based on the needs of today’s IT employers and industry.
University of Phoenix is one such option, offering more than 40 degree programs and more than 50 certificates across a variety of disciplines that directly align with industry competencies and standards, including the Cisco Networking Certificate offered by the College of IS&T.
In order to further support and grow IT innovation, we must ensure we have the educational tools in place for prospective and current professionals to innovate, create and succeed in supporting the ever-changing field of technology, because before you know it, all that now happens in a minute could very well happen in a second.
[1] ACI Information Group: The Data Explosion in 2014 Minute by Minute – Infographic
[2] ACI Information Group: The History of the Internet [Infographic]
[3] Pew Research Center: U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015
[4] ACI Information Group: The Data Explosion in 2014 Minute by Minute – Infographic
President and Founder of the Whole Brain Foundation and Chairman and CEO of Whole Systems International Corporation in Cambridge
8yAgile Relevant Experiential lBrings to mind a Start up Proof of Concept Project with an Alpha Test and a Beta Test
Solution Architect, Entrepreneur, Author
8yI think the A.R.E. you describe is important to the point of being critical for workers once they get into the workforce, but maybe not as much a way to bring people in. There is a core of knowledge needed almost everywhere and you have to be able to find people with that core and a willingness to learn in order to grow (even when the core may be obsolete or completely different in a few years). I love the Phoenix online model of teachers being involved in the work force to bring the real world to academics (at least they were when I went through the MBA program), but the agile and relevant parts of A.R.E. could easily become a form of "teaching to the exam." How do you teach the latest technologies and theories while still including areas such as ability to research/learn and soft skills like the often elusive people skills? I think A.R.E. is a great start, but will expand as you put it into use. I look forward to a follow up post in the upcoming months.
⭐️Trainer⭐️Facilitator⭐️Learning and Development Consultant
8yI agree that having technical talent is highly prized, however those are not the only skills that should be taught in colleges and universities, and even in technical schools. The most sought-after skills employers look for when hiring entry-level talent, it’s the so-called ˜soft skills’ that are valued most: communication, teamwork, flexibility and positive attitude. Employers understand that everything else can be taught, so they look for the most promising raw material to work with.And yet we are not training any of these skills in our local universities and colleges in order to set these grads up for success and to differentiate themselves during interviews.
Technology Management Consultant in Broadcast, Learning and Generative AI
8yDennis is right on with this analysis. I truly believe that. The challenge is to make it real for the participants that you target. I think UoP does a great job of that.
Educator|Researcher|Technologist|Program Manager
8yDennis and Jason – Good points about ARE. I think there is much potential in connections between higher ed and the workplace, especially in the “experiential” category with reflective activity as an outcome of learning by doing. I’d be interested in additional thoughts on specific technologies in use now that support this.