Tag: Microsoft Learn

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Introducing the new Microsoft Learn Educator Center

We are excited to invite the education community to try the Microsoft Learn Educator Center. It is Microsoft’s centralized training and professional development platform where you can explore free resources for educators and learn about programs, professional development offerings, and Microsoft technologies that advance teaching and learning practices. Check it out for a variety of resources to assist educators, school leaders, and training partners in the changing education landscape. 

The Microsoft Learn Educator Center has replaced the Microsoft Educator Center (MEC) as our new home for the education community. We spent the past year migrating your favorite courses and learning paths from the MEC. We have also expanded the content to include custom pathways to enhance your professional skills, provide free resources that support you along your skilling journey, and connect you with the content and certifications needed to enable students to develop 21st century skills for the jobs of tomorrow. 

To ensure that your MEC achievements, certificates, and transcripts get migrated to the Microsoft Learn Educator Center, sign in using the same credentials you used on MEC. Once MEC is decommissioned on May 1, 2022, you have up to one year to migrate your MEC achievement records to the Microsoft Learn Educator Center, as long as you sign in with the same credentials you used on MEC. 

You can use the Microsoft Learn Educator Center to: 

Find and discover more than 360 modules, 21 learning paths, 80 modules, and 11 product pages. Educators and school leaders can easily search and discover all available learning content through the Browse page. It provides the ability to search and filter results by different tags, including: 

  • Job role: educator, school leader, and student
  • Level: beginner, intermediate, and advanced 
  • Products: Microsoft Teams, M365, Minecraft, Immersive Reader, and more 

Experience Microsoft Learn’s instructional-based design, which includes principles that support the integration of technology into the teaching and learning environment for improved student outcomes. 

Personalize your learning experience and share it with colleagues, students, and parents through Learn Collections, which allows you to curate a custom collection of content and share through social media platforms or a unique URL. Through your profile, you can create, name, manage, and share your collections.

To participate in the launch of the Microsoft Learn Educator Center: 

Sign in with the same credentials you used on MEC. If you do not yet have a Microsoft Learn profile, you will need to create one.

Once sign-in and profile creation are complete, you will be presented with a modal asking if you would like to move your data to the Microsoft Learn Educator Center:

  • If you accept, your achievements, certificates, and transcripts will be moved to your Microsoft Learn profile.
  • If you do not accept, you can choose to delete your data.

To familiarize yourself with the new Microsoft Learn Educator Center, we recommend taking the new Navigate Microsoft Learn for Educators and School Leaders module (i.e., course).

Browse around, take a few modules, and explore different learning paths. Check out your progress in your MEC profile.

Sign up for our education newsletter.

We look forward to having you join the community of educators on the Microsoft Learn Educator Center!

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Microsoft and Warner Bros. Pictures assemble all-star team in Lebron James, Bugs Bunny and Xbox to celebrate gaming and coding education inspired by the upcoming animated, live-action adventure ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’

Fans can submit their best video game ideas and join free coding workshops with Microsoft

LeBron James and Bugs Bunny

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 14, 2020 — Microsoft Corp. and Warner Bros. are tipping off an epic partnership, celebrating the release of the new movie “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” coming in 2021. The campaign launch teams up Xbox with basketball champion and cultural icon LeBron James, Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes Tune Squad to amplify coding education and create an original Xbox arcade-style video game inspired by the movie.

As announced on his Instagram, LeBron and Bugs Bunny are on the hunt for the best fan-submitted video game ideas. Starting Dec. 14 through Dec. 30, fans aged 14 and up can visit the official contest website to review official rules and submit their game ideas. To enter, fans select the gaming genre of their choosing using a key image, and then describe the game idea in less than 500 words.

Two winners will have their ideas brought to life in the official “Space Jam: A New Legacy” arcade-style video game, available as a Perk for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members in 2021. Winners will also receive the following prizes: their names featured in the game credits; an exclusive winner’s bundle with signed and authenticated LeBron James memorabilia, “Space Jam: A New Legacy” merchandise and Nike VIP packs, and a personalized Xbox Series S console; a private friends and family screening of the film; and a virtual Microsoft coding workshop for their local community.

To help coders of all ages jump-start their creativity, Microsoft Stores are hosting free, one-of-a-kind “Space Jam: A New Legacy”-themed virtual workshops on video game creation. Students will build a playable prototype of a video game using block-based coding on the MakeCode Arcade platform, while learning about the professional skills and STEAM careers involved in game design. Additional resources and other free workshops that teach new skills and keep kids entertained this holiday season can be found on the microsoft.com virtual student workshop page.

There are also two film-themed Microsoft Learn lessons, targeting more experienced coders, older teens, high school and college-aged students, and adults, that focus on how to use player stats to make real-time decisions in the middle of a game. The first lesson includes predicting efficiency ratings with machine learning and Visual Studio Code, using data from human and Tune Squad basketball players. The second lesson includes building a web app that uses additional machine learning models in real time to help a coach decide who needs a water break and who should be put in the game to yield the highest likelihood of winning.

The video game contest, coding workshops and lessons align with Microsoft’s greater skilling initiative, which aims at helping 25 million people — including those from underrepresented populations —acquire new digital skills and apply them to their passions.

ABOUT SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY

Welcome to the Jam! Basketball champion and cultural icon LeBron James goes on an epic adventure alongside timeless Tune Bugs Bunny with the animated/live-action event “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” from director Malcolm D. Lee and an innovative filmmaking team including Ryan Coogler and Maverick Carter. This transformational journey is a manic mashup of two worlds that reveals just how far some parents will go to connect with their kids. When LeBron and his young son Dom are trapped in a digital space by a rogue A.I., LeBron must get them home safe by leading Bugs, Lola Bunny and the whole gang of notoriously undisciplined Looney Tunes to victory over the A.I.’s digitized champions on the court: a powered-up roster of basketball stars as you’ve never seen them before. It’s Tunes versus Goons in the highest-stakes challenge of his life, that will redefine LeBron’s bond with his son and shine a light on the power of being yourself. The ready-for-action Tunes destroy convention, supercharge their unique talents and surprise even “King” James by playing the game their own way.

ABOUT MICROSOFT

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Assembly PR for Xbox, [email protected]

Warner Bros. Pictures, Camille Smith, [email protected]

 Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

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Microsoft to help 25 million people worldwide acquire new digital skills needed for the COVID-19 economy

REDMOND, Wash. — June 30, 2020 — Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced a new global skills initiative aimed at bringing more digital skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year.

The announcement comes in response to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Expanded access to digital skills is an important step in accelerating economic recovery, especially for the people hardest hit by job losses.

This initiative, detailed on the Official Microsoft Blog, includes immediate steps to help those looking to reskill and pursue an in-demand job and brings together every part of the company, combining existing and new resources from LinkedIn, GitHub and Microsoft. This includes:

  • The use of data to identify in-demand jobs and the skills needed to fill them.
  • Free access to learning paths and content to help people develop the skills these positions require.
  • Low-cost certifications and free job-seeking tools to help people who develop these skills pursue new jobs.

This is a comprehensive technology initiative that will build on data and digital technology. It starts with data on jobs and skills from the LinkedIn Economic Graph. It provides free access to content in LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and the GitHub Learning Lab, and couples those with Microsoft Certifications and LinkedIn job seeking tools. These resources can all be accessed at a central location, opportunity.linkedin.com, and will be broadly available online in four languages: English, French, German and Spanish.

In addition, Microsoft is backing the effort with $20 million in cash grants to help nonprofit organizations worldwide assist the people who need it most. One-quarter of this total, or $5 million, will be provided in cash grants to community-based nonprofit organizations that are led by and serve communities of color in the United States. The company is also pledging to make stronger data and analytics — including data from the LinkedIn Economic Graph — available to governments around the world so they can better assess local economic needs.

Microsoft will use its voice to advocate for public policy innovations that will advance skilling opportunities needed in the changed economy.

Microsoft also announced it is creating a new learning app in Microsoft Teams designed to help employers skill and upskill new and current employees as people return to work and as the economy adds jobs.

“COVID-19 has created both a public health and an economic crisis, and as the world recovers, we need to ensure no one is left behind,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Today, we’re bringing together resources from Microsoft inclusive of LinkedIn and GitHub to reimagine how people learn and apply new skills — and help 25 million people facing unemployment due to COVID-19 prepare for the jobs of the future.”

“The biggest brunt of the current downturn is being borne by those who can afford it the least,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith. “Unemployment rates are spiking for people of color and women, as well as younger workers, people with disabilities and individuals with less formal education. Our goal is to combine the best in technology with stronger partnerships with governments and nonprofits to help people develop the skills needed to secure a new job.”

“Creating opportunity for every member of the global workforce drives everything we do at LinkedIn,” said LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. “As a part of the Microsoft ecosystem, we have the unique ability to help job seekers around the world — especially those who have been disproportionately disadvantaged during the COVID-19 crisis — gain the skills and find the jobs they deserve. We’re proud to be bringing the right data about what the jobs and skills of the future will be to create the right learning paths to help 25 million job seekers find their next opportunities. We’re making it all available at opportunity.linkedin.com.”

More information can be found at the Microsoft microsite news.microsoft.com/skills.

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications, (425) 638-7777, [email protected]

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.