In North America, 1 500 colleges and universities use it. It`s only been available since January in the UK, yet already half of all IT academies teach it. Fifteen Swedish, seven Dutch universities and two Finnish Polytechnics have approved it. It hasn`t even been released elsewhere but one Tasmanian TAFE has adopted it - the reputation of the series has preceded its availability. It`s MOAC (Microsoft Official Academic Course), successor to the Academic Learning series and it is taking the IT academic training world by storm.
The MOAC series map directly to Microsoft IT Pro and Microsoft Office Specialist certifications (Server 2003 and Office 2003) - but what makes it so different? Why this escalating success with students and lecturers alike? Simply put, it`s not just a series of books. It`s a two-part program consisting of textbooks, software and instructor resources that have been designed, developed and planned as teaching and learning solutions.
To the old-hand instructor or the first-time trainer, that means unprecedented support; from upgrading your own knowledge, to a model course description designed as a starting point for writing course proposals to your department head, to six, eight, 10, 12, 14 and 16 week syllabi, to setting up the labs for each session, detailed lecture plans and power point slides with talking notes. There is also a test bank and links to 25 Webcasts, which are detailed technical briefs designed for either the instructor`s professional development or for use in class as a `guest lecturer`. The books have been designed as pedagogical academic textbooks that combine instructor-led classes and homework.
During an audio presentation to academic institutions last week, Bill Setton, Business Development Manager at Microsoft Learning, noted that the MOAC Server 2003 program "...delivers everything an instructor needs to easily and efficiently upgrade a Windows 2000 program to Server 2003 and subsequently deliver a dynamic classroom experience to students seeking to enter the ITC workforce".
On MOAC Office 2003, he says the titles align to the MOS exams, with an introduction to the exams in the preface of the books. MOS logos highlight MOS objectives that students should master to prepare for exams.
Each new student or upgrading professional (there have been 750 000 of them so far, aged 17 to 70), receives a digital edition of the book, a Lab Manual for exam preparation, real world scenarios to tackle and a 180-day evaluation copy of SQL Server Enterprise Edition or Office 2003, depending on their route. More importantly, the books don`t provide exact answers to exam questions. Instead, they build the skills needed to solve exam and real life questions.
In southern Africa, Intersoft is the official Microsoft Learning Authorised Academic distributor.
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Intersoft is southern Africa`s leading distributor and provider of ITC material. The company represents John Wiley (including "...for Dummies", Wrox Press and Sybex imprints), O`Reilly, Microsoft Press, McGraw Hill, Computer Step, Learning Resources (courseware, electronic assessments end e-learning) and Chorus Call (interactive long-distance communication). Intersoft publishes and distributes quality IT, professional reference and consumer textbooks, manuals and customised or aligned Learnership material and customised end-user and soft skills courseware for all user levels. Intersoft`s wide range of product makes it the perfect one-stop shop solutions provider. Intersoft is a CompTIA Gold Class material provider and a founder member of Proudly South African.
For further information, contact Customer Services on (011) 325 2643 or toll-free on 08600-26657.