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Announcements
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U.S. Academy Recognition Awards - Submit Your Nominations by May 12 We are pleased to announce the 2006 Academy Recognition Award Program, which focuses on what we are calling the three R’s of the Academy program in the United States: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. This message contains basic information about this recognition program, including details about the nomination process and a submission form for each of the three awards. There are three categories of nominees within the Academy Recognition Award Program: Student, Instructor, and Academy. Learn more
Secretary of Treasury and Cisco Chairman of the Board Visit California Academy Secretary of Treasury John W. Snow and Cisco Chairman of the Board John Morgridge visited the Cisco Networking Academy at Foothill College in Los Altos, California on March 2, 2006.
“I'd like to commend the leadership of both Foothill College and Cisco Systems for working together to create this Academy. In an economy as dynamic and ever-changing as ours, Academies like this are offering timely, essential training that enables workers to move into new jobs, with new skills, at any point in their professional careers.” Read Secretary Snow’s
full remarks Watch the Networking Academy Program Video Update (February 2006) View a short video from Amy Christen, the worldwide leader of the Networking Academy Program. This video briefly provides you with a snapshot of our global presence and the changing marketplace, introduces our current strategic direction, and announces some improvements we are making in the short term to the program. |
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Academy Conference
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Visit U.S. Academy Conference 2006 Site for Updates and Online Registration Log on to the Academy Conference 2006 Website for some recent updates:
Networking Academy Appreciation Events Announced Conference participants are invited to attend a fun Networking Academy Appreciation Event at each location. The cost of each event is included in the conference registration. More |
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Curriculum |
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IP Telephony Learning Materials Now Available Over the past months, the Cisco Networking Academy IP Telephony (IP Tel) materials have been concept tested by a pilot group of Networking Academy instructors and students. The pilot resulted in very positive feedback. The IP Tel materials consist of lab exercises based on Cisco equipment and additional resources adapted from various Cisco sources. Due to the continued interest and growing importance of IP Telephony technology, the Cisco Networking Academy Program made its IP Telephony labs and other IP Telephony learning materials available to all Networking Academies on 17 April 2006. Interested Academies must request access through the Academy Support Desk. More IT Essentials Curriculum Name Change For the past four years, Hewlett-Packard has worked with Cisco Systems to sponsor the development and deployment of the IT Essentials curricula. These courses have been an important part of building student success in the Cisco Networking Academy Program. We are pleased to announce that Cisco will now directly sponsor IT Essentials I and IT Essentials II. As a result, we will remove the HP name and logo from the course title and content. We would like to thank HP for their valuable contribution to these courses. More Retirement of Fundamentals of Web Design Curriculum The Adobe-sponsored Fundamentals of Web Design (FWD) course began development in 2001. Adobe’s sponsorship and contract ended in early 2004. At that time, we announced a retirement date for this course of July 2006. We plan to retire this course the last week of July 2006. More Equipment Update for CCNA, CCNP, and Network Security Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series Intelligent Ethernet Switches have been added to the equipment bundles for CCNA, CCNP, and Network Security. Updated equipment bundle lists are available on Academy Connection. More Three NETLAB headlines have recently posted to Academy Connection.
Log in to Academy Connection and select Recent Headlines to view these announcements. |
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Tools
for Academies |
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Resources from Cisco Press: New CCNA 1 Companion Guide Now Available Companion Guides for CCNA 2, 3, and 4 courses will be available in June 2006. Visit the Instructor Resource Center to learn more, request review copies, and place your order. |
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Tools
for Students |
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Best Practice: Schenectady Students Apply Classroom Learning to Real-Life Experience Through NYSCATE Conference Nineteen Schenectady High School Networking Academy juniors and seniors
put their networking and computer repair skills to work at the New York
State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education (NYSCATE)
annual The Schenectady students, directed by Academy instructor Barry Gold, set up computers for the presentations, set up and networked the e-mail stations for the conference attendees, and helped the vendors establish Internet access at their booths. Throughout the conference the students also served as the help desk – troubleshooting Internet access issues and assisting presenters with their equipment. Each of the Schenectady students who helped with the conference completed IT Essentials and PNIE. The students were also currently enrolled in CCNA or had completed the course. Schenectady Academy instructor Bernadette O’Brien was thrilled with the students’ enthusiasm. “These kids love doing this stuff – we actually had ten kids who arrived at the convention center at 8 a.m. on a Sunday!” More |
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Success
Stories |
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IT Professional Returns to School and Lands Great Job Mike Fouts of Sunnyvale, CA was an IT professional for 14 years in a
job he enjoyed. After a management change at his company, Fouts and many
others were After starting a new job that didn’t deliver what he was looking for, Mike began to explore other options. "I once thought my skill set was enough," he said. "I realized later I was missing the fundamentals." In addition to his networking and security experience, Foust realized the type of work he was looking for required certification. This led to a decision to go back to school. In April 2005 he started at Foothill College. He completed all four CCNA courses, and is currently enrolled in a security and CCNP class. More |
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Workforce
Development |
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Is the Outsourcing Backlash Over? By Peter Joyce, Cisco Networking Academy Program Workforce Development Manager This is partially due to industry trends. In response to a shortage of skilled engineers and a decline in student enrollments in IT programs, the United States seems to have responded by dismantling programs. On the other hand, when faced with a shortage of engineers, India enrolled 450,000 students in four-year engineering courses in 2005, meaning that its output of engineers will more than double by 2009. More The Future Face of IT - Certification Magazine Visits a Networking Academy Job Shadow Day Event The following article was published by Certification Magazine. I recently had the opportunity to visit Cisco’s regional office here in Chicago for one of the company’s Job Shadow Day events, which brought in area high school and college students for career advice, technology demonstrations, games and facility tours, all of which were conducted by volunteers from the organization’s workforce. While there, I was able to scope out the next generation of techies, and the experience left me a good deal more hopeful for the future of IT. Read the full article |
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Gender
Initiative |
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Cisco Supports International Women's Day Cisco and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have worked together over the past five years to establish affordable Internet Training Centers in developing countries. On March 8, 2006, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Cisco and ITU announced a joint sponsorship of 100 scholarships for women to receive technical training at these centers. More |
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Market
Research |
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Download the market research which is compiled for the Academy program by a public relations firm. Information is broken down by category: job market / technology trends, gender, Cisco news, theater-specific information. |
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Secretary
Snow praised the Foothill College and the Networking Academy program.
“Being here really is a reminder of the best America has to offer
– and the promise that our future holds. The Cisco Networking Academy
is a terrific example of where technology and innovation meet common sense
and good education. When these elements come together, American workers
simply can't be beat. 
laid
off and suddenly he and his family were in a tough spot. Fouts had worked
for so long, he wasn’t sure he could or should go back to school.
I
am often confronted with questions regarding U.S. companies outsourcing
IT jobs to India and elsewhere. There is no question that U.S. companies
are leveraging technical expertise in India and other emerging Asian economies,
but what is feared to be a Mecca of low-skill, low-wage call centers and
basic tech support centers is actually a maturing economy. Technology
companies are not the only ones growing their businesses through Asian
markets. Now big U.S investment banks and drug companies have joined the
ranks of tech firms, and various research and development centers are
springing up in key areas of India the country where there are highly-educated
workers. 