IBM Open P-TECH Offers Skills, Badges in Current Tech

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 04/07/20
Open P-Tech badges

IBM has launched Open P-TECH, to help young people and educators learn the basics in topics including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and cloud computing, as well as soft skills. Up until now, the P-TECH program has been provided as a model affiliated with schools. Now students who are 16 and older can register and participate on their own.

The digital coursework includes videos, readings and classroom activities (some of which require registering on external sites). There's a "recommended learning" display that provides collections or "channels" of activities that have been curated by learning professionals, other users and IBM's own Watson, based on the student's profile, job role or other factors. Students can subscribe to the channels, which cover professional skills, career paths and learning concepts such as design thinking.

As students complete lessons, they have an option of pursuing digital badges, which can be added to their social profiles and used in résumés. The program provides a student progress dashboard to monitor progress and get new assignments.

Partners in the program include Khan Academy, Codecademy, OpenClassrooms, LinkedIn and Duolingo.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • depiction of a K-12 classroom with geometric shapes forming students and a teacher, surrounded by multiple holographic learning tools in various subjects

    I've Been in K-12 for Over 15 Years. Here Are Three Things We Need to Do to Integrate AI Now.

    When AI is deployed responsibly and equitably, the potential advantages of empowering more personalized learning, optimizing student engagement, uncovering gaps in education, automating routine tasks, and freeing up more time for effective teacher-student interactions have the power to transform education.

  • computer with a red warning icon on its screen, surrounded by digital grids, glowing neural network patterns, and a holographic brain

    Report Highlights Security Concerns of Open Source AI

    In these days of rampant ransomware and other cybersecurity exploits, security is paramount to both proprietary and open source AI approaches — and here the open source movement might be susceptible to some inherent drawbacks, such as use of possibly insecure code from unknown sources.

  • futuristic AI interface with glowing data streams and abstract neural network patterns

    OpenAI Launches Its Largest AI Model Yet

    OpenAI has introduced GPT-4.5, its largest AI model to date, code-named Orion. The model, trained with more computing power and data than any previous OpenAI release, is available as a research preview to select users.

  • group of elementary school students designing video games on computers in a modern classroom with a teacher, depicted in a geometric and abstract style

    Using Video Game Design to Teach Literacy Skills

    The Max Schoenfeld School, a public school in the Bronx serving one of the poorest communities in the nation, is taking an innovative approach to improving student literacy.