Microsoft IT Academy points the way with certification roadmap

Earlier this week, Microsoft Learning blogger Lorna White posted a new item to the IT Academy (ITA) blog titled "New Certification Roadmap Paves a Path for Students." White's post contained a downloadable graphic that depicts the entire panoply of Microsoft certifications available to IT Academy participants at over 17,000 high schools, community colleges and universities around the world. (IT Academy provides low-cost access to MOS, MTA, MCSA, MCSE, and MCSD training and certification curriculum, and makes deeply discounted exams available to students who enroll in such programs.)

Here's a compressed and almost illegible version of that poster. (The full-size version is available to download in PDF format.)

This new certification "roadmap" lays out the structure of the various and numerous items available through the ITA program, and shows how lower-level credentials connect with higher-level ones. As such it also provides a great overview of the majority of Microsoft certifications currently available, and makes a peachy visual for anybody interested in Microsoft certifications of just about any kind around at the moment.

In particular, it does a great job of tying the MTA exams to corresponding MCSD exams for developers, and to corresponding MCSA and MCSE exams for system admins and database professionals as well. Finally, there's even a plug for the Microsoft Certified Educator (MCE) at the lower left, a teachers-only credential aimed at identifying practicing instructors in ITA Institutions who are armed and ready to deliver the curriculum to legions of interested students.

Grab the roadmap and look it over. Then share it with those around you who may be interested in starting down the Microsoft certification trail. This visual will help them find their way to the topics, tools and technologies that interest them most. Good stuff!