What is the value of IT industry and/or Microsoft certifications?

I have worked in IT for about 30 years and have seen a lot of changes. Over the years, I was interviewed and was interviewed for the various IT jobs, and education and certification issues always come.

What skills are in demand?

Right now I'm working part-time in education and are wondering what you need to know to get a job in IT? Should be industry certifications (Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, CompTIA), an IT certification program, a degree or a combination? The challenge for educators is to know what skills to teach and make sure those are the same skills that employers are demanding in their new hires. Being in the field of public education, we can offer only a limited number of classes, and I think that would be amazed the skills of high school students have, or rather, without graduating. Imagine trying to teach subnets or binary math for students who have to use their calculator to perform simple addition and subtraction problems.

When I started my career in IT, I have learned with practice. The only classes that are taught in schools are planned, and classes in the networks are only in the best university programs in electrical engineering. Times have changed. YouTube is full of thousands of videos on PCs, servers and networks.

This semester I teach CompTIA A + course. It has been 10 years since I actually played around with the hardware. But to my surprise, when I checked the contents of the textbook of A +, I felt like I knew everything: ISA, EISA, Micro Channel, IDE, parallel ports, Thicknet, Thinnet. This was all stuff that I used to 10 to 20 years, and I wondered why this material should be included in an A + textbook today.

Some of these technologies are 30 years of age. And some of these things I've ever seen. This really questioned what we should teach students today. We should teach including PCI, PCI-X and AGP? Not these technologies are rapidly disappearing in history? As I leafed through the book page 1000, it was more like a history of hardware of a textbook on the new hardware for IT professionals.

I also wonder to what extent an IT professional needs to know the hardware these days. In the past, I added RAM, CPU changed, and installed larger hard drives, but it's something we're still doing today? I think it's been 15 years since I installed a faster CPU. When you look at the new equipment as Microsoft Surface, Apple iPad and ultrathin notebooks, these items are not all sealed units. I'm having a hard time believing that someone is upgrading the RAM or install a faster CPU these days.

I think we should fill the RAM in the brains of our students with current and relevant information. After all, are not most of the companies by improving hardware every three to five years? I think hardware that has more than five years simply is not worth the upgrade. Or am I out of place?

Value in certification?

I also wonder about the value of certifications. I am aware of Microsoft MCSA, MCSE, CompTIA A +, Net +, and Security +, Cisco CCNA, and certification exam VMware VCP, but employers do not see any value in them? How do I search industry certifications, I am learning that there is a whole new set of certifications that are issues much easier and cheaper than the what I call the test "real" or existing. The IT industry has created many certifications, I wonder if there is any value in certification. How is a student or employer to know which are valuable and which are not. I meet many hungry students dead who have spent $ 500- $ 800 to take these certification exams of young people that do not make sense for employers.

These certifications Junior does not lead to more advanced or prestige of MCSA or MCSE.

I am now questioning the value of IT training and certification industry. Are They Worth It? What should we teach our students, the next generation of IT workers and potential employees? In the last ten years I taught the basics: the basics of networking, (and I mean networking with Cisco, but as computer networks transmit data), the fundamental / AD administration of Windows Server to the current version of Windows Server, the Server virtualization and cloud. I make sure that my students have a strong dose of practical skills in communication and problem solving, documentation, creation and skills help desk ticketing. Many of these skills are difficult to prove.

I also teach safety. In reviewing textbooks security, I just can not believe how existing books obsolete. In A + textbook, talk about security flaws and attacks against Windows NT and Windows 95. Who cares? It is assumed that these classes to teach job skills current, with no history of malware. I feel guilty teach my students "I Love You" virus or "Code Red" from a textbook $ 175 when there is nothing on the types of attacks that have occurred in the past five years.

Hands-on learning:

Believing he was doing a disservice to my students and future employers, I have my students have started competing computer online competitions. Not only are my students get real-world, hands-on experience, but they are learning about the latest cyber attacks and how to detect threats instead occurred 10 or 20 years ago. I'm finding my students like this teaching method. Not only are they learning about the actual methods used by the attackers, also close to the security in the same way they would in a real job.

If you are hiring a manager who would like to hear what skills and certifications that would like to see candidates for IT positions that may be hiring for? If you are a recent rent, what skills and certifications they had to be hired?