Learning Tools

IBM Open P-TECH Helps Students Pick Up Skills, Badges in Current Tech

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 03/30/20

IBM has launched Open P-TECH, to help young people and educators pick up 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, among others.