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>> Hey, IT Pros.
Do you ever get the sense there are
a ton of resources out there for learning about Azure
and you don't know what they are or even where to start?
Do you ever wonder if there might be ways
that would figure learning style better?
Maybe there might be some tips and tricks for using
these resources that can help you learn even faster.
My name is April Edwards.
Join me on a guided tour of the
Azure learning resources available to you,
so you can get answers to all of these questions and so much more.
>> Now, let's visit Virtual Training Days.
>> Hi, I'm Garrett Bundy.
I am a Global Director,
part of our Microsoft Trainer team.
I have a team of 16 trainers spread across the globe
that all support our Microsoft Virtual Training Day events.
>> What are Virtual Training Days?
>> Our Virtual Training Days are these free,
in-depth instructor led trainings that are
found on the local Azure events page.
When you attend one of our Virtual Training Day events,
what you get is this opportunity to see
great content delivered by our Microsoft Technical Trainers.
Our content ranges from fundamentals level content
all the way up through advanced content.
>> Why should IT pros attend Virtual Training Days?
>> Why would an IT professional come to a Virtual Training Day?
Well, the reality is we have a lot to
offer for the IT professional.
You can attend a course across any number
of our products from Azure Fundamentals
to security courses around
protecting sensitive information and managing risks
or even the dynamic side.
If you're looking to learn about how to activate digital selling,
we offer 17 different and distinct, unique courses,
and likely one of them is tailored to what it
is you're needing to achieve in your career.
Whether you're looking to get to your next step in the career,
prepare you for the next project you're
working on, or any other things.
We have the option for you.
>> How should an IT Pro gets started with Virtual Training Days?
>> The great thing about the Virtual
Training Days for IT pros is all
you have to do is go out to our events page and just register.
Once you register, we'll take care of everything from there.
We'll send you the invite, we'll let you
know exactly when to join, how to join,
and once you show up, all you have to do
is enjoy the content being
delivered by our Technical Trainer team.
Then interact with our subject matter experts that are there
to help you and guide you through the content.
>> Is there any Virtual Training Days content
IT pros will want to pay particular attention to?
>> I think the best thing for IT pros to get started with
a Virtual Training Day is really look at
the fundamentals courses that we're offering.
Whether it's Azure Fundamentals,
Azure AI Fundamentals, or Azure Data Fundamentals,
those are all great classes to start with,
but then make sure you take it a step further
and attend one of the more advanced courses.
Maybe you're a developer in your career
or you want to do more developing.
We've got the DevOps with GitHub course
or even integrated Azure Synapse Analytics content.
There's lots of opportunities for you to do this.
>> What's one thing that most IT pros
might not know about Virtual Training Days?
>> One of the things IT pros typically don't know about
our Virtual Training Days is if
you start at the fundamentals level,
we actually give you the opportunity to sit that exam for free.
If you take an Azure Fundamentals course
with us in a Virtual Training Day,
we're going to provide an opportunity for you to sit that
Azure Fundamentals or AZ-900 exam at absolutely no cost to you.
>> Our next stop is at Microsoft Learn.
>> I'm Judy McNeil,
Senior Program Manager on the Learn Content team.
>> What is Microsoft Learn and how do I get started with it?
>> Learn has over 1,000 courses,
and we cover a wide variety of topics,
including Azure, AI software development, lots of topics.
You can start with one of
the popular learning paths like Azure Fundamentals
or you could jump to the browse page and you
search or filter to focus on the thing that's important to you.
You can also explore Microsoft Certification paths,
where the learn content is there to
help you get ready for certification exams.
>> Why should IT professionals go to Microsoft Learn?
>> Learn modules cover
a wide range of topics of interest to IT pros,
like administration, architecture, security,
and migration, just to name a few.
>> How should IT pros get started with Microsoft Learn.
>> As soon as you get to Microsoft Learn,
start with Browsing all the paths and then choose
filters to find the modules and
learning paths that are of interest to you.
>> Are there any features
IT pros should pay particular attention to?
>> IT pros should pay particular attention to the filtering.
Select one or more roles that align with what you do
and then see the modules that are relevant to that role,
like database administrator or security engineer.
>> What's one thing that IT pros might
not know about Microsoft Learn?
>> You can learn on your own schedule.
That's important, IT pros.
Go deep in one topics through a whole learning path or just
accomplish one specific task with an individual module.
>> Next, let's visit Tech Community.
>> Hi. I'm Anna Chu
and I am the Community Lead for Microsoft Tech Community.
>> What do IT pros find when they go
to Microsoft Tech Community for the first time?
>> When people first come to the Tech Community,
they find a wealth of resources to
help them keep up to date with the news and
updates that help Tech Professionals meet
the demands of new challenges that are facing them today,
both at work and at home.
When you first visit techcommunity.Microsoft.com,
members can discover and
discuss technology solutions with Microsoft Engineers,
be able to acquire these skills and become
inspired by innovative use cases,
be able to give and receive technical guidance and
ultimately enjoy support and
encouragement from other fellow technologists.
The community provides members with a lot of healthy guidance,
and a platform for collaborating with other technologies,
and a place to find belonging,
which is really important these days.
>> Why should IT pros go to Microsoft Tech Community?
>> Our heritage has really been with the IT Pro audience for sure.
From the very beginning,
when we first launched the Tech Community back in 2016,
we launched with a lot of our go to community areas.
We built community hubs for SharePoint, for Exchange,
and when we started working with Teams,
they quickly became one of
the quickest growing community hubs on the Tech Community.
But we have hundreds of communities where people can find
our experts and other IT pros you can relate to what you're seeing,
what you're experiencing,
and to get advice in implementing these products.
>> How can IT pros get started with Tech Community?
>> The easiest way for people to feel
immediately at home is to find there hub.
These are places where you can find everything
that you need to know about a particular product or program.
They include discussion forums,
and you might even be familiar with some of
the names of some of our contributors.
You'll also find blogs authored by our Product Marketing team,
as well as our engineers who are there to give you in-depth
guidance on new features or new best practices they've discovered.
If you're a part of a specific industry,
we also have some very focused community hubs
that focus on specific industries such as public sector.
This one is definitely an open comma,
and we've got a dedicated community manager who's there to
guide you on specific articles that might be helpful for you,
especially with the world of GCC.
>> Other features or content that
IT pros should pay particular attention to?
>> Something that we just worked on recently is the Video Hub.
The Video Hub is a place where we aggregate
video content across the entire Tech Community,
but they're sourced from different areas.
Whether our product teams have
made those videos available on YouTube
or other destinations, we have
actually created a Video Hub that aggregates it all.
But one thing to know,
we have these community hubs that are these little microcosms for
all things related to that particular product or program,
and what we've done is provided some connective tissue
between all the different content formats that you see.
If you are in a discussion forum,
you will be served up
related blog articles that are
aligned to that particular discussion forum.
Similarly for videos, any related video on our Video Hub
that is aligned to that same topic
will also be served up to you.
What we're doing is really deepening the opportunity for you to
learn about a particular product or program
so that you can continue being that trusted [inaudible]
in your workplace or within your community.
>> What's one thing that most IT pros may
not know about Microsoft Tech Community?
>> One of the things that people may not
realize about the Tech Community is
that there are people who are there to really help you learn.
Someone gave me a really good analogy about the difference
between documentation and the Tech Community,
where any type of documentation can feel very clinical,
almost like a dictionary.
Whereas the Tech Community can feel like
your day-to-day phrasebooks that allows you
to find best practices
and tips and tricks to help you on a day-to-day basis.
I really love that analogy
because we both need to think about documentation and
community as co-existing, side-by-side,
and complementing each other.
I think that's a really interesting way of thinking
about how Tech Community can be helpful for you.
>> Our next stop is at LinkedIn Learning.
>> Hi, I'm Sharon Bennett.
I'm a Senior IT Instructor with LinkedIn Learning.
>> What will IT pros find when they
go to LinkedIn Learning for the first time?
>> They're going to find over 15,000 courses.
That's a lot of courses.
To get started, the best thing to do is search for a topic
or you can use one of our curated LinkedIn Learning paths.
>> Why should IT pros go to LinkedIn Learning?
>> As an IT Pro,
you'll want to come to LinkedIn Learning because we don't
just focus on those technical skills that we all need,
we also focus on those soft skills.
>> How should IT pros get started with LinkedIn Learning?
>> As an IT Pro new to LinkedIn Learning,
to make you feel at home,
you'll probably want to search for the topic you're looking for.
For example, Azure Administration.
>> Are there any features that IT pros will want
to know about when working with LinkedIn Learning?
>> As an IT Pro coming to LinkedIn Learning,
you may not be aware of GitHub.
We put our PowerShell scripts up there for you,
as well as study guides.
>> What's one thing that most IT pros
may not know about LinkedIn Learning?
>> A new IT Pro coming to
LinkedIn Learning may not realize that a lot
of our technical courses have
a study group associated with that course.
Within that study group,
we have a LinkedIn Learning employee
who's moderating in that group.
Learners can help each other, and every so often,
an instructor may just pop in and give you a hand as well.
>> I hope you've enjoyed our tour across Azure learning resources.
If you're looking to engage with any
of the resources we visited in this video,
please check the text in this video's description.
Enjoy your learning and see you next time.
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