Microburst Learning Debuts New Branding for Online Job Shadows
February 29, 2012
MicroCareerBursts™ help expose young people to modern careers
COLUMBIA, SC – February 29, 2012 – Microburst Learning announced that itis rebranding its online educational tool that exposes secondarystudents to careers in today’s modern workforce as it celebrates thecompany’s fifth year in business. MicroCareerBursts™ are interactive jobshadows that allow students to experience careers that may nototherwise be easily accessible.
These online tools help students learn about jobs in the 16 nationalcareer clusters as well as make a connection between school subjects andjob opportunities in the real world. Currently, there are 42MicroCareerBurst lessons available for South Carolina students,educators and parents to access online via the SC Personal Pathways toSuccess™ web portal (www.scpathways.org).Three new MicroCareerBursts were launched this week highlightingcareers as a Community Developer, Geospatial Technology Technician andLaw Enforcement Officer. MeadWestvaco sponsored the Community DeveloperMicroCareerBurst while Berkeley County School District in cooperationwith a grant from Google’s Tides Foundation sponsored the other twolessons. The grant also covered a MicroCareerBurst on a Social MediaSpecialist which will be released in March.
“MicroCareerBursts are highly interactive and are designed to capturestudents’ imaginations as they explore opportunities for life after highschool,” explained Microburst Chief Executive Officer Jordy Johnson.“There is no other state that provides a comprehensive system whichallows students to explore careers online and then have a record of thestudent’s experience automatically and electronically populated into thestudent’s graduation portfolio inside Personal Pathways to Success. Each MicroCareerBurst combines the subject matter expert interviews withanimation and interactive games and quizzes to provide a 20-minutehighly-engaging experience. We are proud of our work for the State ofSouth Carolina and look forward to working with our business andeducational partners to expand the inventory of MicroCareerBurstexperiences for all South Carolinians especially our students.”
The MicroCareerBurst experiences provide an Extended LearningOpportunity for students as required by the 2005 Education and EconomicDevelopment Act, and students can complete the MicroCareerBurstsindividually or as part of a classroom activity. Once the studentcompletes the online experience and a brief survey, the information istracked through the SC Department of Education as part of his IndividualGraduation Plan, which serves as an educational roadmap to fosteron-time graduation as well as readiness for life after high school.
“MicroCareerBursts are wonderful because they allow students to see whatit is like on the jobsite regardless of where that student is locatedin the state,” explained Ann Brown, Microburst Chief Operating Officer.“So if a student in Jasper County wants to experience what it is like tobe a Mechatronics Technician at BMW, he can go online and see what atypical day looks like, all from the convenience of his computer atschool or home. It also opens up opportunities for career explorationthat young people might not be able to experience in real life becauseof safety or security concerns. All of this is provided to SouthCarolinians at no charge. Currently we do not offer these services inany other state.”
As part of the new launch, a new website was created to shareinformation about MicroCareerBursts and help parents, educators andbusinesses learn more about supporting career education in SouthCarolina. The new website address is www.microburstlearning.org.
Microburst Learning is a SC-based firm that offers highly interactiveapproaches for personal and professional development. They providevirtual services to students for career planning, employment seeking,training, and other support functions as well as custom e-learningcontent to meet education and business clients’ training needs.
