Microsoft Master Certified students at Buckhannon-Upshur High School gather around computers practicing a bit of what they learned along the way to becoming Microsoft experts.
BUCKHANNON, W.Va. — Buckhannon-Upshur High School is leading the state in the number of students who are Microsoft Experts.
B-UHS administrators said there are currently nine Microsoft Experts who are in high school in the state of West Virginia. Of the nine, six of the students are enrolled at B-UHS.
Keith Nichols, who teaches basic computer applications, has had two of his students receive Microsoft master certifications, and Christy Dean, also a basic computer applications teacher at B-UHS, has had four of her students receive the certifications.
“To become what these students are, they’ve passed five tests, and had all of these tests passed and at least one expert level passed, so they’ve went way above and beyond,” Nichols said.
Each students has to complete a series of five tests and meet a certain standard on those tests to become certified.
Students begin by working with Microsoft Word, move on to Microsoft PowerPoint, followed by Microsoft Word Expert, and finish by working with Microsoft Excel.
“We encourage them to take the tests because of the importance of the certification,” Dean said.
Dean said her class lasts for an entire year, and while some students may take an entire year to pass in the Microsoft Word program, others may move more quickly.
“They all work at their own pace,” Dean said. “When they’re ready to take a certification test, we let them.”
“I’m very proud of all of our students; they work so hard all of the time,” Dean said. “These students are just exceptional students. They were when I had them in middle school, and I just think the world of them.”
James Sheley, a freshman at Buckhannon-Upshur High School, is among the students who have received a master certification.
“I’m looking into going into the sports medicine field or computer science, so for either one you have to be pretty tech savvy and be familiar with the technology,” Sheley said.
Nichols said many students may already have been exposed to Microsoft Word or PowerPoint in the past, so they may have a better grasp than others.
“It’s really based on their mastery,” Nichols said. “It’s designed so they can move at their own speed.”
“Starting out, the first couple were fairly easy, but after that, Word Expert was a little bit harder and Excel was one of the harder ones,” Sheley said.
All students at B-UHS are required to complete at least one technology credit before graduation.
“We wouldn’t be able to have this many opportunities for students if we hadn’t had the infrastructure in place with our IT department,” Nichols said. “The IT department made a way for all of our classrooms to be full testing environments, and it wasn’t that way in the past, so they deserve some credit.”
Dean said she expects the number of students who become certified to continue to increase.
“Their patience and persistence is just amazing,” Dean said.
“They are very bright students,” Nichols said.
