Certiport Academy is all about providing resources for educators, and Intuit Academy is our way of helping our accounting educators across the globe. As part of Intuit Academy, we sat down with Emily Watkins, Product Manager for QuickBooks and key member of Intuit’s Corporate Social Responsibility team, to discuss Intuit Education’s mission, and the resources they’ve made available to educators like you!
Free Software
The Intuit team offers QuickBooks Online access to educators 100% free through the Intuit Educator Portal. Students can also access QuickBooks Online Plus for free for 12 months, plus a 30-day trial of Payroll. Get more information about free QuickBooks Online access here.
If QuickBooks Desktop is your preference, the Intuit team gives educators access to Windows desktop software as well, for 2019-2021 versions. The license allows for up to 500 installs on campus or school owned computers, which makes it even easier for you to teach in your classroom. Students can also get their access to QuickBooks Desktop for a 5-month trial for a personal device. Get more information about free QuickBooks Desktop access here.
Free Resources
Free software won’t last long unless you have the tools to learn and teach it inside your classroom. Intuit has built resources to help educators start from scratch. The Intuit team has broken up QuickBooks Educator resources into three main categories:
- QuickBooks Online Tutorials: Here educators can watch step-by-step videos to learn the ins and outs of QuickBooks Online. You can watch individual video tutorials or register for a one-hour webinar with an expert to get you started.
- QuickBooks Resource Center: Here you can find guides and tools to help you learn more and find the best solutions for you and your students. With over 900,000 contributors and over 650,000 articles, you’re sure to find the resources you need to be successful.
- Firm of the Future Blog: Stay updated with the latest news in the tax world and get expert advice from fellow experts and accountants.
Looking for more? The Intuit team has also developed curricula to help you teach QuickBooks Online to your students. The curricula are broken down into two levels (with a third coming soon).
Level 1 covers all the basic functions needed to support a simple service-based business, with six class lectures and over six hours of student activities. Level 2 covers all basic functions needed to support a service and product-based business, with 12 class lectures and over 20 hours of student activities. Level 3 will cover all basic functions needed to support a service, product, or project-based business, with 14 class lectures and over 24 hours of student activities.
If you’re looking for other curriculum options, you can find the recommended textbook list for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Get all this and more here.
Free Toolkit
If you’re looking to expand your program offerings, the new Intuit Design for Delight Innovator exam is a great addition to your students’ skillset. Design for Delight is Intuit’s unique approach to problem-solving and innovation. More precisely, Design for Delight is a set of principles that gives students hands-on experience in creative problem solving. It gives students the tools to identify big unsolved problems, gain customer empathy, run quick experiments with actual customers, test assumptions, pivot if needed, and much more.
Because this is a new approach and new concept to many teachers, the Intuit team has built a Toolkit to make training and lessons easy. The Toolkit is a set of free downloadable files that are designed to help educators teach students the basics of design thinking in an interactive, problem-based format. Best suited for eighth grade and up, the Toolkit lets you choose materials for a customizable intro to design thinking, for longer-term projects, or both.
The Toolkit is broken into two sections: Core Instructional Materials and Supplemental Instructional Materials. The main Toolkit materials are designed to be used together to guide students through a coherent learning experience, with students working both individually and in pairs. These materials can be completed in a single 1.5-hour session or can be broken up into shorter lessons and activities to supplement one to two weeks of instruction.
Once you’ve integrated the core materials, use the supplemental materials to enhance the learning experience and truly integrate Design for Delight into your class using Brainstorming Cards, Posters, Method Cards.
You can download your own copy of the Design for Delight Toolkit here.
Looking for a full overview of the Intuit Educator platform? Watch Emily’s demonstration here.