CareerForward, a destination designed as a free online career development course, is heading to no less than 739,500 students in Alabama. Microsoft announced that it had collaborated with the Alabama Department of Education in order to make the course available to schools across the state for the 2009-2010 school year. The Redmond company indicated that it supported the Alabama Department of Education not only with financial resources but also with assistance on rolling out CareerForward.

“Alabama is taking a necessary step as it adopts more rigorous high-school graduation requirements,” explained Anthony Salcito, general manager of U.S. Public Sector Education at Microsoft. “We are pleased that CareerForward meets the state’s criteria for online learning because students’ career choices are critical to the talent pipeline and future business prosperity in the U.S. When you set a high bar for student expectations, we’ve learned our kids will exceed it and our schools will adapt to support.”

CareerForward was introduced at the end of 2008, then a collaboration between Microsoft and Michigan Department of Education and Michigan Virtual University. Now, following in the footsteps of Michigan, Alabama will also require online learning experience to be an integral part of the process leading to high school graduation. Via CareerForward, students are able to assess their skills, get information on jobs and career opportunities as well as the technological requirements associated with them, and plan their future. Microsoft Partners in Learning will contribute $50,000 to the project, in an effort to compensate the costs for training educators on how to teach the new course.

“CareerForward helps Alabama students win in the global economy,” revealed Joe Morton, Alabama state superintendent of education. “CareerForward will help our students see the connection between school and work, and it will strengthen students’ 21st century skills as it asks them to critically think, reflect and do online research,” added Tommy Bice, deputy state superintendent of education for Instructional Services.