Last week we talked about how Microsoft is helping classrooms better utilize the power of the web with Bing in the Classroom. The company did this by sending volunteers to familiarize teachers with Bing and technology that helps kids learn in a way that’s both fun and educational.
Today, in a blog post the Microsoft Education Team, they detailed how they strive to achieve a similar goal, but in higher education institutions with the company’s Technology Enriched Instruction workshops.
“Microsoft Technology Enriched Instruction (TEI) workshop is designed to help higher education faculty develop competencies that will enable them to effectively select and use technology tools and resources in their teaching. Microsoft recognizes that supporting faculty, and their students, with the instructional integration of information technology is critical for improving workforce capacity and providing a foundation for building community and local economies ready to compete in today’s changing economic environments”.
Microsoft is educating educational staff and faculties on how products such as Office 365, Office Mix, Yammer, Skype, and Lync can make their jobs easier and more efficient, as well as how students could use those tools to collaborate. Learning to use these tools early will also prepare students as their future workplaces might very well be using Microsoft technology too.
In these TEI workshops are designed as a lead-by-example process where educators will get to witness the use of the technology as it is implemented and will get hands-on experience with them.
The workshops is a worldwide effort that will hopefully benefit higher education institutions in China, Ukraine, Mexico, Canada, and the United States for the time being. As the software giant likes to put it, this is 21st century technology for 21st century classrooms, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Unfortunately, I’m sure many of us can attest to how that is not always the case, so it’s good to see Microsoft working on changing that.
