Main MenuNEWS RELEASE
Contact: Ericca Reynolds (reynoldse@nsula.edu)
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
10/02/2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES-Northwestern State University is among 23 institutions in the United States, sharing more than $6 million in software grants under the new American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)-Microsoft Innovative Teachers Program. The grant was made to NSU's College of Education
According to Professor of Education, Dr. Robert Gillan, getting this grant will impact many areas of education at NSU and in some Natchitoches Parish schools.
The software is designed to provide support for pre-service and in-service teachers to continually develop as professionals by bringing together a community of teachers as learners, provide training and access to technology resources, creating a platform for the advancement of best practices, engaging teachers intellectually and offering them opportunities to be active stakeholders in their profession and deliver integration confidence to teachers using technology in the teaching and learning process.
"Students at our lab school and professional development schools will have access to the latest software which in turn, will prepare them for their future," said Gillan.
The grant provides the College of Education with the following software titles: Office XP Professional/Frontpage Enterprise, Publisher 2002 Enterprise, Visio Pro 2002 Enterprise, MapPoint 2002, North America Maps, Encarta Reference Library, Class Server 2.0 and Magic School Bus Volcanoes and Rainforest.
"Microsoft is pleased to support the ongoing efforts of AACTE and its member institutions to develop high-quality teachers for today and thefuture," said Greg Butler, K-12 and higher education professional development manager at Microsoft."Technology in the hands of well-trained faculty can take education to the next level: Teachers can lecture less, spend more time one-on-one with students or small groups, and can use more "learn by doing" strategies."