Faculty Training Days just around the corner!

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I’ve just managed to secure the last details of the upcoming Faculty Training Day Roadshow and can breathe a sigh of relief. But, if you’re an educator and want to get a handle on some cool technologies so you can use it to teach your students, or to teach your students on how to use it themselves, it’s now your turn to do something! :)

Here’s the official spiel:

Microsoft Australia invites you to attend a Faculty Workshop. This no cost technical training day is jam-packed full of information that will help you understand technologies that are used by a large component of the business world and show how you can help your students come to grips with them and be prepared as they enter the workforce.

The morning session introduces you to Expression Studio, including Expression Web, Encoder, Design and Blend. These four key design tools are being used by professionals in all sorts of technical areas such as web designers, programmers, graphic designers and more. But perhaps more importantly, these tools can be easy to learn and can give you and your students some exciting opportunities to work with.

  • Expression Web is Microsoft’s premiere, standards-based web site creation tool and can be used to teach basics such as HTML and web page structure and layout all the way through to advanced web site layouts.
  • Expression Encoder allows you to quickly and easily capture video from multiple sources, allowing you to either record a class, or record a lesson for one. It can also be used to repurpose existing video into a small but high quality format utilising Silverlight so you can get your important messages to your students no matter where they are, or even teach them how to use quality video tools themselves.
  • Expression Design and Blend give the ability to create rich user interfaces and designs that can be used on their own or in the place of standard programming interfaces.

This three hour session will also show you other utilities you can use in the classroom that are based on Expression and associated technologies such as Deep Zoom and PhotoSynth.

The afternoon session will cover XNA Game Studio with a brief introduction into the world of game development and how you can use it to excite students of many age groups with technology. XNA Game Studio is a game focussed add-in for the professional level Visual Studio development environment that is now available to students and faculty at no charge through DreamSpark and Faculty Connection initiatives, allowing the programmer to get up and running with creating games for Windows, Xbox 360 and other platforms.

In addition to these two technical training sessions, Microsoft will also highlight the various programs that are in place to provide you and your students no cost software and curriculum resources so that you're best armed to gear up to teach programming with Microsoft technologies, and give you some ideas on how to integrate social awareness into the curriculum to inspire and encourage technical innovation in your class attendees.

There will also be an opportunity to see Windows 7 in action and a chance to play with it yourself so you can see what all the excitement is about.

Places are limited - don't miss out on this opportunity to skill up on Expression Studio and XNA Game Studio and be prepared to teach these crucially important business development technologies to your students.

Places truly are limited in some locations, don’t let someone else get your spot. :) Register here: https://www.microsoft.com.au/events/register/home.aspx?levent=986897&linvitation

I’m going to be a busy little camper getting around to all the places on the map, but I’m committed now, so here goes.

There are training days being held at the following venues:

  • Microsoft Auditorium, Adelaide – SA - 21 Oct 2009
  • Canberra University – ACT - 23 Oct 2009
  • University of Western Australia – WA - 27 Oct 2009
  • Deakin University – VIC - 30 Oct 2009
  • Bond University – QLD - 2 Nov 2009
  • Queensland University of Technology – QLD - 4 Nov 2009
  • University of Technology, Sydney – NSW - 12 Nov 2009

Hope to see you there.