Databus Issue: 2005 1 02/07/2005
School Districts Benefit From Software Donation
Ryan Lockwood MSDN Academic Alliance High School Membership Prog
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Last year, nearly 300 school and educational service districts in the state of Washington received free software and teacher training from Microsoft to enhance instructional opportunities for students. The software giant is hoping to duplicate its efforts here in California with a similar donation.
Under a program called MSDN Academic Alliance High School Membership, Microsoft Corporation will donate software called Visual Studio which allows students to create their own software using multiple programming languages and develop programs that will operate in a Microsoft Windows environment.
In addition to software and training, the donation would also include free technical support and access to online libraries, instructional materials and curriculum development tools. Districts may use the software free of charge for as long as they like and are permitted to duplicate copies of the software or download it for distribution in their schools. An online checkout system would allow students to easily download or check out the software.
“Microsoft recognizes that schools are required to operate on increasingly lean budgets,” says Ryan Lockwood, academic programs manager for Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism Division. “We are happy to assist by making technology easily accessible to students and teachers in the state of Washington and across the country.”
Lockwood is planning to introduce the program into California schools soon and says that each high school participating in the MSDN Academic Alliance High School Membership program will receive the following:
• Visual Studio .NET Professional
• Visual Studio 6.0
• Visual Studio .NET Teaching and student tools and manuals
• Three Microsoft Electronic Learning Library collections
• Sample curriculum
• Access to special online communities for high school educators and students
• Comprehensive Web sites with resources for faculty—including projects, tutorials, academically focused articles and private newsgroups for instructor collaboration.
Microsoft has a long history of philanthropic work benefiting education. For more information, visit www.msdn.microsoft.com/academic or call (866) 643-9421.
