The initiative was born from the collaborative work deployed by the Directorate of Institutional Studies and Planning to support the PMI FIPULS Institutional Improvement Plan for Pedagogies.

“Hack your class” was called the training session that Microsoft professionals carried out for teachers belonging to the University of La Serena, who had the opportunity to update knowledge and learn new programming techniques, in order to be able to apply them in the classroom and offer a innovative material to their students.

This training, which included the protocol greeting of the Rector of the University of La Serena, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés Pizarro, was part of the cooperative work carried out by the Directorate of Institutional Studies and Planning and the company Microsoft, which since 2017 has supported different projects aimed at the implementation of new technologies and learning processes to the ULS educational community.

“For our university, it is very important to have this type of alliance, since it allows us to strengthen our teaching staff and also position ourselves in new technologies. The constant work that is being done to update knowledge, as well as the work that is deployed from the PMI of Pedagogies, makes it clear that we want to be hand in hand with new processes, and this support through Microsoft is very significant," he stated. the first authority of the ULS.

Also present on the occasion was the Director of Education at Microsoft, Raimundo Valenzuela, who was emphatic in saying that this alliance with the University of La Serena is part of the responsibility that Microsoft has as an educational community, and that for this reason it was the first house of studies chosen to begin a journey through different institutions training teachers interested in innovations, which will be part of the change in thinking to train new generations of teachers.

The teachers who received this training in an intensive block day were able to learn about technology that can be incorporated to stimulate new ideas in the class process.

For the Director of Institutional Studies and Planning, Mg. César Espíndola, this work is part of the policies of continuous improvement and linkage with the regional and national environment that the University has, and assured that these instances not only benefit ULS teachers but also pedagogy graduates, who are were interested in participating in this transfer event.

The ULS teachers and pedagogy graduates learned about the Arduino programming system, taught by the programming expert, Ignacio Cormach, current technical specialist in education in the Microsoft community. It should be noted that this type of programming is an open source electronic prototyping platform based on flexible and easy-to-use hardware and software. It is designed for artists, designers, as a hobby and for anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Source: DEIP Press