THE PROBLEM:
The Educator-to-Educator IT Institute at NWCET-BCC (E2E) is dedicated to helping build a professional development environment for Washington State's community college IT Instructors. Through a generous grant from Microsoft the first Microsoft IT Institute (MSIT) was founded. This week-long summer Institute offered by E2E represents a central component of our efforts to contribute to the IT professional development of Washington State educators. In addition to providing professional development opportunities at the state-wide level, one of E2E's objectives for the MSIT was also to demonstrate a return on investment to Microsoft. E2E did not want the MSIT to be just a one-time event with no lasting impact. We decided to organize an event that would stimulate learning both pre- and post-event.
Problems that needed to be solved:
- The cost of providing the week long technical training was considerable. E2E needed to ensure a return on investment to the Microsoft corporation to encourage continued funding of the grant.
- A structure developed that would nurture a statewide community among IT faculty.
- The construction of an IT professional development event that would extend the learning and the sharing over an entire year.
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