Apple and ARUSU Join Forces
Anglia Ruskin Students’ Union and Apple launch the first RTC affiliated with a students’ union in the U.K
In February 2010 the Students’ Union at Anglia Ruskin University will become an Apple accredited Regional Training centre (RTC); the first RTC ever to be linked with a Students’ Union. From February the Students’ Union Activities Centres in Cambridge and Chelmsford will have a front facing state of the art Apple suite for its members to use.
This is the latest development which has seen Anglia Ruskin Students’ Union reduce its Bar space dramatically. In Cambridge the bar has been replaced altogether by a Gym and a Mac RTC. These developments reflect the changing priorities of university students across the country today. Once the RTC is fully running every student will have the chance to develop new skills that are transferrable to a variety of industries whilst enhancing their CVs to increase employment prospects after graduation.
Apple’s Regional Training Centre programme builds on the experience and achievements of many teachers already using Apple technology in the classroom. The programme offers schools the opportunity to attend a course relevant to their curriculum interests and needs. RTCs focus their training on the curriculum-enhancing opportunities of using iLife, the multimedia software that comes with every new Mac, and features Apple’s award-winning iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand and iWeb applications. Teachers are also introduced to more advanced software applications, including Final Cut Express and Logic Express to help give older students a head start in preparing for careers in the creative industries.
“The concept behind the traditional regional training centre is to educate children and also primary and high school teachers in using Mac products, the aim of which is to enhance learning and teaching within the curriculum. What makes this RTC unique is that we can now offer potential teachers studying within the Faculty of Education at ARU the chance to be trained using these tools before they’ve even entered the professional world – really giving them an upper hand in the market.
“This RTC offers a unique extra-curricular learning experience to all our members, but particularly those within the Education faculty. The education sector demands new teaching techniques that excite pupils, and this certainly ticks several boxes! We hope this will be the start of a fantastic and beneficial collaboration for many years to come!” – Matthew East, Students’ Union President.
Posted by guystepney on February 4, 2010
Category: News
So… what’s in for us?
and why macs? They aren’t proper computers. How about putting more PC’s in the library instead so people who need them can get them… for a change.
Dear Bee
Thank you for your email
The student activities centre has been set up to allow our student volunteers a space to work on their clubs and societies etc. In the past it has been made apparent that clubs and societies would like to use alternative forms of media to publicise themselves such as websites and videos of activities. Using the applications that come with apple macs, we are able to offer this to our members.
There are several reasons we are using apple macs for the centre. We are working in partnership with Apple and have Macbook computers for running training sessions with our members, the applications that come with the computers are much more simple to use for more effective outcomes (iMovie is much better than Windows movie maker etc) and apples generally have a longer shelf life, as well as sharing similar environmental policies to the Union.
With the regards to the facilities in the library, the Union are lobbying the university to improve the facilities in the Cambridge library. Last semester we managed to get the university to open an extra computer suite during peak periods, and we hope to have this done again before the busy periods this semester. As the union is a separate organisation to the university, we could not have moved our facility to the library.
The student activities centre once fully operational will offer skills development that will enhance your CV with skills fully transferable between any operating system.
I have just read that we are to have a
“a front facing state of the art Apple suite”
How delightful – BUT what on earth do you mean by front facing????
Is this a cut and paste example of Apple commercialism or did you actually write “front facing”?
Please explain
This is wonderful news and for students to have access to the most advanced and secure computing software bar none!
As guystepney mentions iMovie is better than Windows Movie Maker and I have tried it, found I could not create the transitions I wanted and I carried on with iMovie moving onto Final Cut Express and the full Final Cut Pro professional suite.
Video editing aside there is Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, the latest version which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Entourage the Mac equivalent of Outlook, which returns to the Mac in the next version of Office due out later this year. You can even transfer Office files from the Mac version to Office 2007 for Windows and vice versa.
Access to computing facilities regardless of what kind of computer is crucial to any student and personally I would encourage ARU to replace each PC with a Mac and install Windows 7 Professional (or the latest incarnation of Windows along with OSX) on them too, so any user can choose which operating system they want to use at any one time. This is more inline with ensuring transferable computing skills between any operating system.