A blog post from Hassun El Zafar, Education Officer, Student’s Union

Education is evolving. The mechanisms in which we perceive and conduct our teaching and learning are undergoing fast transitions and transformations. It is without doubt that technology, its applications and society’s reliance on it have played a major role in revolutionising our education systems and classrooms. When we understand this, we understand why it is incredibly important for institutions like ours to ensure all students have access to most updated and innovative technological learning hardware’s, software’s and systems.

On this note, I’d like to commend our university for making two major progressions in this niche over the course of this summer. The first is the investment into our library services, with students now having access to much faster operating and space efficient library computer on level two and three of the Adsetts library.

The second advancement involves a renewed partnership between the university and Microsoft, which has resulted in all University students and staff being able to obtain Office 365 for free, saving them £120 on a copy of the latest version of Microsoft Office. I hope these progressions show that Sheffield Hallam University is moving in the correct direction to maintain its reputation as the best modern university in the north.

I also hope that it reflects that we are beginning understand that we can no longer assume that students automatically have access to effective and quality technology which is required for them to pass their courses, be it in our libraries or at home… I believe these steps show that we are the right track, but we still have a long way to go.