The Acer Academy: Empowering learners through a new system of interaction

MANILA, Philippines - Living up to its thrust of empowering people and breaking the barriers between them and new technologies, Acer Philippines has launched the Acer Academy, an innovative solution to educate today’s generation of learners.

The Acer Academy was developed to help school administrators and teachers adapt to a more up-to-date method of communicating and interacting with their current set of students, mostly brought up within a technology-rich environment.

These youngsters’ wide exposure to a vast ocean of information, and their rapid adoption of new ideas and trends, make it imperative for today’s academic institutions to respond to their needs accordingly.

The Acer Academy hopes to help schools deliver the right response by promoting a digital classroom framework that makes use of Acer’s suite of products and services.

The program enables educational institutions to assemble the appropriate hardware, applications and network setup that will best serve their system of education. Acer uses both portable and fixed devices to create the digital classroom setting, merging the mobile and traditional computing experience.

With a comprehensive solution suited for the 21st century academe, students and teachers are expected to acquire the basic ICT capabilities that will hone their skills in problem solving, collaboration, and critical thinking.

Partnership benefits

A school that partners with Acer under the program gains a number of benefits, including P10,000 (for a Gold partner) or P30,000 (for a Platinum partner) worth of sponsorship in an official school event; free Microsoft tools and software, digital literacy training, and optional Acer branding collaterals in its computer laboratory. As an Acer Academy member-school, it will have increased exposure in Acer’s print and online media publicity efforts.

The program also includes a professional and career development plan for school administrators, principals, librarians and teachers. Part of this is the soft skills workshop for educators and certification courses for teachers. The member-school’s faculty is also entitled to exclusive discount privileges in Acer products.

The Acer Academy also opens the door for students to attend IT-enablement conferences co-sponsored by other IT industry professionals, for graduating seniors to enter internship opportunities in Acer, and for qualified pupils to receive the Acer IT Excellence Award during their commencement exercises.

Platinum member-schools also get one in-campus information kiosk that runs on Acer platforms that they can use to facilitate information dissemination or help new students and visitors find their way around the school grounds.

How it works

Any private or public school, college or university in the country is qualified to join the Acer Academy. It simply has to go to the Acer Academy website and apply for membership, or contact the Acer Academy office.

Acer will confirm the membership status of the applicant school. When the membership type — either Gold or Platinum — has been confirmed, the school or university can already create its account in the Acer Academy website, completing its application process, and can start receiving its benefits.

The membership will be valid for two years, and members are only allowed to avail themselves of the benefits once. The advantages to education and individual learning, however, will be long-term.

The Acer products eligible for this program are the TravelMate notebooks, Veriton desktops, servers, projectors, and the popular Acer Iconia tablets.

“We believe that the Acer Academy is a perfect way to help equip educational institutions become more adaptable to the demands of digital learning in the 21st Century. We hope that through this initiative, more schools can respond to the needs of today’s modern students in the most effective manner and let their creative potentials emerge,” said Acer Philippines Inc. general manager Manuel Wong.