Many students across the WSC campus noticed an influx of emails on their Outlook accounts on Tuesday, Sept. 12. Canvas notifications soon followed.  

Students may be wondering, “Why did I just get so many emails?” “Why should I care about what these emails say?” The emails and notifications are for Microsoft training classes. They are provided to help inform students on how to use programs like Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Students may again be asking themselves why this is important or saying they know how to use all of these. Take a step back.  

Nick Muir is the Chief Information Officer with the Network and Technology Services, or NATS, on campus. He has sent out the emails and set up the Canvas notifications and wants students to be aware that these tools are available for them to use.  

“We’ve seen over the past couple of years more students are bringing Chrome devices or Apple devices,” Muir said. “The purpose of the notifications is to make sure we are catching all of the students.” 

According to the initial email Muir sent to all students on Friday, Sept. 8, “the Microsoft Modern Work Training Academy is focused on providing a comprehensive understanding of popular Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, OneDrive, Sharepoint, and Teams.” The training is partnered with Heartland Business Solutions and hoped to bring students extra resources to help them use these tools properly. 

Muir said this is the first time the training has been offered to students. He also said the NATS office had an influx of questions on helping students work through something in Excel or in PowerPoint. The department wants to make sure all students are prepared for anything they encounter, and that they know how to use any program they may need to use.  

The training sessions will consist of a basic rundown to provide basic knowledge on how to use these programs. Even if students can’t attend one of these sessions, the purpose of the Canvas events is to have a recording of the training. This way, students that can’t attend the session that wanted to still get something out of it, those links would be available.  

“We’re trying to augment staff time and provide value to the students,” Muir said. “I wanted to create that handshake between us and the students.”