With the school season already kicked off, Microsoft’s Bing web search engine launched an educational website, REDU, aimed at empowering teachers and everybody concerned with the issue to have a national conversation around education reform. They are encouraged to connect, communicate through initiatives and, being inspired by others’ examples, improve this sphere with concrete actions, ranging from planting a learning garden to taking up a volunteer job.
The name of project is an abbreviation of the project’s slogan—»Rethink/ Reform/ Rebuild Education,» which perfectly explains its core values and goals. The website provides its visitors with a bunch of useful tips on and detailed description of how to improve campuses (e.g. by planting a garden or decorating the walls inside), or volunteer and donate, or find a teaching job in the U.S. The space also aggregates the theme-related articles, news and interviews with people, who are in this or that way driving change in the sphere of education.
That’s not the first Microsoft’s program, which is revolving around education. The company is also running Imagine Cup and DreamSpark projects which help students get a deeper insight into the world of technology, take part in real-life initiatives and have involvement through the theme. For Bing this is also not a pioneering initiative in this area—earlier this year, the search engine encouraged its users to share inspirational stories about great teachers who changed their school for better in some way, and paid tribute to these people by donating money to improve classrooms across the U.S.
«There’s a lot going on but there isn’t one place where people can come and participate in a discussion. REDU is a good way for us to help people participate in one of the most important conversations that will happen in America over the next decade. Education is quickly becoming a thing that Bing is rallying around, and REDU is a piece of that puzzle. We were all students who were inspired by teachers, and many of us are parents with kids in school right now. This is an issue that we feel should not be viewed from afar,» states Adam Sohn, a senior director of online services at Microsoft.