Acer TravelMate & Office 365 Education address the needs of every student at the Bartolomeo Sestini Institute

Acer TravelMate and Office 365 Education helped the Italian institute Bartolomeo Sestini bridge the technology and social divide by implementing and elevating innovative learning solutions available for everyone and addressing the needs of every student.

Step inside the Bartolomeo Sestini school

Istituto Comprensivo “Bartolomeo Sestini” is located in the municipality of Agliana, in Tuscany, Italy, and it is attended by over 1900 students from kindergarten, primary and secondary school. 

The Bartolomeo Sestini welcomes pupils with a variety of backgrounds and learning needs. While the socio-economic and cultural level of their families is considerably diversified.  16% of the school population is represented by foreign learners, most of those from Albania, Morocco, Pakistan and China. Moreover, in the 2020/21 school year there were a total of 75 students with SEN (Special Education Needs) enrolled.

While only a limited number of pupils could access laboratories due to availability issues, teachers needed to implement digital education through a solution suitable for all students. This is where Acer TravelMate and Microsoft Office 365 Education came into play.

As a matter of fact, EdTech represented the turning point to address the needs of the Bartolomeo Sestini students. It supported teachers and students during times of distance learning and remained a staple when classes could be finally held in person once again. 

Elevating digital learning with Acer Notebook & Office 365 Education

Acer TravelMate Spin B3 felt like a natural choice to implement digital learning in the school for multiple reasons. Firstly, the notebooks’ batteries are durable and last for most of the school day. Secondly, the convertible design of the TravelMate Spin B3 offers several opportunities in terms of collaboration, note-taking and flexibility, as students can use the devices in both tablet or notebook mode according to different situations. In addition, the notebooks come with a dockable pen, which allows students to unleash their creativity with drawing and graphic works. Finally, thanks to their lightweight and 11.6” display, the devices are easy to handle, fit inside backpacks smoothly and are suitable for use in various environments and surfaces, from outdoor to classroom desks.

Most importantly, the devices also accompanied students’ activities at home during remote learning. As a matter of fact, families could borrow the devices from the school and keep them as long as they needed them. 

Acer TravelMate & Office 365 Education: the perfect match

Office 365 Education completed the learning experience at the Bartolomeo Sestini, matching the deployment of the devices and offering the tools the school needed to carry on its activities from home or in the classroom. While OneDrive was already implemented for planning and sharing documents, during the pandemic students made the best out of other Microsoft Office apps, such as Teams, OneNote and Forms, thus elevating individual and collaborative activities remotely.

As remarked by one of the school’s teachers, Acer TravelMate and Office 365 Education “have been very useful and versatile to allow the implementation of innovative digital teaching as with their characteristics it is easy to use them daily in the classes and other spaces of the Institute. They enable the use of Office 365, Teams, and all connected apps, in a functional and simple way.”

What’s best, the devices also helped to fuel collaboration among the teaching staff. In fact, senior and experienced teachers trained less-skilled and junior colleagues on the use of Office 365 Education. By doing so, they made sure everyone could keep up with their teaching programs during the pandemic.

Watch the video above to learn more about this success story from Italy. Do you want to implement Acer devices in your school just like the Bartolomeo Sestini Institute did? Contact us now: acerforeducation.emea@acer.com 

Success Story Key Info

School name: Bartolomeo Sestini Institute, Pistoia – Italy

Acer devices: TravelMate Spin B3 – TravelMate Spin B1

Reseller contact: Berti Hi Tech Smart Solution – info@bertisimone.com