Driven by the pandemic and a world that’s starting to appreciate digital learning, education now takes place outside the four walls of a classroom. This award goes to the institution that uses Slack to improve the learning experience and successfully serve students, teachers and staff.
Ranked as US News & World Report’s most innovative school for five years straight, Arizona State University (ASU) is receiving the Slack in Education Award for its use of Slack to redefine education and power the modern learning experience.
A forward-thinking place, ASU was the very first university to adopt Slack campus-wide, rolling it out to five campuses and 200,000 users, including students, faculty and administrators. With 5,664 active course workspaces to date, Slack is used to host classroom discussions, develop new courses and support students – both on campus and at home.
For ASU’s CIO, Lev Gonick, going all in on Slack made perfect sense. ‘We observed a large population of Sun Devil Nation already leveraging Slack,’ he says. ‘Listening to next-generation voices has been key in our inclusive strategies as ASU continues to architect the most innovative digital campus.’
That strategy has paid off for the university’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where journalism students use Slack channels to coordinate the publication of new stories. When news is breaking, the students whip up a new channel to organise coverage across the newsroom’s broadcast, digital and social-media platforms. They collaborate on the content in real time, simulating the fast-paced, hyperconnected newsrooms they’ll encounter in their careers.
Giving students access to Slack doesn’t just help the students. As Phil Simon, a lecturer at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business, explains, it helps the faculty too. ‘I’m a professor who enjoys communicating and collaborating with my students,’ he says. ‘At the same time, though, I won’t spend my morning reviewing 150 emails, just answering the same query 18 different times.’ Instead, Simon sets up topic-specific Slack channels that are popular among students.
From automating administrative tasks and streamlining logistics to transforming the educational experience, Slack helps ASU innovate at all levels and for every person in its community. At this rate, the university will be in a prime position to earn a sixth year at the top.
