According to Penn State University’s official announcement, the five-day program is designed for faculty and staff across the university who want hands-on experience with campus-supported enterprise platforms, practical instructional strategies, and clearer ways to improve student engagement and learning outcomes. While the week spans multiple vendors—including AI Studio, Google Gemini, and Adobe—Thursday’s programming is dedicated entirely to Microsoft Copilot, offering a close look at how a major public research institution is training educators on Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Notebooks, Study and Learn agents, and Copilot Studio.
How Penn State’s 2026 Event Is Structured
The fall 2026 program runs from Monday, November 2, through Friday, November 6, using a hybrid format designed to serve both the main University Park campus and regional commonwealth campuses. Organizers encourage in-person attendance at TLT’s Dreamery space, located on the ground floor of the Shields Building at University Park, while providing a virtual attendance option for faculty and staff across Pennsylvania.
Each day from Monday through Thursday spotlights a single Penn State enterprise learning platform, bringing in company representatives to review core capabilities and demonstrate how the tools apply to teaching and learning contexts. Attendees are encouraged to drop in for individual sessions that match their roles or attend the full week, culminating in open virtual office hours on Friday where staff can troubleshoot projects with Penn State specialists.
Complete Daily Schedule (November 2–6, 2026)
| Date | Featured Platform / Focus | Published Session Schedule & Details |
|---|---|---|
| Monday, Nov. 2 | AI Studio | Schedule to be announced. |
| Tuesday, Nov. 3 | Google Gemini (Empowering Teaching, Learning and Research with Google Gemini) | • 10:00–11:00 a.m.: Overview of Gemini for Education and Gemini Notebook as secure institutional tools<br>• 11:00 a.m.–noon: Pedagogical & Curriculum Applications (course prep, assignment design, advanced prompting, and teaching workflows)<br>• Noon–1:00 p.m.: Lunch (provided)<br>• 1:00–3:00 p.m.: Real-Life Applications and Demos, AI Educator Series, and Office Hours |
| Wednesday, Nov. 4 | Adobe | • 9:00–10:15 a.m.: Getting Started with Adobe Express at Penn State<br>• 10:30–11:45 a.m.: Beyond the Basics: Exploring Advanced Features<br>• 11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.: Lunch (provided)<br>• 12:30–1:15 p.m.: Getting Involved With Adobe |
| Thursday, Nov. 5 | Microsoft Copilot | • 9:00–9:15 a.m.: Welcome: The AI Spectrum and Copilot Value Overview<br>• 9:15–10:15 a.m.: Hands-on Lab: Copilot Chat, Notebooks, and the Study and Learn Agents<br>• 10:30–11:15 a.m.: Office Productivity with Microsoft 365 Copilot<br>• 11:15 a.m.–noon: Lunch (provided)<br>• Noon–1:30 p.m.: Build Your First Agent: Copilot Chat Agent Builder<br>• 1:45–2:30 p.m.: Automating Agents with Copilot Studio |
| Friday, Nov. 6 | Open Virtual Office Hours | • 10:00 a.m.–noon: Virtual drop-in session for questions on the week’s material and guided time to continue developing course and workflow artifacts with Penn State professionals |
Section Summary: The five-day schedule pairs four days of vendor-supported platform sessions at the Shields Building’s Dreamery (with remote access across the commonwealth) with a two-hour Friday virtual clinic for follow-up support.
Inside Thursday’s Microsoft Copilot Track
For Windows administrators, Microsoft 365 specialists, and academic IT leads watching how universities structure AI training, Thursday, November 5, is the centerpiece of the agenda. Rather than treating Microsoft Copilot as a single monolithic chatbot, Penn State’s schedule breaks the day into five distinct blocks that progress from foundational prompt interaction to agent creation and workflow automation:
- Framing the Toolset (9:00–9:15 a.m.): The day opens with “Welcome: The AI Spectrum and Copilot Value Overview,” establishing where Copilot fits within broader AI tooling.
- Hands-On Instructional Exploration (9:15–10:15 a.m.): A full-hour lab focuses on Copilot Chat, Notebooks, and Study and Learn Agents, giving participants direct practice with conversational and notebook-style interfaces alongside education-oriented agents.
- Everyday Productivity (10:30–11:15 a.m.): “Office Productivity with Microsoft 365 Copilot” shifts focus to the core document, communication, and administrative workflows inside the Microsoft 365 suite.
- No-Code/Low-Code Agent Creation (Noon–1:30 p.m.): After lunch, “Build Your First Agent: Copilot Chat Agent Builder” allocates 90 minutes to constructing custom agents directly through Copilot Chat’s builder interface.
- Advanced Automation (1:45–2:30 p.m.): The track closes with “Automating Agents with Copilot Studio,” stepping up to Microsoft’s broader platform for orchestrating and automating custom agent workflows.
From an enterprise IT perspective, that progression reflects how institutional Copilot training has matured. Instead of spending an entire day explaining what a large language model is, the curriculum devotes the entire afternoon to building and automating custom agents with Copilot Chat Agent Builder and Copilot Studio.
Section Summary: Penn State’s November 5 Microsoft track moves deliberately from basic chat, Notebooks, and Microsoft 365 productivity in the morning to building and automating custom agents in the afternoon.
From General EdTech to AI-First: Comparing 2025 and 2026
Looking back at Penn State’s earlier programming reveals just how rapidly institutional priorities have shifted toward generative AI and agentic workflows. When TLT and Penn State IT hosted the inaugural “Learning Tools for Teaching: Explore, Engage, Elevate” week from September 29 to October 3, 2025, at the Dreamery, the lineup centered primarily on traditional academic engagement and media platforms:
- Monday, Sept. 29, 2025: Top Hat (student response and polling)
- Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025: LinkedIn Learning (professional growth and digital fluency)
- Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025: VoiceThread (asynchronous multimedia discussions)
- Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025: Microsoft 365
- Friday, Oct. 3, 2025: Open Virtual Office Hours
Even inside the Microsoft day, the evolution between 2025 and 2026 is striking. In October 2025, the Thursday track was titled Microsoft 365 and split its time between “Unlocking Productivity with Microsoft Copilot” (9:00–11:00 a.m.), “Microsoft 365 LTI for Canvas” (noon–12:45 p.m.), and “Building Intelligent Agents with Microsoft Copilot” (2:00–3:30 p.m.). Following a virtual summer series announced in May 2026, the fall 2026 schedule replaces Top Hat, LinkedIn Learning, and VoiceThread with AI Studio, Google Gemini, and Adobe, while rebranding Thursday specifically around Microsoft Copilot and splitting agent instruction into separate sessions for Copilot Chat Agent Builder and Copilot Studio.
Another notable detail for enterprise IT observers is how Penn State positions competing AI ecosystems side by side. Tuesday is dedicated to Google Gemini—explicitly highlighting “Gemini for Education and Gemini Notebook as secure institutional tools” alongside pedagogical prompting workflows—while Thursday belongs to Microsoft Copilot. In large universities, faculty rarely live in a single-vendor world; supporting both Google and Microsoft environments under official institutional guardrails is increasingly standard practice.
Section Summary: Compared with the inaugural Fall 2025 event—which focused on Top Hat, LinkedIn Learning, VoiceThread, and general Microsoft 365 Canvas integration—the Fall 2026 lineup pivots heavily toward generative AI platforms and dedicated Copilot agent development.
Practical Details and Unreported Specifics for Attendees
For Penn State faculty and staff planning to participate, or IT trainers at other institutions looking to benchmark the format, it helps to separate what Penn State’s announcement confirms from details that require checking the university’s internal registration portal:
- Who Can Attend: The program is open to Penn State faculty and staff university-wide, who may register for individual sessions or the entire week.
- Where to Go: In-person sessions take place at TLT’s Dreamery on the ground floor of the Shields Building at the University Park campus, with lunch provided on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday during midday breaks.
- What Remains Unspecified in the Public Notice: While Monday, November 2, is reserved for AI Studio, its detailed session times were still listed as “to be announced” at the time of publication. Furthermore, the public announcement does not list specific Microsoft 365 or Copilot Studio license prerequisites, account eligibility rules, session capacity limits, or direct remote meeting links—directing participants instead to the university’s Learning Tools for Teaching website for full schedule updates and registration.
Whether you manage an academic tenant or an enterprise Windows environment, Penn State’s fall lineup offers a clear snapshot of where end-user enablement is headed in late 2026: less time marveling at basic chat prompts, and a lot more time teaching staff how to build, govern, and automate their own agents.