Our final day in Barcelona was a relaxing one. We toured the beautiful Sagrada Familia Basilica, had a pizza lunch at Rossini Pizzeria and made one last stop for gelato! Next, we walked to Port Vell and enjoyed strolling along the harbour, soaking up the warm sunshine. We went out to Milk Bistro for a late night supper and then went back to our hotel room to pack. By 3:30AM we were in a taxi to the airport, ready to begin the long journey back home. It was sad to leave, but we are both very excited to see our families, friends and students!
The global forum has been a positive experience for us. We've made many connections with people from around the world and had the opportunity to see people who we haven't seen in over a year. Often we met people in person that we knew from social media interactions or Microsoft conference calls and it was great to have a face to face connection with these people. Leaving the forum, I really believe in the value of the work we do as educators, school leaders and education stakeholders. This conference has showcased positive changes going on around the world - we really are working towards improving education around the world!
This is an education-related blog written by Mrs. Leah Obach @LeahO77. Leah is currently working as the Literacy with ICT Teacher Leader for Park West School Division, working with K-12 students and teachers to help them use technology for teaching and learning. She has taught at the early years, middle years and high school levels. Student work, teacher reflection, resources and samples from classrooms around PWSD are included in this blog.
Showing posts with label Microsoft Global Form. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft Global Form. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Day 4 at the Microsoft Global Forum
Friday, our Learn-a-thon groups presented our learning activities to a panel of judges and audience of fellow conference attendees. We had 8 minutes to share our vision for Challenge to Change. Despite presenting regularly, I felt very nervous! I was so excited to stand on stage with fellow expert educators from three other countries and share the idea we are so excited about!
Our closing session included messages from:
Maria Garana Corces - President of Microsoft Spain
Felipe - Prince of Asturias
There was also a panel discussion, with panelists:
Alexa Joyce: Corporate Development Manager for European Schoolnet
Julio Fontan: President of Learning 1 to 1 Foundation
Mette Hauch: Educator at Hellerup School in Denmark
Steven Ronsjin: School Director at Sint-Lievenscollege Gent in Belgium
Some key points from our panelists included:
- Technology + good pedagogy make for good teaching and learning.
- The connections we've made at this Forum need to be preserved - let's keep in touch, work together and collaborate to change education in positive ways!
- Letting go of some control & letting your students direct their learning will help transform education.
- Teachers need freedom & trust from school leaders in order to deliver quality teaching.
- We can empower children - the work showcased at the Global Forum is evidence that it is possible!
- Connecting with educators around the world gives us new perspective and inspiration - we often face the same challenges despite our varied locations, cultures and backgrounds.
After the conference had closed, Mrs. Caldwell and I got ready for the
evening gala and awards night. We were very excited to dress up in our
fancy gowns, since it`s not something we get to do very often! We met up
with Team Canada for some photos and then went to the conference center for
dinner, dessert and the awards ceremony. Team Canada member Jessie Mann
and her group won a Learn-a-thon award in the Sustainability category.
Then, Team Canada hit the stage again when Mrs. Devon Caldwell and her
group won the Gender Equality category of the Learn-a-thon. It was
exciting to celebrate their successes! The evening went by so quickly and
it was over all too soon; before we knew it we were saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances. It was an inspiring and motivating conference and we are returning to our classrooms with new enthusiasm!Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Microsoft Global Forum: Day 1
On Tuesday, our day started with 7AM Team Canada breakfast, followed by conference registration and team pictures!
Next, we set up our Little Hands Extended display. Our brand new Microsoft Surfaces were waiting for us at our booth!
We attended the team building session with Tracy Immel. This was an opportunity to meet our "Learn-a-Thon" teams and work with them on a group activity. We then had professional development sessions that helped us learn to use our Surfaces and gave us some ideas for using them in the classroom.
Our Little Hands Extended exhibit was open from 2:45-6:30 and one of our judges visited our booth to find out more about our project and evaluate it based on the 21st century learning rubrics. It was a very busy afternoon of meeting and reconnecting with teachers, principals, Microsoft staff, sponsors and judges. We really enjoyed sharing our students' great work and we received lots of positive feedback on their great action plans - way to go Kindergartens and Grade 1s! A big highlight was when Microsoft's Vice President for Education, Anthony Salcito, stopped by our display!
After exhibits closed, we had a short break and then returned to the conference center for the welcome reception. We met up with many people we'd met at previous forums and also made some great new connections. One of the best parts of this event is meeting people from around the world who are passionate about improving and changing education. We had some great conversations and learned a lot! We even got to chat with one of our favorite keynote speakers from the 2012 Forum, Simon Breakspear and behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert, who works for Bing.
Photo credit: Kate Taylor
Next, we set up our Little Hands Extended display. Our brand new Microsoft Surfaces were waiting for us at our booth!
We attended the team building session with Tracy Immel. This was an opportunity to meet our "Learn-a-Thon" teams and work with them on a group activity. We then had professional development sessions that helped us learn to use our Surfaces and gave us some ideas for using them in the classroom.
Our Little Hands Extended exhibit was open from 2:45-6:30 and one of our judges visited our booth to find out more about our project and evaluate it based on the 21st century learning rubrics. It was a very busy afternoon of meeting and reconnecting with teachers, principals, Microsoft staff, sponsors and judges. We really enjoyed sharing our students' great work and we received lots of positive feedback on their great action plans - way to go Kindergartens and Grade 1s! A big highlight was when Microsoft's Vice President for Education, Anthony Salcito, stopped by our display! After exhibits closed, we had a short break and then returned to the conference center for the welcome reception. We met up with many people we'd met at previous forums and also made some great new connections. One of the best parts of this event is meeting people from around the world who are passionate about improving and changing education. We had some great conversations and learned a lot! We even got to chat with one of our favorite keynote speakers from the 2012 Forum, Simon Breakspear and behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert, who works for Bing.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Day 2 in Barcelona
We wanted to experience more of Barcelona, so we took a big walk on Monday once we were better rested. We saw many beautiful buildings, historical places and went on a food tour. Our favorite area was the Gothic Quarter. We got lots of exercise and had a lovely day!
The Gothic Quarter - beautiful narrow streets with lovely buildings!
Placa Reial
i
The first stop on our food tour.
We were really brave and tried several new foods!
The yuckiest thing we ate was cold anchovies flavored with vinegar and oil
We enjoyed a variety of meats, cheeses and breads.
We walked around the Gothic Quarter during our food tour and got to see many more sights in this interesting area!
The most delicious part was eating gelato for dessert! It was very creamy and delicious!
Monday, March 10, 2014
We've Arrived!
Mrs. Devon Caldwell and I were selected to be a part of Team Canada at this year's Microsoft Global Forum. We are in Barcelona, Spain for the week for this special event, which focuses on recognizing innovative teachers and schools, providing relevant professional development and improving learning for students around the globe. We will be working with educators from many different countries and we are so excited to share the Little Hands Extended project - we are very proud of our students' work and we always enjoy showing their learning to others!
It was a long journey to get here. We traveled 2.5 hours from Winnipeg to Toronto, then boarded a very long 7.5 hour flight from Toronto to Frankfurt. Next, we had to wait about 3 hours in Frankfurt, which was really hard since we were so sleepy (Mrs. Caldwell even had to have a nap). Finally, we boarded our last flight to Barcelona, which was about another 2 hours long. We were so exhausted that we slept soundly for our last flight and were ready to see the sights when we got to Barcelona!
We checked in at our hotel and were excited to have a view of the sea from our tenth floor room.
Next, we went to explore Barcelona. We walked around and then decided to take a bus tour. We got to sit on the top floor of the double decker bus, which was really fun. We got to see lots of the city from the bus. We decided to get off the bus and go for a walk at Park Guell. It is a lovely, green park and we were excited to enjoy warmer weather here (16C). You can climb up the hills in the park to get a great view of the city.
Although we love to have coordinating outfits, we did NOT plan our matching black and purple traveling outfits. Starbucks at the Winnipeg Airport was a must, since we are both big fans of their lattes.
It was a long journey to get here. We traveled 2.5 hours from Winnipeg to Toronto, then boarded a very long 7.5 hour flight from Toronto to Frankfurt. Next, we had to wait about 3 hours in Frankfurt, which was really hard since we were so sleepy (Mrs. Caldwell even had to have a nap). Finally, we boarded our last flight to Barcelona, which was about another 2 hours long. We were so exhausted that we slept soundly for our last flight and were ready to see the sights when we got to Barcelona!
We checked in at our hotel and were excited to have a view of the sea from our tenth floor room.
Next, we went to explore Barcelona. We walked around and then decided to take a bus tour. We got to sit on the top floor of the double decker bus, which was really fun. We got to see lots of the city from the bus. We decided to get off the bus and go for a walk at Park Guell. It is a lovely, green park and we were excited to enjoy warmer weather here (16C). You can climb up the hills in the park to get a great view of the city.
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