Why I'm Thankful to be a Microsoft Expert Educator

As the deadline to apply for the Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator (MIEE) Program quickly approaches, so does our Canadian Thanksgiving Day.  After reading Arianna Huffington's book Thrive this summer, colleague and friend Mrs. Devon Caldwell and I have been making an effort to express gratitude on a daily basis.  (You'll have to read the book to find out all the perks of being more grateful!)  With my "gratitude mission" in mind, I thought that a thankfulness approach was perhaps the best way to express my feelings about the MIEE program. I strongly encourage other teachers to check out this incredible program and to apply here before the upcoming October 15th deadline. (I'll even help you apply if you contact me!)


Five reasons I'm grateful to be a Microsoft Expert Educator:

(1) I'm grateful to participate in excellent professional development.
From monthly webinars to Global Forums, Microsoft offers a wide variety of useful, relevant P.D.  I received extensive professional development in preparation for the 2014 Global Forum, which included sessions focused on the 21st Century Learning Design rubrics.  I have also taken advantage of the EduCast webinars, Hot Topics blog and online courses available on the Microsoft Educator Network.  And hands-down, absolutely-for-certain the BEST professional development in my career has been attending Microsoft Global Forums. 


(2) I'm thankful for the many people I've met because of the MIEE program. 
Thanks to Microsoft, I have met amazing teachers and education stakeholders from all over the world.  We may not see each other face to face, but I have an extended circle of colleagues from around the world that I can reach out to.  

(3) My students and I are glad to have many collaborative opportunities.
Teachers working with other teachers.  Students working with other students.  Connected Classrooms.  I'm happy to have connections with many other teachers.  However, it is also exciting for my students to learn about other people and places while developing their knowledge and skills.  In the short six weeks that we've been back to school, we have already had the opportunity to work with students and teachers from five other classrooms, including both Canadian and international classrooms.  Most of these connections are with teachers that I've met through Microsoft. I strongly feel these connections are an asset for learning and teaching. 

(4) I truly appreciate the inspiration, enthusiasm and motivation to strive for better education.
Attending a Global Forum gives me an incredible "boost" of enthusiasm and inspiration to improve myself and to work towards improvements in our education systems.  There is just something about being surrounded by hundreds of other passionate people that really gets me excited about trying new things, improving my teaching and giving my students the best learning opportunities possible!  (And other events, webinars and collaborative projects are a mini-dose of this great energy!)

(5) I am fortunate to have traveled to many interesting places as an Expert Educator.
In addition to meeting people from around the world, I have also been very lucky to travel to other parts of the world for Microsoft Global Forum events.  On top of the phenomenal professional development and the incredible positive energy I've gained at these events, I have also traveled to countries I likely would have never seen otherwise.  Experiencing the scenic beauty, the culture and the traditions of new places has contributed to my personal and professional growth.


So, thanks Microsoft (and when I say Microsoft, I mean all of the great employees, consultants and educators involved with Microsoft).  Your MIEE program is incredible and I'm so glad that you choose to invest in teachers and in education and in me.  You have helped me and my students in so many ways.  I truly believe I am a better teacher because of the experiences I have had as an Expert Educator and I'm excited to continue learning and growing - I hope to meet a whole bunch of new MIEEs very soon! 

Microsoft Global Forum: Day 3

Day 3 was a unique day of the Microsoft Global Forum.  Educators from around the world were put into international teams of 4-6 people to work together.  Our goal was to create a learning activity that we could do with our classes after the forum.  I was thrilled to work with some excellent educators, including Jennifer Bevill of the United States, Gerard Duffy from Ireland and Mohammad BaniYounes of Jordan.  After many hours, we had created an exciting learning activity Challenge to Change.  I'm so proud of our collaborative work and I'm really looking forward to launching the activity in the future.  Our plan is:

Using ICT, students from four countries will work together to address sustainability issues. 

Driving Questions:

·         What are the environmental sustainability issues in your area?

·         What can you do to make a difference? 

·         How can you encourage others to take action on sustainability issues?

Phase 1: Acting Locally, Collaborating Globally

• Making Connections:  Students will meet each other via video conference

• Knowledge Construction: Students in each classroom will research to identify sustainability issues in their community.  Working in collaborative teams, students will create a presentation to share their findings with the other 3 classrooms

• Sustainability Conferences:  Classrooms connect a second time to conduct presentations to share the sustainability issues they have identified in their communities.   

• Creating Action Plans:  Teams of students will work together to develop an action plan that address their sustainability problem.   Final action plans will be shared with all four classrooms.

• Taking Action:  Students will collaborate to implement their action plans to make a difference in their community.  Actions, progress, results with international team members to ensure accountability.

• Follow up:  Each classroom will share their results with all classrooms.  This may include successes, difficulties and the impact that their local action plan had. 

Phase 2: Scaling Up the Impact
Once students have taken action locally, they will shift to a global focus.  For this phase, students will be grouped in cross-classroom, international teams.

• International Team Meetings:  Students will work in international teams to identify a global environmental sustainability issue to address.  

• Challenge to Change:  Each international team will identify one action that people could take to impact the global environment.  This will become part of  the “Challenge to Change” – a global challenge to encourage others to take action.  Students will design the challenge and promote it publicly to empower others to take action.  Our hope is that the challenge will involve our wider communities, state/province or even our whole countries making a contribution to environmental sustainability!

After another busy day, we had our Team Canada dinner last night.  We went out for supper and a Flamenco performance.  It was a great outing, but I was so exhausted that I almost couldn't stay awake!  It was straight to bed for me after the show! 

Microsoft Global Forum: Day 2 Reflections

Day 2 of the forum began early Wednesday morning with Team Canada breakfast, followed by opening remarks and a keynote presentation. Anthony Salcito delivered an engaging keynote, which we really enjoyed and we heard many points that resonated with us. Two of these points were:


The value of service based learning - Anthony made this point in his presentation and we really have experienced the power of service learning in action.  We know from the Little Hands Extended project that having students make a difference in their communities is an opportunity for authentic, engaging learning.  Our students have learned from activities such as organizing Farmer Appreciation Day, working with seniors in the community, fundraising to help at-risk frog species and hosting a garage sale to raise money for people in need.  These service projects have been positive experiences for students and teachers alike.

Tools are just tools, it's the learning and teaching that are important - This was another strong message that really aligns with our teaching practice.  An important shift in our approach to teaching has been a change in our perspective on technology tools.  We really strongly believe that we should set learning and teaching goals first, then find the "best tools for the job".  Tools are there to support learning and they are very important, but they are just that - tools.  The learning and the teaching need to be at the forefront.  However, we also need to be good at identifying educational uses for the tools that we have available (or that students have available).

Next, we were presenting and sharing the Little Hands Extended project at our exhibit booth for a few hours.  We also had the opportunity to connect with others and hear about the learning projects in their classrooms. It's very inspiring to hear about the impressive things students and teachers are doing in other schools, classrooms and counties.  We are planning to have a collection of project summaries to share later this week thanks to Eric Patnoudes (he is collecting the information for all projects featured here!).

 
Next up on our busy schedule were panel sessions.   Some big questions for our panel Engaging in 21st Century Thinking and Learning were: To promote 21st century learning, what skills do teachers need? what professional development is helpful and necessary?

Our final conference agenda item was a focus group discussion that we were invited to participate in to give feedback on collaboration tools such as Skype and Lync.  Since we use Skype often to connect our classrooms, it was nice to be asked to give our input.

We finished working around 7:00 last night and we were definitely ready for some supper.  We went back to the Gothic Quarter since it has been our favorite area so far.  We walked a similar path to our food tour and stopped at 3 different places.  We enjoyed tapas and had to find the gelato shop for more creamy, delicious gelato for dessert.  It was a relaxing evening after a busy day of work!