All posts filed under: Guest Blogs

Innovation Hunter: Hot Potatoes and Cool Learning

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by Mark Sparvell School Leaders Program, Microsoft in Education Hello leaders and learners! Continuing my journey across the globe and capturing the voices, images and insights from some of our amazing Microsoft Innovative Expert Educations and the leaders in the inspiring Showcase Schools. If you haven’t been following my journey on twitter, might like to add @sparvell to your follows. HOT POTATOES AND COOL LEARNING Location: Silverton Primary School, Victoria, Australia Distance from home: 13266 miles Silverton Primary school has a very long history with Microsoft as an Innovative School, World Tour School, Global Mentor School and now, proudly, Showcase School. Silverton school is situated in an diverse community with lower than average mean incomes and higher than average unemployment…yet Silverton shines bright in national testing results and the school, staff and principal have received multiple recognition for excellence at local, state, national and international . Silverton are experts at hosting visitors, people travel from across Australia and globally to visit this high performing school which defies expectations based on social or economic context. What …

Jason Messer: Fostering Effective Education Transformation

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by Jason Messer Superintendent, Manteca Unified School District In 2013 The Manteca Unified School Board allocated 30 million dollars (as a foundation) and directed myself, Superintendent Jason Messer, to take the District digital by the end of the 2014-2015 school year. In the past 18 months we have successfully identified the tools, support and resources necessary to meet the School Boards expectations and provide every teacher (1,200+) with a Surface Pro 3 and every student in grade K-12 (23,500+) with a purpose built computer, Microsoft 8.1 two-in-one tablet. We have also built out the wireless infrastructure necessary to support more than 25,000 computers accessing our network and the internet at the same time. In addition each of our teachers has received more than 18 hours of staff development time and instructional resources. As well classroom management software has been deployed as a key component. Please visit www.digitalschoolstoday.netand/or www.mantecausd.net to learn more about our story. In order to successfully take MUSD digital, I used the Microsoft Transformation Framework to guide our effort. I strongly suggest that …

Mark Sparvell: Innovation Hunter 6- Port Said, Egypt

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by Mark Sparvell School Leader Program Director, Microsoft Hello leaders and learners! Continuing my journey across the globe and capturing the voices, images and insights from some of our amazing Microsoft Innovative Expert Educations and the leaders in the inspiring Showcase Schools. If you haven’t been following my journey on twitter, might like to add @sparvell to your follows. SEVEN WONDERS OF THE EDUCATION WORLD: Port Said, Egypt Date: February 2015 Location: Port Said, Egypt Distance from home: 6839.3 Miles (11006.8 Kilometers / 5939.2 Nautical Miles) The early morning drive from my hotel on the Giza Plateau towards Cairo was breathtaking. The sun, through the haze reflecting rose gold on the pyramids, coaxing activity into the street vendors as they stockpiled oranges for sale. Port Said, a bustling vibrant city, is a couple of hundred kilometers from Cairo and was established 1859 as a base to house workers engaged in the construction of the Suez Canal. I enjoyed the experience in the afternoon of a short ferry rise across Suez from the continent of Africa to …

Sharon Rosenblatt: The ADA Enters the Digital Space in its 25th Year

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by Sharon Rosenblatt Guest Columnist, USA The Internet allows us all to relive our glory days. If you celebrate Wayback Wednesay, Throwback Thursday, or Flashback Friday (with their associated social media hashtags, of course), some of the images, videos and memories might time travel you back to 1990. If that’s a year that’s near and dear to you, perhaps you would fondly remember looking forward to an episode of a new cartoon called, “The Simpsons”, or maybe you waited with anticipation for the first imagines to come from the Hubble Telescope. Probably more than care to admit were synchronizing hand motions to Madonna’s “Vogue” or jamming to MC Hammer. But do you remember where you were when President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act? That was the equivalent of disability advocacy going quadruple platinum. And it’s still rocking our charts twenty five years later. So strike a pose, because ‘U Can’t Touch This’ blog from taking a ride on a nostalgia rocket.

Mark Sparvell: School Dinners, Ancient buildings and Innovation

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by Mark Sparvell Microsoft in Education Showcase Schools Program Hello fellow education adventurers! Date: January 2015 Location: Broadclyst Community Primary School Exeter, UK, EX5 3JG Distance from home: Redmond, USA to Devon, UK is 4732.589 miles Continuing my journey across the globe , capturing the voices, images and insights from some of our amazing Microsoft Innovative Expert Educators and the leaders of the inspiring Showcase Schools. If you haven’t been following my journey on twitter, might like to add @sparvell to your follows. In its latest Ofsted Report, Broadclyst Primary School was rated as grade 1 (outstanding) . With an international reputation for the use of ICT….but what is it really like? I decided to take a plane from London City Airport and taxi ride along the narrow lanes to see for myself.

Mark Sparvell: The Innovation Hunter at Pulteney Grammar School!

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by Mark Sparvell School Leader Program Director, Microsoft Hello fellow education adventurers! Continuing my journey across Australia towards Asia and on to Europe and capturing the voices, images and insights from some of our amazing Microsoft Innovative Expert Educators and the leaders in the inspiring Showcase Schools. If you haven’t been following my journey on twitter, might like to add @sparvell to your follows. Country Roads take me to INNOVATION Date: December 2014 Location: Pulteney Grammar School , Adelaide, South Australia Distance from home: Adelaide to Seattle is 8338.9 miles “Sometimes you need to clear some space to allow room for innovation” Troy Thomson is currently one of the Microsoft Innovative Expert Educators but is certainly not new to Microsoft in Education! Troy was a very active participant in his previous school as part of the Microsoft Global Mentor School program and was certainly the no. 1 contributor within the YAMMER community established for this purpose. Troy took me on a tour of this beautiful gentrified, inner city private school on a slightly wet afternoon. …

Mark Sparvell, Innovation Hunter: Update #3 from Kadina Memorial School

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Hello leaders and learners, Continuing my journey across Australia and capturing the voices, images and insights from some of our amazing Microsoft Innovative Expert Educations and the leaders in the inspiring Showcase Schools. If you haven’t been following my journey on twitter, might like to add @sparvell to your follows. Country Roads take me to INNOVATION Date: November 2014 Location: Kadina Memorial Schools, Adelaide, South Australia Distance from home: Adelaide to Seattle is 8338.9 miles A School that honors its past and positions its future. Well, Kadina Memorial School certainly was a memorable visit for the Innovation Hunter and well worth the few hundred kilometer drive through the agricultural grain belt with only myself and the occasional kangaroo on the road.

Mark Sparvell: The Innovation Hunter’s Journey Continues!

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by Mark Sparvell Leader of Showcase Schools and School Leaders Program, Microsoft in Education Hello leaders and learners! Continuing my journey across Australia and capturing the voices, images and insights from some of our amazing Microsoft Innovative Expert Educations and the leaders in the inspiring Showcase Schools. If you haven’t been following my journey on twitter, might like to add @sparvell to your follows. “Didn’t you used to be my Principal?” Date: November 2014 Location: Immanuel College, Adelaide, South Australia Distance from home: 13422 km, 8340 miles

Cathy Cavanaugh: Values of Learning Programming Language in School

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by Cathy Cavanaugh Director of Teaching and Learning, Microsoft in Education What is a human language? As a symbol system for encoding and communicating ideas, our languages are varied and dynamic, each reflective of its own cultures and ways of knowing. Thus, each language has intrinsic value to influence thought and interaction. Additionally, each language has practical value in the 21st century. Recognizing the many benefits of learning multiple languages, schools around the world require native language fluency and a minimum of competence in a second language. Thus, world language standards have been developed by professional organizations to guide effective teaching and learning (http://www.actfl.org/publications/all/world-readiness-standards-learning-languages). The choice of languages offered in a school depend on a matrix of factors including locally and regionally spoken languages, availability of teachers and curriculum, and interest among students. Increasingly, world languages and other subjects learned in school are associated with preparing students for college, career, and community.

Mark with MIE Expert 2015 Sheree Bennett from Immanuel College

Innovation Hunter: Sparvell on Assignment in Asia

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by Mark Sparvell School Leaders Program Director, Microsoft in Education Hi everyone, Mark Sparvell on assignment here in Australia. I am visiting some inspiring #ShowcaseSchools and innovative Expert Educators across 4 Australian States on my way to Singapore where I will be celebrating the Asia Pacific Microsoft Innovative Expert Educators and the Showcase School leaders just before the incredible BETT ASIA event. I’d love to share with you some of the learning insights along my road trip.