In today’s landscape, it is more important than ever for higher education institutions to reimagine the campus experience. Technology has a critical role in driving this transformation. Please join Microsoft for our online sessions at EDUCAUSE to learn how universities are leading the transformation to recover and reimagine education.
Our sessions showcase how higher education leaders have harnessed technology to innovate across the campus experience. With the use of Microsoft technology, leading universities will share how they are adapting to the changing environment to drive innovative student engagement, transform operations, and ensure a secure, connected campus.
Recent events have dramatically shifted technology’s role in learning, creating a transformation imperative for higher education. Institutions have rapidly transitioned from “Why digital transformation?” to “How much?” and “How quickly?” Join Microsoft Vice President of Education, Anthony Salcito, for a candid exploration of technology’s role in an ever-changing higher education landscape.
In the past two years, Kent State has simplified their security architecture and reduced overall IT spend. Learn about Kent State’s sustainable strategy to secure data and protect privacy through modern identity, a modern SIEM, and comprehensive endpoint security to safeguard faculty and student data.
Simulive session
Thursday, October 29, 11:00 – 11:20 AM EST
Reimagine student engagement – presented by Rob Curtin, Director of Americas Higher Education at Microsoft, and featuring Florida State University
Florida State University set out on a student engagement initiative over a year ago, then the pandemic hit. Learn about the Florida State University journey and creation of innovative models to reimagine student engagement and provide a more personalized learning experience in the new world of hybrid education.
Over the past nine months, we’ve seen wildlife roam free while people isolate to stay healthy. Whales have changed their migration patterns due to fewer ships, sea turtles have laid record amounts of eggs on beaches empty of humans, and wild monkeys have taken over city streets.
These stories cause us to wonder: What if we could redesign our human environment to accommodate the animal world? What would it be like if animals could still roam free within human environments?
For the first-ever Minecraft Education Global Build Championship, we’re inviting students around the world to develop creative environmental solutions that allow animals and humans to share space together. Students can choose between designing a school, home, work, or public space, and select one of five biomes for their build in the Global Championship World Template.
Submissions are open now through November 6, 2020. Here are the steps to submit:
1. Register!
To register teams of one to three students ages 8-18, read the rules and regulations and download the submission materials. Students under 18 will need a parent, educator, or guardian to complete their registration.
Each team will need to record a short game recording of their finished build and provide a description in the submission template. Submissions are due November 6, 2020. Students under 18 will need a parent, educator, or guardian to complete their submission.
Prizes include Minecoins, awesome Minecraft gear, and a chance to video chat with the Mojang Studios team.
The Global Build Championship keeps students connected and engaged in friendly competition with teams from all over the world. It’s designed to work for remote learning or classroom environments. We’ve seen the power of student creations in our monthly build challenges and challenges run by teachers, districts, and ministries around the world. We can’t wait to see what you create!
Winners will be announced on December 4, 2020. Register your team today!
On September 23, Microsoft Education held our third Education Transformation Summit, where education leaders shared best practices from the acceleration of digital learning due to the global pandemic.
To facilitate this conversation, we brought together 200 education system leaders in two Microsoft Teams live sessions to reflect on progress and talk about their goals and vision for the future. Invited panelists came from across the globe—from Finland to the Philippines, from Canada to Costa Rica.
Though each leader’s perspective was unique and based on their specific experience, we’ve identified five key factors that are universally relevant.
Visions for digital transformation at scale should be grounded in a unified technology strategy
Ensuring all learners have access to appropriate devices and learning platforms is priority number one
Integrating technology with pedagogy enables social-emotional learning and student well-being
Supporting teachers with professional development is key to success
Data security and privacy are critical as education becomes increasingly digital
The disruption of education by COVID-19 can be seen as a catalyst, an invitation not to simply strive to minimize the negative effects of the change, but to improve education models for the future. One of the biggest hurdles for leaders with this goal has been balancing short-term decisions with making longer-term sustainable investments that will impact how students and teachers learn using technology for years to come.
When wrapping up the panel discussions, Microsoft Vice President of Education Barbara Holzapfel said, “It’s clear that with continued public-private partnership, education systems around the world will continue to advance the goal of creating personalized, equitable learning enabled by the intentional integration of pedagogy and technology.”
With leaders such as all of those who joined the events as contributors and participants working toward these goals, the transformation of education around the world is underway.
Read on below for a more in-depth recap of the key points, with quotes and examples from the contributors and panelists.
The Education Transformation Summit
Microsoft VP Education, Barbara Holzapfel, moderates the AM session panel discussion
This year, the back-to-school season has been unlike any other year. For students, teachers, parents, and education system leaders, getting used to the new normal in a COVID-19 world is an enormous challenge. At the same time, we’ve seen incredible creativity—and speed—in deploying remote and hybrid learning. Here are some of the key learnings from the contributors and panelists who joined us for the Fall 2020 Education Transformation Summit.
1. Visions for digital transformation at scale should be grounded in a unified technology strategy
Education institutions that already had a strong focus on long-term digital transformation have been more resilient during COVID-19, as they have accelerated existing projects and driven wider adoption rather than having to start from scratch.
A major factor in the strategy is the mindset of the project, according to Anthony Salcito, Vice President for Education at Microsoft. “It’s super critical that the constituents are bought in to the vision. And we need a vision that’s more sustainable and longer term than just purchasing and deploying the technology,” he said.
Emily Bell, Chief Information Officer for Georgia’s Fulton County School District in the US, illustrated how her district engaged in a consultation strategy to bring everyone along. “We surveyed parents and asked them what they liked and what they don’t like. We had families with children in multiple schools, and they complained that there were too many software tools to learn. So, we moved to standardized approaches and offered a menu of applications including Office 365 and Teams for schools to use. Since then, we surveyed parents and 80 percent told us they were satisfied with our technology. The remaining 20 percent just wanted their kids back in school,” she said.
At the same time, some education systems are thinking about how to simplify technology provisions for teachers and schools by providing services centrally.
“We implemented Teams nationally and created more than one million accounts in two weeks. We created a call center to help,” said Paula Villalta Olivares, Vice Minister of Institutional Planning and Regional Coordination at the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica.
Unified approaches like these take the burden off local IT admin staff to support teachers, students, and parents in using the platform, rather than having to set up a platform in each individual school.
Microsoft VP, Education Barbara Holzapfel speaks with UNESCO Director Borhene Chakroun
2. Ensuring all learners have access to appropriate devices and learning platforms is priority number one
The need to move learning online quickly highlighted existing challenges, such as access and equity, and any plan for future success includes striving to level the field for all students. As Borhene Chakroun, UNESCO Director, Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems, stated during the panel discussion, “The master principle is leaving no one behind. COVID-19 has increased the divides that existed prior to the crisis. We need to be focused on inclusiveness, equity, and reaching out to the most disadvantaged.”
Access to dedicated and reliable devices is an issue in many areas, and there are many different approaches to getting devices in the hands of learners.
Gaby Rowe, Founding Principal at GROW Associates, noted that as the state of Texas worked to provide devices to students, the communities that were hardest hit by the virus were also those that were the most under-resourced. “As we started Operation Connectivity, there was a real focus on how we ensure that as we get devices out there and we provide connectivity, that we’re really making sure it goes into the neighborhoods, the households, the students’ hands, the schools, and the teachers who need it the most”
Nicole Dezen, Microsoft Vice President of Device Partner Sales, in the opening fireside chat with Anthony Salcito, mentioned this challenge as well. “We have seen a flurry of buying, but we are still seeing a lot of institutions still struggling to get devices needed by students and faculty to support their needs.”
Microsoft VP, Education Anthony Salcito chats with Nicole Dezen, Microsoft VP, Device Partner Sales
Keith Kruger, CEO of the US-based Consortium for School Networking who represents CIOs from more than 1,000 school districts, highlighted the importance of careful consideration of the total cost of ownership, and noted that oftentimes, a cheaper device is more expensive in the long run if it isn’t the right device for the student.
3. Integrating technology with pedagogy enables social-emotional learning and student well-being
Student well-being has always been important, but it has become an even stronger focus during times of crisis. Our research for the whitepaper “Emotion and Cognition in the Age of AI” demonstrated that educators believe positive emotions are critical for academic success, that they are important in developing communication skills, and that technology, when used correctly and integrated into quality pedagogy, can support traditional knowledge acquisition and the development of social and emotional skills.
“We prioritized social and emotional needs and interaction. One of the biggest challenges was supporting students close to dropping out during the remote period,” said Dr. Marjo Kyllonen, Head of Development Service Unit, Helsinki Education Division. “The importance of personalized learning and digital platforms, and how they can be beneficial for the learners, really increased.”
Meanwhile in Costa Rica, the strategy was to drive students’ independent learning.
“We created autonomous learning guides for students. Every day students received activities to do at home,” said Melania Brenes Monge, PhD. Academic Vice Minister at the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica.
And in Canada, Jordan Tinney, Superintendent of Schools and CEO of Surrey Schools, uses Power BI to create a dashboard where educators can track and visualize different categories of student information related to student well-being. These results help educators map the needs of students in schools throughout the district, and respond by taking actions such as reaching out to parents and implementing additional after-school activities.
4. Supporting teachers with professional development opportunities is key to success
Even prior to the pandemic, a majority of teachers surveyed for our Staff of 2030whitepaper said that they expected the use of technology in the classroom to increase. However, only 38 percent of them felt that their training had prepared them to use digital tools for learning. Now that so much of teaching and learning is online, investment in teacher professional development is a key indicator of success.
“Pedagogical understand[ing] of learning, and how to do it from a distance was important for our teachers,” said Kyllonen. “We have regular discussions with teachers about the pedagogical model, what are the skills needed for the future, and how does our pedagogy reinforce their acquisition,” she continued.
The government of the Philippines has undertaken a massive initiative to bring electrical power and internet connectivity to schools that have been without it, and along with providing access, teacher training on new technology is a top priority.
Alain Pascua, Undersecretary for Administration, Department of Education at the Republic of the Philippines shared, “What we have been doing for the past few days and from past few months is the massive training of all our public school teachers in terms of open innovation and resources in terms also in the use of the learning management system.”
In Costa Rica, more professional development was required to quickly shift to digital platforms.
“It just confirmed what we already knew—PD needs to be relevant, current, novel. We want teachers to have the chance to change their teaching practices into more effective learning procedures, and we are expecting evidenced transformation of their teaching activities,” said Vice Minister Melania Brenes Mong.
5. Data security and privacy is critical as education becomes increasingly digital
The increasing amount of digital education in systems around the world generates a huge opportunity for leaders and teachers to get more insight into learning, but needs to be handled in ethical and appropriate ways.
“It’s important to start with data privacy and security,” said Chakroun. “We need to shift from classical Education Management Information Systems to a new generation that are integrated with Learning Management Systems to make more up-to-date and effective reporting on learning.”
In Finland, their AI and data strategy is strongly student centered.
“Our focus is always on good pedagogies. So the aim is that every student can achieve his or her own potential, and that we can have a transparent process using a variety of data collection points from teachers, from students, from platforms and so on. Our goal and objective is to promote the ideal learning process with automated learning design to help make learning transparent, and thus deeper and better,” said Kyllonen.
Microsoft Education would like to thank the leaders and contributors who took part in the summit. Their wisdom and experience generated some incredibly insightful observations, provided actionable information for attendees, and made our third Education Transformation Summit a valuable event.
As the world and our education systems continue to evolve, the role of technology to enable learning, whether in classrooms or at home, continues to be of great importance for educators, leaders, parents, and students alike. Every day we experience, see, and hear triumphant stories of the human character and celebrate the heroes in education who courageously push beyond boundaries to create new opportunities for students to learn and grow. And like never before, investment of resources and time into peer support, coaching, professional development, and training is critical for education leaders, educators, faculty, and staff.
As we continue to work to empower every student on the planet to achieve more, I am excited today to share three professional development resources to support educators on their journey.
Get training with Microsoft Store
Microsoft Stores have undergone massive transformation and are now extending support through live virtual training events. Geographical borders no longer limit the training support that Microsoft Store teams can provide.
Microsoft Store education trainers also engage on a 1:1 basis to provide customized training sessions to schools and institutions to help adopt technology faster, more effectively, and more cohesively. These trainers speak more than 20 different languages and the training can be customized to customer needs. The best way to take advantage of this offer is to work with the local Microsoft account teams.
Explore the Microsoft Educator Center
Over the past several decades, Microsoft built deep connections with the educator communities that we serve around the world. It is our goal to nurture and empower them with learning resources and training. With their support and feedback, we created the Microsoft Educator Center, which offers a vast variety and depth of technology learning resources.
As our worldwide community of educators continues to grow and become stronger, Microsoft recently announced the newest cohort of over 20,000 Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Experts. These educators demonstrated exceptional ability to spark their students’ creativity and improve learning outcomes with Microsoft technologies. They are always looking to connect with other inspiring educators across the globe and are excited to share their ideas with others. Many of their ideas are reflected in the Microsoft Educator Center.
In particular, I wanted to highlight the newly released Learning Path on Hybrid Learning Strategies for Success. It is comprised of four courses that are organized around student grade level and will resonate with every educator and faculty member:
Work with a Global Training Partner
Clearly, when it comes to teaching and learning, one size does not fit all. We realize the complexity of having different education systems, approaches to curricula, and languages around the world. So in addition to the Microsoft Store and the Microsoft Educator Center online learning resources, we developed an exclusive network of Global Training Partners (GTP). These training organizations are qualified and ready to co-create locally relevant professional development strategies and execute curated face-to-face, blended, and online training sessions across the globe. The Global Training Partners program currently includes 370 companies that serve over 70 countries.
I just had a chance to spend this week with some of these trainers over a series of virtual readiness events at our annual Global Training Partner Summit and was blown away by the innovation and energy they are bringing into discussions. I would encourage any educator or education leader to visit the Find a trainer page where you can find a Microsoft-trained and certified partner in your location who is able to work hand-in-hand with any educational institution to craft a plan that best supports specific and relevant training needs.
To recognize the outstanding impact these Global Training Partners are driving throughout the world, we introduced Global Training Partner of the Year awards in each of the major geographical regions. This year they went to the following:
Together, we continue to face tremendous challenges and opportunities, witnessing the rise of the “new normal” in teaching and learning. I hope that the resources I shared will help educators and faculty provide improved and inspiring learning for all students worldwide. Thank you for allowing Microsoft to be a part of your success.
This year, the first day of school looked very different for the tens of millions of students returning to class. But through unprecedented change and the stress that’s come with it, educators and students have led with resilience, reminding us that learning starts with connection, community, and well-being. As defined by the Committee for Children, social-emotional learning (SEL), or what happens when we’re developing self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills, is vital for success in school, work, and every other facet of our lives.
In Marc Brackett’s book, Permission to Feel, he describes how and why emotions matter for:
Attention, memory, and learning
The quality of our decision-making
Our relationships and social interactions
Physical and mental health
Performance and creativity
Technology can play a key part in enabling SEL at scale and supporting the crucial functions that impact school, work, and life. Today we’re announcing two Microsoft Teams features and a OneNote feature designed for emotional literacy and transparency, plus a virtual learning opportunity with Goldie Hawn’s MindUp organization.
New SEL features for Microsoft Education
1. New Praise Badges in Microsoft Teams recognize moments of SEL growth
Teams is the hub for learning, engagement, and collaboration, with built-in tools to tailor learning to student needs. Today, more than 230,000 education institutions use Teams for remote and hybrid learning.
Now those tools include SEL-specific Praise Badges. Educators can use Praise Badges to recognize student social skills, grow emotional vocabulary, and give valuable recognition to the daily wins in their students’ learning.
Praise Badges are based on the Big Five model, a well-known SEL framework recently used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in their global assessment program. Educators can use these badges to recognize specific skills that contribute to the Big Five personality traits. These skills reflect the entire domain of social-emotional skills, and are intentionally chosen to be:
Predictive of success in a wide range of important life outcomes and events
Appropriate for 10- to 15-year-olds
Comparable and relevant across different cultures, languages, and social and school contexts
Relevant for the future
The badges were developed through a human-centered design approach that brought teachers and students directly into the product development process, ensuring that we create useful and authentic tools that will aide in their existing classroom practices.
Praise Badges are available now in chats and class team channels, with the new SEL-specific badges expected in late September. Once available, you can ask your IT admin to enable them, giving educators and students at your school all-new ways to meaningfully connect and grow together in Teams.
2. New SEL sticker pack for OneNote creates an emotion-driven feedback mechanism
Bring SEL to life in OneNote and OneNote Class Notebooks with the SEL Sticker pack, also developed through a human-centered design process and built around the Big Five framework.
The sticker pack, which recognizes the same 12 skills shown in the SEL Praise Badges, can be used alongside other features in OneNote Class Notebook, like audio and video recording, inking, and typed notes, as an additional feedback method to help students learn.
3. New Reflect tool in Microsoft Teams makes emotional check-ins a daily routine
Using Teams means collaborating—a skill of its own that requires self-regulation and self-awareness. The Reflect messaging extension in Teams helps educators connect with their students and implement SEL into the daily class flow—discussions, assignments, projects, and more—through quick check-in questions and polls.
These check-ins are a simple way to guide students to reflect on and identify how they’re feeling, helping them lead with self-awareness as they participate in collaborative environments like Teams.
Support for Reflect:
Emotional expression: The long-term impact
The opportunities created by Praise Badges, SEL stickers, and Reflect check-ins for students to grow their emotional vocabulary are more than just literacy lessons. Brackett cites the need to develop a rich emotional vocabulary and the power that it can bring.
Brackett also cites the need to develop a rich emotional vocabulary in describing how we and others are feeling.
“Critical to SEL is the cultivation of a rich emotion vocabulary,” shared Brackett. “Without the words, children’s needs can’t be met. Language also is a pathway to regulating emotions.”
Developing emotional vocabulary that enables students to express their needs and self-regulate has a long-term impact, and not just in the school context. In 30 to 40 percent of the fastest-growing occupations, technical, cognitive, and SEL skills are considered of value when evaluating job candidates—and 58 percent of employers report that current graduates aren’t delivering in the SEL area. SEL is a key future-ready skill of its own, with a place in school curricula.
Educators prioritize SEL
Educators have always known that SEL is critical for well-being, but they’re low on time, resources, and support needed to implement more SEL in curriculum. In a survey conducted by Microsoft and The Economist on emotion and cognition, 40 percent of educators say they would prioritize these skills if they had more time.
Educators aren’t the only ones expressing the need for greater SEL practice in schools. In a separate research study by Microsoft and The Economist entitled “Preparing the Class of 2030,” in which both students and teachers participated, 50 percent of teachers said they provided adequate feedback around social-emotional skills—but only 30 percent of students agreed.
The SEL journey continues
Turn-in celebrations: Joy is a natural part of completing and turning in assignments, but Teams for Education takes it one step further. When students turn in an assignment, they get to experience our animated turn-in celebrations. While we’re always committed to helping students achieve, we also believe in celebrating effort, heart, and every little step along the learning journey. Turn-in celebrations let students know that their efforts are seen—and that joy is just as important as hard work when it comes to learning. See how turn-in celebrations work.
MindUP and Microsoft collaboration: In addition to the SEL-driven solutions in Microsoft Education products, we’ve also developed an exciting new virtual learning opportunity in collaboration with Goldie Hawn’s MindUP organization. Designed for educators and parents, each session will offer tips and strategies to best prepare our children and youth for going back to school and making their mental health and well-being the priority.
SELinEdu: Microsoft supports the work of the SELinEdu online community, which has grown to over 7,000 educators. We’re also a founding committee member of the Karanga Global SEL Alliance through our partnership with Salzburg Global Seminar. With the critical importance of SEL in schools, Microsoft Education is honored to be a part of this growing community working to support the well-being of students and educators.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many school students around the world to embrace remote learning. But not all have computers at home.
Now a group of companies and non-profits in Hong Kong are taking part in a global program by Microsoft that breathes new life into old office PCs and distributes them to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“I live in a village in Sha Tin, and my family’s income is limited,” says Wu Jiahui, a Secondary 5 (Year 11) student at Toi Shan Association College. “We don’t have the ability to purchase computers.”
Instead, Jiahui has had to rely on her smartphone to study. “But the speed is slower, and the software is not sufficient,” she says. “Because of the small screen, it’s hard to read, and the long-term use of my mobile phone caused shoulder pain and dry eye syndrome.”
Without a proper device, students can’t learn efficiently. The quality of their work and their health can be seriously affected.
– Albert Wong, Association of IT Leaders in Education
Before the COVID-19 lockdowns, Jiahui would finish her homework in her school’s computer room at the end of each day’s lessons. “But I couldn’t make any revisions to my homework at home.”
Barriers to learning
Albert Wong, chairman of the Association of IT Leaders in Education (AiTLE), says students without a computer at home usually end up using their smartphones. “But mobile devices are made for communication, not for learning,” he says.
“Some learning websites have layouts that are not optimal for mobile devices, making it difficult for students to watch video lessons or view slides. Formatting text and visuals for school projects on a smartphone can also be arduous. Not having their own computers hinders students’ creativity and makes learning time-consuming.”
Crossroads Foundation volunteer Joanne de la Zilwa helps unload donated devices.
Wong says computers have become essential for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. “With school suspensions lasting for months due to the pandemic, online learning activities, such as webinars and virtual projects, are necessary,” he says. “Without proper devices, students can’t learn efficiently. The quality of their work and their health can be seriously affected.”
A recent survey of almost 600 students in the territory found that over 70% either don’t have computers or have outdated machines, while 51% don’t have a desk for studying. Moreover, 83% of students said these hurdles made them worry about falling behind their peers.
Empowering students in need
Recognizing this challenge, Microsoft has partnered with corporate groups, computer refurbishers, and education associations to provide computers – once used in offices – to students in need.
“Not every family is in a financial position to provide their children with a computer. Remote learning makes this situation especially hard,” says Ada Ng, Microsoft Hong Kong’s director of corporate affairs and philanthropies. “Donating refurbished hardware is a great way to make a positive impact on a student’s day-to-day life.”
Volunteers at the non-profit Crossroads Foundation overhaul donated PCs under Microsoft’s Refurbisher Program — through which authorized refurbishers across the globe collect secondhand devices, fix them up, and preinstall genuine Microsoft software.
In one recent two-month effort, more than 1,000 used desktops and laptops machines were serviced and refitted, and then sent out to needy students.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution’s velocity, scope, and systems-level impact contribute to a shift in business models across all industries. The on-demand economy and changing nature of work, especially amid COVID-19, have led to a significant skills gap[1]. There are 1.7 million unfulfilled tech jobs across industries in the U.S. and Europe[2].
At Microsoft, our goal is to help people throughout the entire education and learning continuum—from education through one’s professional career—to fully participate in the digital economy. Part of this is about preparing the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow. Our unique responsibility and opportunity is to ensure everyone has access to the promise and potential of technology for the digital economy. This contributes to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We believe that those who create with technology are those who write history and shape our future; everyone should have access to learning these skills.
Our ambition is to empower all students to confidently create with technology. Our products like Minecraft: Education Edition,MakeCode, and Visual Studio Code bring this to life by providing a canvas for creating with technology. We offer a range of options for learners of all ages to learn coding.
To prepare the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow while inspiring their creativity, we have partnered with Wonder Woman 1984, Smithsonian Learning Labs, and NASA to create distinct portfolios of project-based lessons that teach programming. We wanted to cultivate learning by connecting content to something interesting, relevant, and most importantly, inspiring for learners of all ages—whether they are 8, 18, or 80.
Museum Heist Learn to code with Minecraft: Education Edition in this adventure based on the upcoming movie Wonder Woman 1984. Venture through an in-game museum and solve puzzles to find a stolen painting, learning basic coding and game design concepts along the way.
Chaos Maze Wonder Woman is in the Smithsonian Museum and she needs to collect artifacts before time runs out! In this free virtual experience, learners eight and older use block-based coding to design and code their own arcade game to play online.
Legendary gauntlets The indestructible gauntlets that Wonder Woman wears to deflect attacks are symbols of empowerment and strength. Make and code your own Wonder Woman gauntlets that light up and have sound—activated with the iconic arm cross. This activity requires the physical purchase of items.
Decode a secret message There’s a secret message that needs a code-cracker to find the truth. Learn how to crack a code that reveals an Easter-egg location from Wonder Woman 1984. Get a glimpse into the popular Python programming language with this introductory lesson that assumes zero background knowledge! You’ll be led through instructions to write two programs and learn about variables and functions.
Super quiz Which Wonder Woman 1984 character are you? Use Python to build a quiz yourself and share it with your friends. This lesson will teach you the basics of Boolean commands and conditionals. No prior background in computer science is needed.
These new modules and learning paths created by Sarah Guthals are inspired by NASA scientists. They help prepare learners for a career in space exploration.
1World Economic Forum. March 2019. The digital skills gap is widening fast. Here’s how to bridge it.
2Wall Street Journal. October 15, 2019. America’s Got Talent, Just Not Enough in IT, citing data from CompTIA.
At the Kamla Nehru Public School (KNPS) in Punjab’s Chak Hakim village, the teachers all tend to wear sports shoes. “Forget about fancy footwear,” says Charu Chhabra, the vice principal, with a chuckle. “When you have a principal who likes to run everywhere, you have to keep up too.” She is talking about Paramjeet Kaur Dhillon, who has led the sprawling institution with about 1,600 students since its founding in April 2007, when it had just six rooms and a strength of 68. Dhillon’s zeal to keep pace with the changing times is infectious, say her colleagues, and it is what has allowed them to swiftly respond to the pandemic. Together, they designed and rolled out a remote learning program as early as April, well before schools in urban settings had even grasped the new reality.
For the moment, the principal’s famous speedy gait is limited to her home, but she stops by in the various virtual classrooms every day. Her students—who come from 65 farming villages around the city of Phagwara in Punjab—log in over smartphones, tablets, and laptops with recently upgraded internet data plans. Classes typically last for six hours and they are so engaging, says Satinder Kaur, mother of a Grade 6 student, that her son actually misses studying on weekends and holidays. Over e-mail and instant messaging, schools from Delhi and Pune have asked the first movers in online teaching to share their secrets.
Dhillon herself had never seen a desktop until the late 1980s when she was teaching physics at the MGN School in Jalandhar. Members of the staff who wished to operate the fascinating machine were asked to attend lessons after class hours, and Dhillon signed up promptly. For weeks, she would pack extra tiffin boxes for her two small children and set out on a moped to learn the fundamentals of computing. All evening and the next morning, algorithms and binary codes would run through her head. “I dreamed about computers,” she recalls. “I was always eager to update myself so that I could teach my students too.”
Little surprise then that information technology has been front and center of the curriculum at KNPS. Dhillon is often heard saying she does not want students to feel let down, as if she “only given them half a loaf”. As such, they evaluate themselves not only against peers in India but also the world. The school offers kindergarten to Grade 12 education and its students belong mostly to modest households. Several are first-generation learners. Their parents, while not highly literate, raise money abroad by working in factories or driving cabs. It lets them afford electronic devices and schooling for their offspring. “They want their children to have the things which they could not access growing up,” says the principal.
Fluency in the English language and technology are particularly valued by parents in this milieu. An attempt in 2014 to go from bags-to-laptops flopped as many did not have laptops. “We had tried so at least we knew how you fail,” Dhillon remembers. “Nothing can be made mandatory in a village school.” Through a partnership in 2015, KNPS became a Microsoft Showcase school. That is when a softer approach to integrated digital learning with the curriculum began in the form of bring-your-own-devices or BYOD. Some parents had apprehensions about introducing their wards to the Internet early on, but they came around after reassurances. Children shared devices and familiarized themselves with Microsoft’s learning tools such as OneNote for taking notes, Kahoot! for game-based learning, and Sway for making presentations.
Since schools and universities had to make the unexpected move to remote learning earlier this year, education leaders, faculty, and teachers from all over the world have been innovating and adapting to ensure quality learning for students. As hybrid and remote learning continues into this next school year, educators are applying lessons from the recent past to navigate the ongoing transition, while updating approaches and processes to respond to new government reporting regulations.
To support teachers, faculty, schools, universities, and education systems, today we are announcing expanded capabilities of the Education Insights app in Microsoft Teams, with new features available in preview now.* New views showcase student engagement data to help school and university leaders better understand how remote learning approaches and pedagogy are performing. With insights spanning entire institutions, districts, and systems, leaders can more easily discover trends, identify opportunities for improvement, and adapt and personalize their teaching and learning strategies.
The new view is designed to help education leaders:
Ensure equity and continuity of teaching in remote settings, and identify students at risk by tracking their engagement over time
Identify trends in engagement and interaction across schools and grade levels
Discover and celebrate best practices in remote instruction and provide leaders with school- and system-level insights
Comply with regulations for digital engagement reporting with one-click data export
Critically, Education Insights ensures security and protection of students’ sensitive information. Each report is only available to approved staff members who are given permissions by the IT admin. The information collected and shown meets more than 90 regulatory and industry standards, including GDPR and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). For more technical information, visit the Insights support page.
Shine a spotlight on class activity and student learning
Identify at-risk students with the Student Digital Activity Report
Identify trends in engagement and interaction with leader view
The data from the whitepaper “Disruptions and Opportunities: Lessons from Hybrid Learning” revealed that educators who use Microsoft Teams report high levels of confidence in their ability to assess remote learning outcomes. The functionality in the Education Insights app supports and expands effective assessment with access to information that is helpful for both educators and leaders.
Cody Grindle, VP of Information Systems at IDEA Public Schools, said:
“The new Insights dashboard for leaders gives us actionable information on student engagement and virtual learning across our network. The near real-time activity metrics and report export features provide effective tools not only for attendance and daily/weekly trends, but also to provide student- level data for research across other academic indicators.”
Remote and hybrid learning is challenging for all, but with Insights in Microsoft Teams for Education, leaders, faculty, and teachers can stay up to date with how students and classes are progressing, and take action to ensure the best learning outcomes. If you’re already using Microsoft Teams for Education, the new features are available to preview in the Insights app for free, so install the app.* If you’re not yet using Teams, click here to get started. For more information and resources, visit our hybrid learning resource page.
*Note: The Education Insights app is available now, and the new features are available to preview for anyone who currently has an A1, A3, or A5 faculty M365 license.
