Microsoft Educator Network

Leadership and Strategic Innovation Baradene College - Our ICT journey Baradene College – ICT journey May 2014 Over the last 5 years, Baradene College has moved from offering computers in labs and a few specialist classes to a 1:1 environment where all Y7-10 students have a device to use in each lesson On the first day of school this year all Year 7 – 10 students were asked to come to school with a device. In 2013 our Year 9 students were asked to bring the HP Envy x2 to school as a trial. The trial taught us some valuable lessons and we felt confident that we ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation La Devesa Bilingual School: Unique students, unique teachers. In La Devesa Bilingual School we have already started the change from traditional to an adapted new methodology, where students become the main actors of the learning process instead of the teachers. In order to foster this transition we have bet for some methodologies that perfectly match with the development of 21st century learning. We are talking about the M.O.R.E approach, CLIL, Bimodal curriculum and LEAP 21. In this new paradigm the learning process is student centered and our mission is ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Our school and develop the capacity of teachers and students and the local community We begin doing sport exercises in the morning accompanied by music in order to motivate students to activity and high morale Our school participate in many activities and methodology which associated with reality and students' real life and the curriculum like recycling and utilization of waste for the manufacture of useful materials, and the contribution of our students in the school wall paint, and the drawing on the walls, designing slogan for the school. And also we Participate in ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation St Mary's College, Derry We believe that we are in a period of profound, transformative change on the lives of our pupils, our school and the wider community. We believe the future is already with us and it is imperative that we embrace the opportunities and challenges that it presents. We are witnessing the development of learning partnerships between teachers and pupils and the creation of an environment where what has been will always be challenged and what will become has yet to be imagined. Every pupil in our ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation The Heart of Teaching and Learning As the Estabrook School Principal in Lexington, Massachusetts (United States), I am honored and humbled to lead 80 expert faculty and staff, who teach me everyday about their wise and wonderful gifts for students. I am profoundly inspired by their exemplary content knowledge, and in awe of their sophisticated pedagogical skills. At the heart of our strong school culture, sustained high achievement and progressive instructional practice, are three core teaching practices that continually ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Radom Technical School creating innovations Teachers of Radom Technical School (Poland) show creativity for diversification of their teaching. Within the entire school year they are organizing a lot of events (undertakings) creating the impression that every day is bringing something new, interesting for both students and teachers. This variety is aimed at raising attraction of the school , process of knowledge and ability acquisition . Simultaneously, it develops effectiveness of acquiring and using acquired knowledge. These are a few ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Everyone is a leader! Hi All! I truly believe that everyone is born a leader and leads in one form or the other. I have been a strong advocate of the student leadership along with a stable and visionary leadership of the head of the school. I spent an amazing day yesterday a Global Leadership camp for students, entirely designed and led by students. I came back charged and energized to make the change that I want to see in this world. Students had put up amazing talks, workshops. I was astounded to see the amount of...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation What will it take for school districts to make the Training Top 125? Every year, Training Magazine honors the winners—organizations with the most successful learning and development programs in the world. Missing from the list? School districts. Districts are the biggest employers—but apparently not the best when it comes to training. Yet every district has plenty of professional development, and every district is focused on teacher effectiveness through the teacher evaluation push. Perhaps the focus is too much on evaluation. It’s not that we’re not spending ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Educational reform begins with a pioneer At the moment I started at (Valkenswaard, The Netherlands), the school was diagnosed as weak by the Dutch government. Things needed to change really fast. The main objective was improve the learning outcomes in a way that children develop essential skills to be successful in the future. It’s just like Albert Eindstein said: ‘education is nog learning of facts, but the training of the mind’. My colleagues knew that they had to integrate technology in the educational process. The only problem was...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Leading in 2014 As 2014 dawns on us, we resume our leadership positions with some of us starting new academic years, new semesters, new quarters and others continuing what they started in 2013. I hope this blog would lay the foundation for the days and months to follow and become inspirational. I would like to start with my favorite quote by John Quincy Adams – “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” The most important assets of any institution are...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation What’s the difference? A reflection on professional development, professional learning communities, meetings and planning… The terms PD, PLC, meeting and planning often become confused. Each is very different with very different purposes. It is important to differentiate them so that the purpose of each is clearly defined and so that professionals can ensure effectiveness. Below, I reflect on what each term means through my experience of facilitating and engaging in each throughout my experience in education. Professional Development Also known as “PD”, these are sessions where there is one or more facilitators ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Building Support for the Common Core The (CCSS) are one of the most important education initiatives of our time. While historically each state had its own academic standards (which varied widely in quality and made it difficult to compare performance across states), under the Common Core students in the 45 adopting states (plus the District of Columbia, four territories and the Department of Defense Education Activity) will be held to the same internationally-benchmarked educational standards. These standards were developed with ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Embracing, Engaging, Energizing and Empowering Change in Education We never step in the same river twice. The fragmented words of Heraclitus from over two millennia ago still resonate. Today, the river moves faster, and future change is ever present. The question is -- do we manage it, or do we nurture it? I'd rather the latter, but this takes a growth mindset (Dweck, 2010). Fixed mindsets may need encouragement to value the importance of change. This is especially true in education, as knowledge should never be static. Pedagogy is dynamic process and ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Aim & Dream of Classteacher- Quality in Indian Education System My father was a teacher. He left a lucrative job with The Reserve Bank to become a teacher. His mind was in teaching and heart in helping others. Along that journey, he inspired scores to achieve their life dreams. We have to restore the inspiration to teaching. Teachers can’t be effective unless they become role models for the generation they teach. One has to move beyond the symbolism and token salutation of Teachers Day. Its easy to blame the rank commercialization of schooling as the State ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Constrained Budgets affect Innovative teaching Many governments, organizations, schools and communities are busy working towards transformation in the field of teaching and learning. All efforts are focused on improving pedagogy and managing change in our institutions. However, few leaders are thinking about the sustainability of these efforts. It is always easy to start something but long-term sustainability is another question. As we know, technology is at the center of much of the change that is happening in education. Technology ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Can leadership influence the quality of education? I strongly believe that strong leadership influences the quality of education in schools. Leadership not just among the administration but among teachers themselves. Now that schools have evolved from being a place where students are readied for university to centers of professional development for teachers themselves, teacher have this opportunity. In Lithuania, several regional resource centers are established within our schooling system for example, ETRC – English Teachers’ Resource Center, ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Instructional Technologies are Pivotal to the Evolution That Education Needs to Undergo (so Why Aren't We Leveraging Them Better?) The basic educational system throughout much of the ‘western’ world has not really changed substantially in the last century. In Salman Khan’s recent book, , he reminds us that this learning architecture is, "... a fundamentally passive way of learning while the world requires more and more active processing of information. The old model is based on pushing students together in age-group batches with one-pace-fits-all curricula and hoping they pick up something along the way." Now consider ideas ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation 5 Ideas to Facilitate Education and Instructional Technology Innovation Educators across the globe are striving to determine how to best leverage the technology boom to improve on the availability of education, enhance learning outcomes, and enable the successful completion of credentials. Innovation holds the key to delivering on the promise of education technology. These ideas and techniques can help administrators and teachers encourage technological innovation in their academic institutions. Create an innovation lab and/or event: A great way to openly encourage...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Donald McGannon, a passionate agent of change and the former President of The National Urban League referred to ‘leadership as an action, not a position.’ We completely agree with him, yet in many of our schools leadership continues to be chained to those with the titles. Even with our students, we pin school captain badges on their lapels and expect their peers to follow them. The reality is having a title makes you a leader about as much having a steak makes you a cow. We define a leader as...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Forget Integrating Technology into Learning For many years, the aim of many schools has been to integrate technology into their curriculum. Integrating technology basically means to utilise ICT devices and software to complete tasks in the classroom. Examples of integrating technology in the classroom include utilising Microsoft Publisher to design a brochure, Microsoft PowerPoint to produce a presentation or using the Internet to search for a topic. May I suggest that all of these above examples would engage our students, but we can ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation Learning From The Best What can we learn from the most improved education systems in the world whilst embarking upon or reflecting upon educational change and increased performance in our school? The report entitled – Catching Up: Learning from the best school systems in East Asia highlights some very interesting points for school leaders to consider whilst implementing whole school change. The paper I believe correctly suggests that school change requires a change of behaviour by Principals and Teachers. Otherwise ...

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Leadership and Strategic Innovation I Reflect, Therefore I Lead As educational leaders, we lead incredibly busy lives. There is always a parent to see, or a teacher to assist. During our day though, how do we create space for reflection? Nielsen (2012) sums reflection up wonderfully by stating that any reflection is good for you; it does not really matter what you reflect upon, as long as you reflect. So how can we do it? Have you ever considered-? A. Time – Time is a key factor in reflective leadership. Do you factor time into your day for reflection? Do ...

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