Class Room Heroes-Cambridge International School, Dubai

As a leader, I always remind myself of the most important, effective and impactful element in student's life is the teacher in front of them and its the initiatives and passion of the teacher that can make learning a life changing experience. I'm thrilled with the opportunity to be able to celebrate my teachers, I want to start with our very young learners and their teacher who make every day a rich experience for them:-

Angela has been teaching for the past 24 years with various year groups.

During the ICT week, the children brought to school their ICT device. They learned to share as well as take care of their device. They are well aware that information can be retrieved from books as well as computers, laptop, and tablet. Some of the children said that they could skype with their family members and were thrilled when they got connected to their grandparents in other countries. They introduced their friends as well as teachers to their family. Thus the children reached a conclusion that using ICT device, they could communicate with people in the world.

Shabnam, a year 4 teacher of world studies and mathematics is frequently using Mouse Mischief a MS Power Point add-on in her lessons. This application has completely turned over students’ engagement and motivation in the lesson. They have set of rules for using their mouse pointers. They have dedicated parking area on the screen when they are interacting with their pointers. They have gradually learnt these rules and guidelines by regular use of this application for, circle, cross out, true/ false and drawing activities in lesson.

ICT department has developed a small project based learning program where students have to create stop motions using MS movie maker. Students had the chance to capture frames with Digital Camera and create a short stop motion video to tell short stories about their experiences about their World studies projects about Gender equality.

Global perspective and ICT teacher Lourdina and Shafaque have done a cross curricular project with year 9 and 10 students about Gender inequality. This drive is used to create awareness about different issues related to education, health, job opportunities among different genders. Students used visual novel development applications to tell these issues in the form of digital stories.

Developing games is a challenging form of critical thinking skill. Students like to take the challenge that requires enquiry, organisation and effort beyond their zone of proximal development and they feel proud and relieved when they finally achieve it. Students are encouraged to break down problems in small parts and find solution for each. In year 8, Hassnain, Nargis, Osman, Rekha and Sangeetha are using visual programming applications for their students like Microsoft Kodu and Scratch for developing games.