This week, I am in Salvador, Brazil, attending the Worldwide Innovative Education Forum. The event brings together more than 400 teachers, school leaders, government officials and other education experts from around the world to celebrate and share innovation happening in the classroom that leads to educational transformation. Best practices for integrating technology into curricula, pedagogy and classrooms are showcased and people are connected with their peers for lifelong learning opportunities.
This is the 5th year the Microsoft Partners in Learning team has put on the event, and it kicked off today with the launch of the Partners in Learning Network. The Network is the next generation of the Innovative Teachers Network that I’ve blogged about before. We expect to have more than 2 million teachers and school leaders participating by next year…making it one of the largest professional networks for educators in the world. It went live today in English and Ukrainian and within the next couple of weeks, it will be available in 39 countries, with more languages coming in the next couple of months. The new site provides educators with the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in their local region and around the globe.
Teachers cannot be successful innovators unless their school systems support inventive teaching and learning. The Innovative Schools Program is designed to help school leaders become change agents within their school communities by providing tools and resources they need to successfully envision and implement transformation. In Brazil, we are welcoming the first classes of Mentor and Pathfinder Schools. There are 42 schools and we will work together over the next year to refine their vision to change the culture of schools and bring radical transformation to the classroom. We will then help implement the ideas, infuse technology where appropriate, and broadly scale out and help replicate it in other schools.
On Friday, we will announce the 12 winners of the Innovative Teachers Awards. Right now, 250 worldwide regional finalists are competing and we will recognize the best examples of those who have creatively and effectively used technology in their curriculum to help improve the way their students learn.
More details on what’s happening in Brazil can be found here. You can also follow all the chatter on Twitter by searching for the #MS09ief hash tag.
The U.S. Education team is in Denver this week at the 2009 Annual Educause Conference. We are excited to talk to and listen to higher education institutions about how we can work together to bring new, innovative technology to lecture halls around the world to create personalized learning experiences. Cloud computing is a hot topic in these tight economic times when school leaders are wondering how they are going to financially make it…and we are excited to share the success stories of our customers who are succeeding by deploying Microsoft’s range of software plus service product offerings.
Live@edu adoption continues to grow
We continue to gain huge traction with Microsoft Live@edu, our hosted email, communications and collaboration solution for students. In the past four months more than 5,000 schools have enrolled with Live@edu, joining the thousands of other institutions in more than 100 countries already providing Live@edu to tens of millions of students worldwide. Our growth in universities and colleges includes recent wins at the University of Washington and the University of Missouri, as well as:
• Seton Hall. The university chose Live@edu over Google Apps for Education to provide email and collaboration features for its 10,000 students and is currently rolling it out to 70,000 alumni. Read their case study here.
• University of Cincinnati (UC). UC has an extensive 55,000 Live@edu deployment, including user identity management and password synchronization with ILM, a single sign-on portal and more. Students can launch any of the Live@edu applications directly from their Blackboard home page and synchronize with their class schedules.
• Ohio University. Ohio is almost done activating more than 140,000 Live@edu accounts for current students and alumni. While the school is looking to reduce costs and improve communications with alumni, students cite the modern web interface, increased mailbox capacity and powerful search capabilities as top features.
• Colorado Community College System (CCCS). CCCS is comprised of 13 colleges, serving more than 115,000 students annually, and assigns all students Live@edu email accounts to use as a primary point of contact and to ensure timely communications.
New collaboration opportunities
We are also announcing new SharePoint Online-based collaboration and productivity services will be available for students as part of the Live@edu next year. These new SharePoint-based services will offer IT departments more flexibility and control to set up and manage their school’s collaboration and productivity tools in a security-enhanced environment…as well as the ability to access and manage permissions to sites, documents and content (pictures, videos) with enterprise-class control.
For students, these new services give them access to similar types of functionality that has made SharePoint the fastest growing server product in Microsoft history. It will enable them to create, edit and securely access content from their school’s site anywhere, whether at home, at the school library or even while on the road for holiday. It will allow them to organize, track and easily share classroom information, interests, expertise and easily find colleagues. By leveraging Office Web Apps that are currently in technical preview, students will have a new online space where they can securely upload, easily share, and collaborate on documents, including in-place editing. We believe this will better prepare them for the workforce through use of functionality and technology used every day in the workplace.
Microsoft’s software plus services model—which spans mission-critical datacenter availability and security, Live@edu, Microsoft Online Services collaboration and communication offerings, and Windows Azure—combines the reach and flexibility of the cloud with the power of on-premises software applications. Today, we see that people want to access information on the PC, in the browser and on a mobile device…and I think this the real value in moving to the cloud…having the flexibility and choice to run your solutions either in the cloud, on premises, or a mix of the two.
Schools adopting Microsoft Online Services
Universities are beginning to embrace the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite on campus, which is comprised of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting. These products have been traditionally on premise, but are now available in a paid-for, hosted environment in the cloud that Microsoft manages for you that you can buy through partners. These online services offer streamlined communication, simplified management and business-class security and reliability…and new this quarter, we are increasing the mailbox size five-fold to 25 GB for every user. Recent customer wins include:
• University System of Ohio. The state of Ohio has signed an Education Alliance Agreement with Microsoft that will bring a cloud computing approach to the entire state. Exchange Online is one of many products that will provide significant cost savings, increased productivity and improved performance while minimizing environmental impact.
• Hofstra University. Hofstra is moving its faculty and staff to Exchange Online. By using Microsoft’s security, spam filtering and archiving capabilities, the technical staff will be able to concentrate on providing other high-valued academic services to the University.
• Belmont University. Belmont is using Exchange Online to serve approximately 1,400 faculty and staff email accounts. The Exchange Online implementation supports the school’s green initiatives by saving space and energy costs. They anticipate saving about $30,000 a year by not having to hire additional IT staff to support.
We will be talking about our software plus services solutions and more at Educause. I hope you stop by our booth (#608) to engage in dialogue and give us feedback on what you need technology to deliver to make your institution more efficient and effective. Our event session schedule can be found here.
And if you are unable to be in Denver this week, be sure to check out our education webcasts on these topics and more here.
I had the pleasure of visiting Mexico recently and had the opportunity to speak with institutions, educators, principals and other leaders about the potential for education to revitalize local economies. Like many countries, Mexico is excited about technology’s role in transforming learning, creating new options for teachers and students, and forming a much tighter connection to improve the knowledge economy inside the country. Education leaders here recognize technology’s role as a way to provide new content, new resources, and a vehicle for students to grow new skills to prepare for new jobs and new industries in Mexico.
I was very happy to see the level of passion and enthusiasm from the institutions about technology. My trip coincided with Windows 7 consumer availability, so I had the chance to witness launch activities. I also had the chance to participate in the signing of a Microsoft Education Alliance Agreement with Universidad ICEL to promote academic achievement through the latest technology tools (see picture to the bottom left). If you read Spanish, check out the news coverage here and here.
The Microsoft education team in Mexico is doing a great job partnering with the country to help students take advantage of Microsoft programs like Imagine Cup, Students to Business, DreamSpark and BizSpark. I’m inspired about the country’s optimism and what we might be able to do together in the future. There’s a very practical recognition that if students leverage Microsoft tools to connect to resources they need to prepare for the future, it will help them connect to jobs.
One of the things that are becoming clearer to me is that fundamental principles really translate across countries. Teachers really need to think more holistically about education by focusing on the fundamentals…how do they help students learn, how can they create personal learning opportunities, and how can they use technology as a catalyst. The teachers I met in Mexico share a belief in technology’s role, but certainly see the challenges that are apparent around the world…the need for training, the need to minimize distraction from core content, and the need to connect assessments to students.
During my trip, I also had the opportunity to meet with leaders at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), the largest university in Latin America, and Tecnológico de Monterrey. I was excited to see the wide range of resources (like virtual learning models) and connections to research and to industry at both universities. I walked through the health research lab at Tecnológico de Monterrey which was especially fascinating because they had students doing the gene splicing to help create the H1N1 vaccine for Mexico.
One of the highlights of the visit…in addition to the tremendous hospitality I received…was not just the real connection the institutions have with economic revitalization…but also the sense of responsibility the schools take on. The country and its education system are committed to helping its citizens, specifically, helping poor families get access to resources they need, facilitating job connections at the community centers, and providing opportunities to those who might not otherwise be able to afford the chance…this goes beyond any specific education agenda or initiative.
When I spoke to about 250 secondary school principals in Mexico, it was the first time I had done a presentation with a translator. My jokes are usually hit or miss, but it was hard to know which jokes were landing and making an impact because of the delay with the translation…people would always laugh a few seconds later. My travels take me to Brazil this week for the Innovative Education Forum, which you will hear more about soon…I wonder if my jokes will be funnier in Portuguese?
No doubt you have seen the hype today surrounding the worldwide Windows 7 launch and availability to consumers. I’ve enjoyed reading the reviews from the tech pundits and our customers. Beyond the whiz-bang features that will get your students and faculty excited about using their computers for day-to-day tasks like Snap, Shake and Windows Touch…there are three new features I think are most relevant for the IT side of the house that will help make everyone more productive…BranchCache, BitLocker To Go, and Windows XP Mode. I introduced some of these features in an earlier blog post.
Today, I’ll focus on BranchCache because I think this is a huge feature that could have big impact. So imagine this scenario – when you download a video to your laptop from YouTube or a document from the district office -- in a traditional environment in a school, you download the file, I download the file, everyone downloads it. You are making a server request to YouTube or the district’s intranet site, and it may take 20 minutes or 10 seconds to download the video or file depending on what your bandwidth is.
The way Windows 7 works is if we are on the same network inside a school, you download the video, it is cached on your machine…then when the next person goes to download the same file, it opens up instantly because it’s been cached on your machine already. For a BranchCache overview, videos, demos and deployment information, check out this site.
With Windows 7, we have worked hard to improve the operating system’s security, reliability and performance while improving PC management and introducing compelling new experiences for the classroom and making it easier to connect with all the devices people use today. For a complete product overview, go here, check out our monthly education newsletter here, and read my blog post here that includes a customer case study.
Be sure to sign up for our own virtual launch event dedicated to education where you can learn more about the Windows 7 benefits for schools and hear from K12 and university IT professionals that are deploying Windows 7.
Some level of technology skills is required in almost every profession and job these days. A recent IDC report commissioned by Microsoft showed that global spending on IT will create 5.8 million new jobs by 2013…so what are we doing to make sure our students are prepared?
Today, we announced the donation of more than $4 million worth of Microsoft software to high schools in the State of Illinois to help students build technology skills and prepare for the workforce or college. To spur creativity, we are partnering with the Illinois State Board of Education to encourage kids to compete in a Web design contest called “bliink” to create a Web site that drives them to engage in their communities to protect the local environment.
Illinois, like many other states and countries, has recognized the value in investing in education to connect learning to workforce needs that will drive innovation, new industries and optimism for economic recovery. This challenge is part of Illinois’ Innovation Talent education program, a pilot project designed to connect schools with industry, government and community partners. They are pushing students to develop their analytical abilities by working on interdisciplinary teams to solve real-world problems using leading-edge information technology tools.
The software donation is made possible through our Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) program. With a complimentary subscription to MSDNAA, accredited high schools get licenses to use Expression Web and Visual Studio 2008 software. High school teachers and administrators can request a free subscription by emailing us: ew4hs@innovativeteachers.us. We also offer free tutorials and curriculum units that have been designed by teachers and tested by students in more than 350 high schools. The lessons have been mapped to national standards and include project-based learning experiences for students and assessment tools for teachers.
In the past 16 months, more than 1 million U.S. high school students have benefitted from Microsoft’s MSDNAA donations. You can see some of the students’ outstanding work here. We are really encouraged by the great feedback we are hearing about this program -- ”more students are talking about working in engineering or technology after high school”…”the software really got me interested in technology, and interested in taking a more difficult technical course.” And that’s really the goal here…providing kids the foundation, the tools they need to imagine a new future, to connect to real opportunities in the workplace and to realize the power of technology.
I am catching up on sharing some video interviews with you from a recent partner event. Today’s conversation is with Alvin Crawford from Schoolnet.
Schoolnet solutions take a platform approach using Microsoft technologies, primarily SharePoint Server, to build an end-to-end experience for all different user types and schools. They understand that parents, teachers, administrators and students have different needs in terms of the types of information they need to see, as well as access rights, and they create an experience that is seamless. They’ve also given a lot of thought behind the design and learned a lot from social networking and community sites so the environment is much friendlier to the audience type…if a teacher is accessing a data dashboard, they see tools and resources that are for a teacher. Schoolnet also does a good job connecting data and content together to offer students collaboration opportunities.
Alvin and I had a good conversation about trends in education…in particular how to use data dashboards to drive action and improve and inform instruction.
Let me know what you think...
Anthony Salcito discusses education trends with Alvin Crawford, Schoolnet
Schools, districts and states have been collecting data for decades…but, the art of perfecting the management and analytics of data seems to be hitting a crescendo this year. I think this is largely in part due to the fact that emerging technologies are making it more affordable…and of course, the Department of Education has highlighted the need to “build data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness” as one of its four key school reforms under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and even requiring evidence of successful and innovative data systems to be in place in order to qualify for incentives and grants.
I recently sat down to talk to David Fitzgerald, the Education Practice Manager over at Mariner, about how data is transforming schools and how we’ve got to help them get past using data solely as a reporting function and really use it as a way to drive innovation. Mariner has built a solution for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools on the Microsoft Education Analytics platform that’s helping the district drive academic and operational success. You can read the case study here. In the coming months, you can hear from the school leaders directly about how their digital data dashboard initiative is progressing, the successes and lessons learned by signing up for their web series here.
Here’s my conversation with David…
Anthony Salcito discusses using data to transform learning with David Fitzgerald
Help celebrate World Teachers’ Day…there is still time left in the day to express your appreciation or admiration and give thanks to a teacher. UNESCO designated October 5th annually as World Teachers' Day to mark the anniversary of the 1966 signing of the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers which addresses teacher policies, rights and responsibilities.
Whether you are a student, a parent, an administrator or a community member, you probably have reason to be grateful for a teacher that has impacted your life. When I think about the biggest influences in my life, teachers are the first to come to mind. Teachers inspire us to become life-long learners and challenge us to solve tough problems. They provide us with guidance when we need help and enable us to achieve our goals.
There are 59 million teachers providing instruction to 1.4 billion students around the world. Here at Microsoft, we work hard to listen to the needs and understand the challenges educators and schools face, and hope that we can provide technology, training and support to best assist you in shaping the future of our society. Technology is becoming an increasingly central tool to help educators create exciting class projects, personalize learning scenarios, and share best practices and lesson plans with peers around the world. That is why we work diligently everyday to create solutions to empower teachers and faculty to reach their students in effective and engaging ways.
We are committed to helping advance the teaching profession in the 21st century. Let us know what we can do to make you successful…and in the meantime, thank you!
I had the pleasure of meeting recently with the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, around exploring options to invest in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is an emerging country with a very young labor force…and like many countries around the world, looking to explore opportunities for emerging technologies and how technology’s role can drive impact in education as part of their Digital Bangladesh initiative. It’s exciting to see hope for a nation that’s growing with an economy that’s being built on driving innovation and new industries and rooted in the foundation of education transformation.
There are more than a 150 million people in Bangladesh, the 7th largest population, which I was surprised by. The average age of the labor force is 23-years old, which is one of the youngest workforces in the world. They are well positioned with regards to economic expansion as noted by its listing as one of the “Next Eleven” potential largest economies of the 21st century.
Bangladesh has a female Prime Minister and a progressive government which has wide support, and they’ve been very good about working with the U.S. and building relationships with companies and the administration. With the Digital Bangladesh initiative, the Prime Minister is working to improve core infrastructure in the country like roads and transportation, but also recognizes the value in education. Like a lot of countries, they’re exploring individual technology devices for each student, looking for opportunities to train people in new skills, and extend digital content. There are some interesting write-ups here and here on how the country is trying to meet the challenge.
I am inspired to explore future partnerships with Bangladesh and help in their efforts to modernize and transform education, and help students in the country realize their potential.
It’s going to be an exciting year here at Microsoft as we are introducing a wave of new innovative software. This fall, we are helping institutions and IT professionals optimize PC environments, increase productivity and expand innovation in the classroom with Windows 7, consolidate servers with Windows Server 2008 R2 and unify communications with Exchange Server 2010.
By now you’ve probably seen “The New Efficiency” – it’s both the theme for the product launches and it is the powerful concept behind a new way of thinking about IT…cost savings, innovation and productivity can come together to deliver operational improvements while amplifying the impact of your people. For education, this new efficiency requires some reinvention in many ways. The expectations of schools and its constituents are growing. What schools really have to do is prioritize investments and shift the ways they use existing resources as opposed to just doing more with the same resources. Basically, schools need to make different bets on how they serve content, and how they invest more in education, etc. as opposed to just squeezing more out of the same exact investment and strategy. Be sure to check out our virtual launch events here and here.
Since Windows 7 was first released to schools with academic licensing agreements in August, many K12 and high education schools around the globe are in the process of deploying the next generation operating system and experiencing the benefits. Check out my earlier blog post here introducing Windows 7 to schools.
As part of its Digital Education Revolution initiative, the New South Wales Department of Education and Training is in the process of rolling out tens of thousands of netbooks to students and teachers to bring innovation to teaching and learning, and to equip students with the necessary tools they need to further their education and prepare them for the digital workforce. Check out their video below.
West Hatch High School, in Essex, England was the first school in Europe to fully deploy Windows 7. And here in the United States, San Diego Unified School District, Catherine Cook School in Chicago, Hoover City Schools in Alabama, Kentucky Community and Technical College System and many more are investing in Windows 7.
I’m excited to share their stories with you and more in the coming months. Please share how Windows 7 and the other new products are allowing you to transform the teaching and learning experience in your schools. If you haven't started exploring yet, you can download free trial software for Windows 7 here, Windows Server 2008 R2 here and Exchange Server 2010 here.
New South Wales School District and Windows 7
Access to education is certainly one of the world’s most pressing problems. This week at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City, we are making a number of commitments to partner with industry leaders and governments to provide access to technology to drive change in local communities by enhancing teaching and learning methods, thereby improving skills needed by students to thrive in the 21st century.
We are partnering with Intel, Cisco, USAID and the Kenyan Government to improve the quality of primary and secondary education in Kenya by launching the Accelerating 21st Century Education (ACE) project and develop a best-in-class model for deploying ICT in education. This is a combined commitment valued at more than US$9 million and centers on creating “one-to-one e-learning” classrooms in 60 focus schools across Kenya. We will help deploy more than 6,000 networked computers for student and teacher use; train teachers to effectively integrate technology in the classroom; train technical support staff at each school; install a wireless infrastructure inside the schools and Internet connectivity; provide access to digital educational content; and help develop the local IT industry in Kenya to promote economic development and sustainability.
Additionally, Cisco, Intel and Microsoft will work together to establish a School Technology Innovation Center (STIC) in Nairobi. The center will be dedicated to research on innovative emerging technology solutions and serve as a repository and showcase for best-known methods of teaching, learning and educational technology. The Microsoft Worldwide Partners in Learning team runs School Technology Innovation Centers in a number of cities around the world – Brussels, Belgium; Johannesburg, South Africa, Prague, Czech Republic; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Amman, Jordan; Sao Paolo, Brazil.
There are a number of curricula that we offer through Partners in Learning that will be made available for teachers in Kenya. One such example is Peer Coaching, which trains teachers to help other teachers in their school and area more effectively use technology for 21st Century teaching and learning. It has been very effective in Brazil and Thailand. Other curricula that will be made available includes Security Day Curriculum, Live@edu, Leading Change for school leaders and basic digital literacy.
According to UNESCO, since 1990, the Kenyan government has renewed its commitment to improving education. And although, it is still a developing country and many schools still lack electricity or suitable classrooms for learning, Kenya is becoming a strong regional and worldwide advocate for the effective use of ICTs in teaching and learning. With the 1:1 initiative, Kenya has a tremendous opportunity to realize a dramatic transformation of its education system…access to a device opens up a new world in terms of access to information, different technologies, resources and learning opportunities. The computers will transform the classroom experience by giving school leaders and educators the ability to drive student achievement, performance, development and career aspirations overall.
As education is increasingly looked upon by countries all over the world to help respond to economic challenges as a source for innovation and incubation of new ideas, businesses and industries…one thing that schools equally recognize is that transferrable competency skills are as critical if not more critical than the core content that has traditionally been taught behind school walls. As the connection between school and the workplace become more transparent, schools need to embrace the value of critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, etc. And access to a computer provides a way to build these necessarily skills needed to compete and succeed in the 21st century.
I am proud we are able to scale some of our programs and bring them to Kenya to help invest in 21st century learning, stimulate the local economy and help the government fast track its education reform efforts. Over the course of three years, this project is expected to directly benefit an estimated 39,000 students and 7,000 teachers through improved educational infrastructure and training. Kenya’s Ministry of Education estimates than an additional 300,000 people will benefit indirectly from the STIC and other aspects of knowledge sharing.
We are also happy to report out on the success of the Global Give Back Circle, a Microsoft supported initiative helping disadvantaged girls in Kenya to successfully transition from high school to university. You can read more about our efforts here and here.
Today, Microsoft officially opened the technical preview program for the much anticipated Office Web Apps to a limited number of invitation-only participants. We have a few schools in this private preview who will be testing Excel, PowerPoint and Word Web Apps through Windows Live SkyDrive (OneNote coming soon). Take a look at the new screen shots on the right. The rest of us will be able to get a sneak peak when the Office 2010 beta is released later this year…you can sign up here for early notification of when it's coming so you can try it out.
I’m really excited about the potential Office Web Apps have for education. We’ve seen schools, and students in particular, embrace a wide variety of collaborative and online environments to do work in an ad-hoc fashion and move beyond the classroom and even their PC as a core computing device. Office Web Apps will allow students to collaborate in real-time across a wide variety of experience types, whether it’s editing assignments in Word at a library computer or the ability to 
embrace a much more collaborative approach to sharing projects with teammates. Doing work anytime, anyplace without the restriction of the PC they’re using or the software that’s loaded on it will be a tremendous opportunity. With Office Web Apps, you can view, create, edit and share documents anyplace, on any device (phone, PC, MAC) and across popular browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox).
Office Webs Apps will be a great companion to Office, so students can take the documents they’ve worked on and open them up for feedback and collaboration with others whether or not they have Office software on their machines…and a student won’t have to worry about whether their friend has the same version of Office either. This will open up the world of computing across campus and across different learning modalities which certainly opens up collaboration opportunities.
I think Web Apps are great examples of Microsoft’s commitment to not only create new experiences that connect to the needs our educators and students and what they are asking for, but our commitment to software plus services.
I’m excited to show you more about the features and functionality of the Web Apps in the coming year and how they will play with Live@edu, but in the meantime, learn more about them in the Windows Live and Office 2010 Engineering blog posts, as well as this new demo video and fact sheet.
As the Southern Hemisphere officially begins its influenza season, the CDC is reporting here in the United States that the number of people visiting doctors with flu-like symptoms is increasing and far above normal for this time of year. With the new academic year now in session, the H1N1 flu virus is top of mind as we all think about how to personally stay healthy and school officials think about how to make sure students don’t fall behind in their studies if they are absent from class or they need to close their institutions.
The U.S. Department of Education has released recommendations to schools and universities for how learning can continue in the event of an outbreak, and today Microsoft announced how it will support the administration’s efforts to minimize the impact of H1N1 in our schools. We are offering free technology resources at www.microsoft.com/education/h1n1 that will help educators stay connected with their students. The simplest thing educators can do is set up an online class workspace using Office Live Workspace where you can share assignments, handouts and documents and collaborate on projects anytime, anywhere with just an Internet connection. We’re providing how-to videos, tips and other free technologies teachers can infuse in their classroom content to make lessons more engaging.
The H1N1 pandemic highlights the need for institutions to think more holistically about blended learning environments…that these online and distance learning solutions are valuable not only when you have to respond to classroom outages or school closures, but also creates an opportunity to connect and share information between a student and teacher beyond the classroom all the time. There’s data to suggest this type of learning boosts student outcomes. The U.S. Department of Education and the Sloan Consortium have interesting analysis here and here.
We do offer more robust options for classroom continuity for those institutions looking to rollout blended learning solutions more broadly. As IT managers juggle with the need to expand services and react to potential need for H1N1 virtual learning environments with increasing limited budgets and staff…solutions like Office Live Workspace provide a great option. It’s an easy to implement and FREE solution that is hosted, managed and maintained offsite, yet has the ability to connect with school identity, passwords for single sign-on, etc. School leaders can quickly demonstrate leadership by providing tools to extend learning beyond the classroom and use the H1N1 mandate to increasingly drive the transformation of learning in and out of the classroom.
While the solution is easy to start-up-and-go because it’s connected to Microsoft identity, collaboration and messaging platforms…not only can sign-on and identity be integrated into core school district platforms, but rich messaging options built on Microsoft Exchange can be extended to students and parents for free via Live@edu. Live@edu is being used by schools and universities around the world and provides a suite of communication and collaboration services.
Microsoft also provides a comprehensive set of solutions that make up a very robust distance learning portfolio. We offer everything necessary from real time meeting and communication capabilities to online content management. Using our Unified Communications and Collaboration Platform, offering both on premise and cloud/hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Office Communications Server, schools have a rich and powerful platform on which to offer distance learning solutions.
We are honored to do what we can to support education in this country, and around the world, and look forward to continued partnership with the Department of Education and you to make technology solutions more affordable and accessible.
During my first week on the job in the international role for Microsoft Education, I had the opportunity to meet with a true leader and visionary in higher education, David Lammy. He is the Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property for the United Kingdom. He is most passionate about expanding access to higher education for all and becoming a world leader in e-learning. We had the chance to talk about the state of education and higher education in the UK, and about the trends we see consistent across the world.
Like most countries, the UK has recognized the value of education and is investing in education as a way to fuel the local economy to help the country get out of its own recession. The notion of education helping to prepare its students for the workforce of tomorrow is also vibrant and strong as the UK is investing in science, technology, engineering, and math to stimulate students’ thinking and fuel new industries that will propel the prosperity of places like the UK. We hope to help the UK on the workforce challenge as demonstrated by the launch of the Britain Works program this week where we will partner to provide people access to IT skills that can help them find employment...500,000 people by 2012. It's a unique program to meet local needs, but it shares the same philosophy of Elevate America here in the US that I've blogged about before.
David and the UK also recognize the value and importance of a blended learning experience and the need of students’ individual learning needs. But they also recognize there’s a balance between the physical classroom experience and the online learning experience...It’s not an either/or approach. We both see a comprehensive look of how students learn, and how they learn in and around technology as a critical part of the discussion.
I am looking forward to partnering on a number of initiatives with the UK and seeing what becomes of the future of higher education in the country.
When we talk to schools, we often talk about the value of data. We think about data as really being holistically used across the learning environment to transform the classroom…from the way in which you create identity, help with curriculum and create personalized learning experiences. A lot of districts have provided increased access to data to provide clarity to teachers on students’ progress and transparency to parents. In these scenarios, schools mostly use data as a reporting function, not as a way to drive true innovation. The School of One in New York City is an example of administrators radically transforming the way they use data to create authentic personalized learning experiences for students.
I got the chance to visit the School of One last month and it was exciting to see a vision we share with NYC schools about using data to do more…to deliver a transformative learning experience…and actually see it come to fruition. This week, my team and I sat down with Joel Rose, the lead of the School of One project, to get a report on the results of the pilot. What we learned really affirms what we believed all along…using data to drive action is critical for schools. In order to drive a personalized learning roadmap…you must use the data to optimize curriculum and teacher resources effectively to affect individual student results.
At this summer school math class, they take data from the students’ performance that day and use it to predict and plan the next day’s lessons and the method in which they are going to learn…how are they going to collaborate, whether they will work in a small team, participate in project-based activities, etc. Teachers get a daily report on how each individual student is progressing…they can track which students are falling behind, which students are moving ahead…and they get a unique schedule and curriculum plan for the next day based on the data analysis.
The School of One uses the Renzulli framework from the University of Connecticut that allows students to assess what kind of learner they think they are, what kind of learning style is most attractive to them, etc. Teachers at the School of One want to know where and how the students think they learn best and whether that is truly the most optimal way they should learn. For example, a student may think they soak up knowledge best with game-based learning in small groups, but they actually work better in collaborative groups with large projects. They take the Renzulli work, students’ performance and how they are making headway against the curriculum on a daily basis…then run all this information through algorithms a Microsoft consultant has built with Microsoft Access and Excel and other partner tools to generate a class schedule.
They’ve really created unique learning environments for students that put a teacher where he or she is best skilled. They want to create the most optimal teaching experience for teachers too. In some circumstances, student teachers from the university system help with group collaboration projects, and they use teachers with more experience for specific coaching moments in a 1:1 capacity. So they are optimizing their human capital resources just as much as they are optimizing the student learning opportunities. It’s a real holistic view of the environment – they think about the actual physical structure of the classroom and they think about optimizing for the teacher to create a personalized learning experience.
The challenges School of One will face are something schools face every day. Innovation like this is not easy…it requires a commitment from the leadership and it requires a commitment to change. You also have to focus on scale. School of One is a great project but to get that to be a district-wide initiative on other subjects requires a tremendous amount of work. The School of One has already seen some return on investment…they have really speeded up time to market in terms of getting data back to teachers. It used to take 3 hours to compile the algorithms and get the data back to teachers – now it is less than an hour. They are seeing economies of scale and they think they can scale out.
The last thing I think is important…and this is where products like Microsoft Semblio will come in…when you drive to truly personalize learning, there’s a need for content. If you are really going to commit to personalized learning and commit to a student who likes project-based learning with game design for learning algebra, you need a specific type of content for that. The richness of content in terms of what’s available and how teachers can augment existing content to adapt for the student is precisely what Semblio does…provides teachers tools to update and tweak their core content with access to rich digital resources.
I'm excited to see the School of One concept grow. We’ll continue to see how Microsoft can support the School of One as it expands to three more schools next January. The technology used in this first school pilot was minimal because the focus was on the process of understanding how the students performed each day and what unique content and activities would be needed for each student on the next day to maximize their learning experience. The school district expects the focus of technology to increase as the project expands to more schools and greater levels of personalized learning over the next months and years…and we hope we can help.
