September – Let’s seal it with a kiss

“I don’t wanna say goodbye for the summer
Knowing the love we’ll miss
Oh let us make a pledge to meet in September
And seal it with a kiss”

–  Jason Donovan

I was invited to attend the International forum for Teachers held in Colombo on the theme of “Touching Hearts, Transforming Minds” and had the privilege of listening to amazing Educators on how teachers can touch the hearts of children to transform how they learn.

Professor David Shaw’s (David Shaw is a visiting professor at the Aberdeen Business School specializing in leadership, communication and well being.) session struck a code with me for two reasons. 1. He used a lot of Harry Potter Analogy (#diehardfan) 2. He spoke about giving new tools to disheartened teachers and this is something I work towards in giving the teachers of my school. I believe that these tools can be a new magic wand – the wand of digital technology in the classroom.

In my drive towards making my school a Microsoft Showcase School #MicrosoftEDU, I’m in the process of getting all my teachers on board using the amazing digital tools they offer for the classroom such as #Onenote and #MicrosoftTeams. These ‘magic wands’ help teachers to transform their lessons into enchanting experiences.

At the IFT I met Felicia Brown, Asia Pacific Senior Teacher Engagement Manager  #MicrosoftEDU, who my Chairman invited over to visit Gateway College Colombo the next day, as we are a #MicrosoftSchool. It was great to show her everything that we do in school along with the Computing Curriculum I have helped develop.

Encouraging Teachers to use Hour of Code

I constantly encourage the teachers of my department to conduct #HourofCode activities to improve their coding skills. I specially encourage them to do this when a teacher is absent and they are supposed to sit in that lesson as a ‘relief’ teacher.  The student’s love it and it’s no problem getting the girl’s to love coding either. There’s a lot of communictio and collaboration taking place as well when the students help each other when they hit a snag. I think a picture speaks a thousand words so here’s 6 thousand of it.

I wish I dedicated separate blog posts for each of these but it was a crazy busy month. But I do pledge to keep this blog more active from October. My September’s been wonderful and I’ll seal it with a kiss.

Last Month has been Amazing

With this being my first post, let me introduce my self!

I’m a teacher passionate about bringing in technology into the classroom to enhance learning. I strongly believe that in order to reach our Digital Natives, we need to speak their language. This blog will be about how this can be done.

In my journey in becoming an educator endorsing technology in the classroom, I’ve been fortunate to come across the amazing work that Microsoft Education does #MicrosoftEdu. That discovery has led me to amazing technology as well as amazing educator communities.

I became a active advocate in using Microsoft technologies in the classroom and beyond, and I’m just thrilled to bits that I’ve been recognized as a MIEExpert by Microsoft in August.

I’ve just learnt that I’m one of the finalists to be selected to represent Sri Lanka in the Microsoft Education Exchange (E2) Summit which is Microsoft in Education’s annual event recognizing and celebrating the achievements of educators who combine content, pedagogy, and technology in exemplary ways to prepare students for success. Wish me luck!!!

I’m also passionate about making sure my students achieve the best they can and just last week, my GSCE students received their results from Edexcel (Pearsons) with flying colours. More than half of my students obtained A* to A grades with one of my students receiving full marks making her the receiver of the world prize for my subject! This is the third consecutive year that one of my students received a world prize! Monkey praising it’s own tail, I know, BUT I’m one happy and proud teacher 

So all in all, it’s been an amazing August. Here’s to always learning!