As you may already know, I’m leaving for Salvador, Brazil on Sunday along with David Stinson who is competing in this year’s Worldwide Innovative Education Forum next week. Joining us at the event will be Dr. Victor McNair, Senior Lecturer at the University of Ulster, who will be participating as a Judge for the event. Also attending from the Republic of Ireland as invitees of Dr. Kevin Marshall, Microsoft Education Lead and Academic Programme Manager Ireland, will be Mr. Tommy Maher of Scoil Naomh Fiachra whose school has been selected as a new Pathfinder School in the Microsoft Innovative Schools Programme and Mr Seamus Ryan who has led the establishment of Dunshaughlin Community College as a Microsoft Global School of the Future (now referred to as a Mentor School).

Make sure you follow the activity on this site along with my Twitter Feed (@tjinbelfast)

But the excitement doesn’t end there. I will have my busiest weeks and months (and hopefully years ) when we get back. Just a few of the things I’ll be working on are:

• The opening of a new Innovation Centre!!!. As you are surely aware, I managed the STIC on behalf of Microsoft for the past 5 years. The STIC was part of the European Education Research and Innovation Centre (EERIC). Well, that Centre has closed and I have been tasked to “find a new home”. Well, I’ve done that. Working in partnership with Stranmillis University College, Queen’s University of Belfast School of Education, the Regional Training Unit (RTU) of NI, and Classroom 2000 (C2k)  we will be launching the Centre for Excellence in Leadership, Innovation and Learning (CELIL). Our global STIC/EERIC partners, HP, Cisco Systems and Intel Corp will also be involved with the new Centre. There will be lots of news and activity to follow in the near future, so watch this space!!

• The re-launch of the Northern Ireland Innovative Teachers Network site. If you have visited the NI Innovative Teachers Network site recently you will have noticed a complete makeover has taken place. It looks much better and the navigation is much smoother and faster. if you’re not already a member, make sure you sign up to get access to Free software, Educational Video links, discussions, Communities and much more. I would recommend you register with a Live ID. If you don’t already have one, you can do it HERE. This will make sign on much quicker and easier and will allow integrating your registration on the new Partners in Learning Worldwide Network site in the coming months.

• The launch of the Northern Ireland Innovative Education Forum Awards Competition- As I have done for the past 3 years, I will be running a competition for Teachers in NI to show how they have used ICT in delivering their classroom curriculum in innovative ways. The winners of the NI competition will win an all-expenses paid trip to Berlin next March to compete against Teachers from across Western Europe. Winners of the WE competition are automatically invited to the Worldwide competition in Nov. 2010. Rumour has it that it will take place in South Africa!! David Stinson is going to Brazil because of his success in Vienna last march. 2 Great trips for his hard work. Not bad!! Details will be available in early December and you will find them here, on the NI ITN site, RTU’s website and C2k’s website. You must be a registered member of the NI Innovative Teachers Network to participate

• The launch of the Microsoft Innovative Schools Network-  Microsoft will be formerly be launching the new Innovative Schools Programme in Brazil next week. The 12 Global Schools of the Future will become Mentor Schools and share their experiences and learning from their 3 year participation. There has been 30 additional schools selected from around the world to become Pathfinder Schools and will build on the lessons and experience of the Mentor schools along with developing and sharing their work and innovation. I will be working with schools from NI  interested in the next round of submissions for Pathfinder accreditation. There will be toolkits and free content available in the next few weeks.

• Launch of the NI Imagine Cup Competition- In the past, students and schools who wished to participate in the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2010 Competition did so by going to Dublin to show their work. This year we will be running a competition specifically for students in Northern Ireland with the winner automatically invited to the finals in Dublin next April. Winning teams in Dublin will then be invited to compete at the worldwide competition in Warsaw Poland in July 2010. Presentations to interested schools and student team will begin in late November. If you’re interested contact me (i-tomj@microsoft.com) or Michael Meagher (v-mmeagh@microsoft.com), Academic Programme Manager Ireland. Michael has taken up Liam Cronin’s post for those who have dealt with Liam in the past.

• Microsoft Community Affairs (CA) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – for the past 5 years I have led the CA and CSR activity in the north on behalf of Microsoft. Along with the work we do with FIT NI, EGSA, Action MS and BITC. We will run 2 major projects this coming year:
1. Internet Safety Day- once again Microsoft volunteers will partner with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Community Liaison Officers and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to deliver internet safety presentations to Primary schools across NI. This will take place in concert with the EU Internet safety Day 2010 on Feb. 9th. Last year we reached over 1800 students and 100 Teachers.
2. Microsoft NGO Day in NI- working with not-for profits and charities to share resources, training and skills to the wide NGO audience in Ireland. A similar day is taking place in Dublin on Nov. 26th.

I’m sure I’ve left something important out but that seems to be enough for you to take on board for now. So visit the site often, bookmark it, sign up for the RSS feed and let me know how I can help you.

The time to leave for the Worldwide Innovative Education Forum 2009 (IEF 2009) in Salvador, Brazil is rapidly approaching. This event is a gathering of the global winners of their regional or country Innovative Teachers Competitions. There will be teachers from over 80 countries competing in 3 categories: Curriculum, Content and Collaboration. As you may remember, 2 Teachers from NI and 1 Teacher from the Republic of Ireland competed in Vienna in March at the European Innovative Teachers Forum. They were:

• Navanna Doherty from St. Mary’s College in Londonderry/Derry and she presented her Virtual Classroom Tour (VCT) on “GCSE Online History” and you can see that HERE
• David Stinson from Sullivan Upper School in Holywood and he presented his VCT on “Pupil E-Portfolio” and you can see that HERE
• Rose Lawlor from Dunshaughlin Community College in Co. Meath, Ireland and she presented her VCT on “Igniting Innovation in a School Community” and you can see that HERE

They were all terrific pieces of work in using ICT to deliver curriculum and were well received. David’s work was deemed especially good and he won 2nd Place for Content. as a result of that win in Vienna, David is invited to compete at this year’s WW IEF 2009 in Brazil. He also won 3rd Place in a special category “Educators Choice” which is voted on by all of the Teachers competing and in attendance. Getting that kind of recognition from his peers was especially gratifying.

Needless to say, David has been working very hard to expand and improve the VCT he submitted in Vienna. The amount of time and effort he has put into this is staggering and I think that when you go through it, you will surely agree. The original “Pupil E-Portfolio” has evolved and grown into “E-Portfolio 5-65”. The intent is to showcase how an individual learner can capture and track their work and progress and anytime in their learning life. You can see the latest version HERE.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed so David can come back as the 1st worldwide win for NI. You can follow events for IEF 2009 on this site. I’ll be Blogging and Twittering the whole week.

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On a much sadder note I wanted mention the passing of Byron Evans ,a dear friend and a true champion for Education in Northern Ireland. He had a passion for Teaching and Learning that would be difficult to match and leaves a hole that will be hard to fill. Our sincerest sympathies go out to his wife Jean and the entire Evans family. May you rest in peace and God be with you. And a warning to all you teachers in heaven- GET READY TO RUMBLE"!!!!

Byron, Victor McNair and Jean in Vienna

I’m just back from the Worldwide Academic Programme Managers’ meeting in London (and 2 additional days to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary with Caroline ) and I had the chance to remind myself of the great work being delivered by my  colleagues through the Partners in Learning Programme. Listening to all of the great things that are being done by Angela Schaerer,STIC Manager and her Education Lead, Reza Bardien made me want to work even harder and longer.

They have done an incredible amount of work on delivering resources for Teachers in the Sub-Saharan region and they are happy to share their work with Teachers here. Their site covers a full range of areas, such as:

This is why sharing and collaboration works, especially in Education. I hope you take some time to see what they’ve done and use it to your best advantage.

Remember- there may be parts the are local to Africa , but that shouldn’t be difficult for you to localise.

A full day of the WW APM meeting was dedicated to working with Michael Fullan.  From Michael’s website:

“Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Recognized as a worldwide authority on educational reform, Michael is engaged in training, consulting, and evaluating change projects around the world and his books have been published in many languages.

Michael Fullan is currently Special Advisor to the Premier and Minister of Education in Ontario. His book, Leading in a Culture of Change was awarded the 2002 Book of the Year Award by the National Staff Development Council and Breakthrough (with Peter Hill and Carmel Crévola) won the 2006 Book of the Year Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.”

  We spent a full day working through his book Six Secrets of Change. It was on of the best interactive, enjoyable and informative learning experiences I’ve ever had at a company meeting. With a mixture of presentation, video, group tasks and feedback, the 7+ hours Michael was with us flew by and we all came out the better for having attended.

Michael has done work with the Regional Training Unit (RTU) in the past along with Microsoft Ireland and UK. Hopefully, we’ll get him to visit our fair shores next May. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s not very often you come away from a 4 day meeting with 8:00 starts and long days packed with presentations feeling excited about the coming year, but I did. for sure