In our previous post about the new Microsoft Educator Community entitled, ‘Take some time to join the new Microsoft Educator Community today!‘ we spoke about how to join this great new community that Microsoft has developed. You’ll find this community at:
https://www.educatornetwork.com/. This new site is a central destination where you’ll have access to well over 1.5 million educators around the world plus more. Some of the things you’ll be able to do on the Microsoft Educator Community are:
- Choose from a variety of training
options around technology use in the classroom - Create a lesson or browse
existing lessons plans, virtual field trips, or live lessons. They have moved
select learning activities (now called lesson plans) and tutorials (now called
video tutorials) over from the previous Microsoft Educator Network. Learning activities
and tutorials that are not part of the initial move would need to be brought
over to the new site by individual lesson owners. - Engage with the community by searching for
educators, starting a discussion, or participating in Mystery Skype - Earn badges by completing training, sharing your expertise,
or being active in the community
Let’s go back to the landing page of the new community once you have signed in. You’ll notice six options in the image, so let’s take a look at those.
Select from:
- Get trained
- Find a lesson
- Connect with others
- Share your expertise
- Earn badges
- Join the discussion
Today we’ll start our exploration of this great site and look at the Get Trained option.
Let’s start with the ‘Get Trained’ option
This section aims to enable you to stay current with the right mix of student-focused technology, experiential learning, and virtual collaboration to help your students learn and grow. You’ll see it includes three subsections namely Quick Tip videos, Courses and Learning Paths.
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| https://education.microsoft.com/gettrained |
1. Quick tip videos
There are 37 Quick Tip videos to help you with some technology that you are wanting to know more about using in your classroom. As the name suggests they are short videos of around 3 minutes that are easy to follow. The topics are extremely inviting.
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| https://education.microsoft.com/gettrained/quicktipvideos |
2. Online courses
A look around the courses section shows that there are nine very inviting courses on offer at the moment, all free. They aim to help you find that immediate training you might need on a tool. They are beautifully set out and are easy to follow.
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| https://education.microsoft.com/gettrained/courses |
3. Learning Paths
Learning paths are a compilation of courses or resources that help guide a learner to develop a strong knowledge base for a product or a topic. These would be more intensive courses.
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| https://education.microsoft.com/gettrained/learningpaths |
Currently there are five Learning Paths on offer as the image below indicates:
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| https://education.microsoft.com/gettrained/learningpaths |
a) MIE Trainer Academy: The Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Trainer Academy is designed for teacher trainers and those who are responsible for training educators on the integration of technology in the classroom. The goal is to provide trainers exposure to the many Microsoft technologies and resources that support student-centered learning based on authentic problems and projects while aligning to 21st Century Skills, NETS-S and Common Core Standards
b) Microsoft Education: The Microsoft in Education learning path is a set of introductory courses to get you started on our suite of Microsoft tools for teaching and learning
c) Teaching with Technology: The Teaching with Technology (TwT) curriculum is designed to help educators understand how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can enhance the teaching and learning experience and enable students to acquire 21st century skills. Among many benefits, Teaching with Technology is free, aligned with the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers, and self-paced (log back on at any time to pick up where you left off).
d) 21st Century Learning Design: 21st Century Learning Design (21CLD) for Educators is a collection of 8 courses with 4-6 lessons in each course. This learning path provides teachers with clear and practical ways to develop 21st skills using digital technologies with their students. Through a collection of Office Mix Lessons, 21st Century Learning Design for Educators builds on the research methodology providing a collaborative, practice-based process to help educators transform how they design enriching learning activities for their students. The complete series of 8 courses consists of 20 hours of Office Mix Lessons, video and self-assessment materials. Educators have the opportunity to actively participate in the course by sharing their materials and by engaging in ongoing discussion as part of a community of learners.
e) Teaching with Technology Basics: Explore four of our most popular Teaching with Technology topics. You’ll learn about:
- ICT tools that support student assessment needs at different stages of learning.
- Tips to use the internet more effectively to support learning.
- Tools to enable collaboration.
- Time saving productivity tips for you!
Why not head over to https://www.educatornetwork.com/, join if you haven’t yet joined and take a look around. You’ll be amazed.
