I decided to piece together some information about South Africa’s participation in Microsoft’s Global Forum in Barcelona last week from postings in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – and this post is the result!

Who attended from South Africa and Lesotho? 

This amazing event took place in Barcelona, Spain last week. 

• South Africa had two teacher representatives who had submitted exceptional projects, namely Phuti Ragogeola and Cheryl Douglas. 
• Lesotho was represented by Mabusane Tlali. 
• Three schools from South Africa were also represented in the Microsoft Innovative Schools section. Both Eunice from Bloemfontein and St Cyprians from Cape Town are known as World Tour Schools (they were selected in previous years) and Brescia House from Johannesburg is the new 2014 selection – selected as a Microsoft Mentor School from South Africa.

More information about how to get your school selected for this great opportunity can be found on the Partners in Learning Network http://www.pil-network.com/ under the School’s category in the menu bar.

Cheryl Douglas	Phuti Ragaola

Lesotho educator Mabusane Tlali

The South African group

Opening keynote from Anthony Salcito at the Forum

Anthony Salcito is the Vice President of
Education for Microsoft Corporation. He keeps a blog called Daily Edventures which he subtitles as his ‘365 day look at Global heroes in
Education’.

Highlights from Day 1

These are conveyed by Anthony Salcito.

South Africa features in the list of winners!

Here is the good news. In the category entitled ‘Teacher as Change Agent’ Cheryl Douglas from South Africa was announced as third runner up. Congratulations indeed Cheryl.

1) The Individual project winners

 

Cheryl selected as third runner-up in the Teacher as Change Agent category

2) The Global Forum Learn-a-thon

An in-house competition known as the ‘Learn-a-thon’ took place at the Barcelona event. and these winners were announced. I see Cheryl’s name there as well in the Runners-Up section. You did us proud, Cheryl! Two certificates at such a big world-wide event.

Congratulations to Cheryl Douglas from South Africa

This third photo featuring Cheryl with her two certificates comes via Phtui Ragaola’s Facebook page. (Thanks again Phuti)

Another competition announced

Microsoft also launched a new pitch competition to seek out and fund the most innovative ideas from school leaders worldwide. This is worth exploring. Here is the video that explains this. 

We encourage you to join the Microsoft Partners in Learning Network http://www.pil-network.com/  (a free membership) and keep in touch with what  Microsoft is doing in education. 

We look forward to a press release about the event when everyone returns to South Africa.