• Communication: Communicating effectively and appropriately is vital to sharing ideas and collaborating with others. The ability to share information with enthusiasm and conviction is key to any modern-day job. Good communication skills demonstrate technical expertise and assist in creating persuasive material that delivers a message tailored to the intended audience.
• Collaboration: Collaboration is about working in teams and learning from and contributing to the learning of others. It’s also about developing empathy working with diverse groups of individuals. The modern workplace requires more and more collaboration, and everyone in this environment must be willing and empowered to take ownership of problems and find solutions.
• Critical thinking: To find workable solutions, critical thinking is necessary to make educated and objective judgments about problems and how to solve them. Critical thinking is required for questions that do not have simple answers; in asking such questions educators can promote critical thinking in learners.
• Creativity: Creativity is our ability to pursue new ideas and solutions, think outside the box and develop innovative ways of doing things. Creativity is an essential skill for the modern workplace and is borne out of collaborative environments, where different ways of thinking are encouraged as means to solve problems in different ways.
• Computational learning: Lastly, computational and technical learning is important in the modern workplace. It speaks to a deeper understanding of how to use technology to find solutions and how to effectively incorporate new technical knowledge into solving a problem. Computational learning allows for the skilful application of this technical knowledge towards innovation and performance improvement.

For many schools, the idea of a completely digital classroom is still just a vision. However, FutureSource estimates half of all K-12 students will have access to a 1:1 device by the next academic year. With this 1:1 computing trend growing in schools, more educators are looking at ways to transform their classrooms into paperless spaces of learning.

Here are some easy ways teachers can create digital classrooms for their students:

1. Choose the right 1:1 digital device
Digital devices encourage interaction in the classroom, and enable collaboration and mobility. They also improve learning environments, promote sustainability and decrease expenses in the long run.

Since its launch in May last year, Microsoft’s Surface 3 tablet has been a success with teachers and students across the world. Increasing numbers of schools have adopted the Surface 3 as their 1:1 computing student device citing its portability, the tablet and laptop form factor, and the Surface pen’s ability to move to a paperless classroom with digital ink, as reasons why this device is a wonderful tool for the classroom.

The K-12 focused, United Arab Emirates-based Mohammad Bin Rashid Smart Learning Programme was among the first educational institutions to see the benefits the device can offer the classroom and they have now deployed more than 10,000 Surface devices to empower more students.

2. Go paperless with digital inking
A recent study by the IDC showed that writing by hand is critical to the learning process for many students. The study also investigated how handwriting is used by educators as a teaching tool, with 90% of teachers agreeing that it allows them to increase the quality of their curriculum, and 2 out of 3 teachers saying it saves time when preparing materials and grading homework.

Devices with digital inking capabilities can lead to better learning outcomes. They feel just like an actual pen so it’s easy for students to draw, take notes, or write music. With students being able to write and draw directly on their screens, convert their handwriting to text, and even highlight in PDFs and Kindle eBooks, digital inking changes the way students learn and retain information, and it opens up a world of creativity and productivity.

3. Choose the right apps & teaching tools
For teachers and educators, going digital may seem like a daunting task at first, but choosing the right apps and teaching tools will help ease the transition.

The Surface 3 comes with Windows 10, so students and teachers can get up and running quickly with all their favourite touch apps and desktop software, including OneNote. This program allows you to organize notes, files, articles and pictures in a single digital notebook, as well as Drawboard PD, a top PDF app that replaces pen and paper.

With the recently announced new Learning Tools for OneNote, which improves reading and writing experiences for all students—including students with learning differences like dyslexia, classrooms will have even more access to solutions that benefit learning.

4. Get trained on how to use technology in the classroom 
Teachers committed to helping empower their students to do and achieve more, need only make one or two small adjustments to find that digital learning is within their grasp. With the right resources, the vision of a digital classroom is a reality.

See our Microsoft Partners in Learning website to connect and collaborate around the world and gain easy access to lessons created by educators for educators.

Once teachers have the skills they need to effectively teach subjects in STEM they can stimulate and enhance learning skills for their students.

The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC), recognising the importance of improving teacher learning outcomes, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft at the BETT Middle East Leadership Forum and Expo.
Quite an appropriate setting, given that the forum aims to promote the discovery of technology and knowledge to enhance lifelong learning.

Training teachers to transform the way they teach
At the core of this partnership is our goal to deploy Office 365 across all ADEC schools. We will also be training over 360 teachers from across all public schools in Abu Dhabi, as part of ADEC’s Professional Development Program. Our aim is for them to transfer their knowledge to their colleagues, and use this knowledge to transform the way they teach.

Providing the tools to prepare learners for future challenges
This partnership really makes sense for us, because we share similar values to ADEC. We share a vision to produce world class learners who are prepared to meet future global challenges. ADEC is committed to improving leadership, teaching methods and learning skills to achieve this and our Office 365 offering lends itself to exactly this.

We are continuously providing teachers and students with new technologies that support the integration and development of ICT skills at school level.

The features of Office 365 allow teachers and students to access and share educational materials anywhere, anytime. 1 terabyte of OneDrive space allows them to collaborate, share and co-author documents; and by integrating the cloud tool into the curriculum, there’s real potential to develop new, innovative teaching methods that simultaneously prepare students for the workplace.

Abu Dhabi is considered a hub of educational excellence, so we are anticipating great results coming out of our partnership with ADEC, and hopefully these learnings will be applied elsewhere in the future.

The program’s mission is to provide departments of education worldwide with opportunities to collaborate, learn and support each other in developing transformative world-class education systems.

We are kicking off by welcoming leaders from the United Arab Emirates, Finland and Argentina, and partners from the Education World Forum (EWF), and will hold the inaugural meeting in Helsinki at the end of May this year.

Education leaders from the UAE are excited to be presented with the opportunity to develop criteria for successful education transformation in the region, create a unique think tank for education ideas and learn from the successes and innovations of their peers.

Click through to this blog for more information.

Performing well at school can sometimes be a bit of challenge, but what about for those with learning disabilities like dyslexia?

To assist those with learning disabilities, Microsoft is introducing Learning Tools for OneNote – a toolbar designed specifically to improve reading and writing experiences for all students, including for those who experience learning challenges.

In addition to this nifty add-on (click here for a preview) that will include special text formatting, immersive reading and other features that make classroom activities easier, One Note is the most productive education tool around.

Here are some of our favourite features:

Record a class
Students or educators who want to record a lesson for an absent student, or students who want to record a class to listen to again can do so easily with OneNote. And, if you don’t want to go back and listen to the whole lesson, the notes typed in OneNote while recording will be synced to the exact point in the audio recording. Teachers can also record verbal instructions or feedback for their students so that they no longer need to repeat themselves.

Convert images to text
It’s become the norm to see students pulling out their phones to take a photo of an important slide or notes their teacher has written on the board. With OneNote’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR), photos you take on a Windows Phone are scanned, with any text being captured and converted to editable text in OneNote.

Learn with doodles and sketches
For visual learners, drawings and pictures can be useful learning tools – and OneNote makes it easy to doodle and sketch to your heart’s content. The Draw tab gives you all the drawing tools you need whether you’re creating a random doodle, a graph or an ecological cycle. You can choose to draw directly on your existing notes or pin a Quick Note to them.

Capture your web research easily
When you’re researching online, you can send a whole page or parts of a page directly to OneNote for easy reference. It’s as simple as clicking Ctrl+P and selecting Sent to OneNote. You’ll find all your research saved in Quick Notes, ready for you to put together your lesson or project.

Solve equations easily
Take the stress out of Maths with OneNote. Get help performing tricky calculations by typing in your mathematical expression anywhere on a OneNote page and pressing Enter to see the result. There is also an equation editor to help you construct and enter your Maths equations, or you can even write the equation by hand and see it transformed into text.

Create your own digital textbook
Audio and video create a more engaging learning experience, and OneNote makes it possible for educators to create custom digital textbooks incorporating these elements along with Office documents, pictures and web clips. You can even make it a collaborative project by asking students for their input.

Collaborate and interact virtually
Collaboration is a buzzword of 21st century learning, and the OneNote Class Notebook Creator helps makes this a reality. From offering a collaboration space for classroom projects, to creating a Classroom Library for distributing handouts and assignments and a Student Space for each student, which allows for teacher-student interaction, the virtual environment is changing the nature of the classroom. OneNote Notebook Creator is an online SharePoint apps that is available to educators for free with Office 365.

Never lose work again
You’ll never need to use “The dog ate my homework” as an excuse again. OneNote saves everything for 60 days after you edit or delete it. This means that you can recover anything from the trash and, with version management, you can even go back to an earlier version of a note. This is also a great tool to encourage accountability, as educators can use the Find by Author option to see who did what in a collaborative class assignment.

Making use of technology in the classroom can help to empower teachers and students. If you’re just starting out with OneNote as a teacher or student, browse through the tips on OneNote for Teachers and stay updated with the Microsoft OneNote education blog for more tips.

Apps have become an integral part of our lives. We use them across our devices, for work and play – from taking notes and checking flights, to reading books and playing games. So it’s no surprise that apps also play a role in teaching and learning. Not only does interaction with these apps introduce students to the all-important skills they need to work with technology in the 21st century, many are also useful tools to help students come to grips with subject matter and stay organised.

There are thousands of education apps available on the Windows Store, but to make your choice a bit easier, we’ve put together our top five.

1. Didlr
Didler is a free app suitable for students in grades 6 to 8. It allows users to draw on your PC, tablet, smartphone and the web, and then share your creations with your friends via social networks, email, SMS or instant messaging. This is a great introduction to the world of design, as well as a creative outlet when students need an escape from their academic work.

2. GeoGebra
Created by the Internationales Geogebra Institute, GeoGebra is free dynamic software, aimed at grades 6 to 12, that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one place. It’s also a repository of interactive learning, teaching and evaluation resources that can be shared and used by logging on to tube.geogebra.org.

3. CK-12
Also aimed at grades 6 to 12, CK-12 includes videos, images, quizzes, exercises and learning aides to make maths and science fun. The maths library covers topics such as algebra, arithmetic, statistics and geometry, while the science library includes topics on biology, chemistry and physics. It’s a useful tool for teaching and learning in your own style, at your own pace.

4. Guru Cool Play School
Created by KidZone Studios, Guru Cool Play School is the highest rated app for preschoolers. The games on the app have been developed by professional specialising in childhood development and adopt a multisensory approach to learning. An assortment of music, sounds, pictures and touch experiences keep preschoolers engaged while teaching them about shapes, letters, phonetics, numbers and counting in a positive environment.

5. MyHomework
MyHomework is a planner app created by instin to help students stay organised. It’s an easy way for students to keep track of their classes, homework, tests and projects, so that they don’t forget to submit an assignment or study for an exam.

Whether you’re a parent or a teacher, and whether the students in your life are preschoolers or about to write their final exams, there’s an app available to make the learning process easier and more fun. For more great examples, visit aka.ms/Apps3Edu.

Last year we celebrated learning without borders with a Global Education Skype-a-thon which is a 2-day event aimed at connecting classrooms around the world to showcase how technology can be used to enhance the learning experience.

In a world that is increasingly becoming economically, politically and culturally fractured, the ability to unite students across the globe to celebrate and embrace learning has never been more important.
Today, teachers not only have a duty to teach skills and impart knowledge to their students but they must also play a key role in developing students into global citizens to enable them to succeed and make a positive impact in an increasingly complex society.

Because Microsoft believes that a powerful way to learn is from each other, a total of four schools from Africa and the Middle East, including Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Turkey as well as many others around the world were selected to participate in this one-of-a-kind event, where students and educators were empowered to do just that.

During their 3 million virtual mile journey across the world, students and educators were able to connect with each other in fun and creative ways to learn about different cultures and gain invaluable insights into countries all over the world.
Have a look at the pictures below to see how the Skype-a-thon gave these schools in the Middle East and Africa the opportunity to discover their place in the global community.

South Africa – Brescia House School 

Brescia House School students in South Africa participating in the Skype-a-thon.  

Brescia House School students singing the South African National Anthem: “Nkosi sikelele iAfrika”

Brescia House School students sharing South African national heritage symbols.

Egypt - Port Said International School

Students from Port Said international School in Egypt sharing their traditional clothes and heritage symbols while participating in the Skype-a-thon.  

Students from Port Said International School in Egypt learning about the importance of speaking English to communicate with the rest of the world in order to become true global citizens.

Kenya - The Aga Khan Academy Mombasa 

Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, Kipkemoi Serem, preparing grade 12 learners for the Skype-a-thon at one of the school’s computer labs.

Grade 12 learners at Aga Khan Academy keenly listening to a talk about the role of Windows 10 in smart homes.

Turkey - Vision College 

Grade 9 and 10 students from Vision College in Turkey displaying how many virtual miles they travelled during the Skype-a-thon. 

Students from Vision College in Turkey celebrating learning without borders in the global Skype-a-thon. 

The Skype-a-thon is a perfect demonstration of how today's students are gaining the perspectives, insights and empathy needed to create a better world while also building critical skills for the modern, global workplace. It shows just how powerful technology can be in breaking down walls and promoting learning across borders. To read more about the Skype -a-thon click here. 

The Summer School is a project we have run for 10 years, but we restructured it two years ago. Our new format sees the close collaboration with companies like Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Eczacibasi, Tofas, Markafoni and Teknosa, as well as three Turkish banks, all of which play important roles in helping to upskill the youth.

This year, we were thrilled to have 95 students from 33 different universities, as well as five students from five different high schools attend our Summer School. Along with the skills they learned, it was valuable for them to mix with one another and learn from each other. And, in addition to the 100 students in attendance, a further 56 000 watched live broadcasts from the school.

During the three-week period, they were exposed to 46 speakers, including CEOs, CIOs and personal development trainers. They also accumulated a total of 166 hours of training across architecture, software development, working in the cloud and the Internet of Things.

At the end of the Summer School, each attending student developed their own app, with 10 being selected to present their elevator pitches to a jury. The top three students, who we expect to see great things from in the future, were:

• Mehmet Reha Bayar for his Universal App, Gevrek – a 2D game in which the main character must save the princess to complete the mission. It includes local culture such as the gevrek (a bagel) and music
• Onuk Celik for his Windows Phone project, Benzinci – a location-based gas station application that allows users to compare gas prices and offers safe driving features like voice control while driving
• Egemen Güray for his Windows Phone project, Culinars – a recipe suggestion application based on what users have in their fridge

These students and their peers can continue to develop their technological skills by logging on to our free online program: www.acikakademi.com to continue their app development training.

With 100 000 lines of code created during the Summer School and more than 2000 hours usage accumulated on Azure, we’re excited to watch as these students grow. Learning how to use technology effectively is an essential skill for our youth, giving them the power to create opportunities for themselves and their communities.

For more information about the Microsoft Turkey Open Academy Summer School, click here, and don’t forget to visit www.acikakademi.com for our free online program.

At Microsoft we believe that people can do remarkable things when technology is in reach. This is never more so than at school, where technology can empower educators to create learning environments that nurtures students’ passions enabling them to achieve beyond their greatest imaginations. 

With this in mind, we are committed to improving education around the world and particularly in the Middle East using our technology solutions. That’s why we are working closely with the Ministry of Education in Oman to launch Windows 10 in all public schools around the Sultanate. 

At the launch event last year, His Excellency Dr Hamoud Bin Khalfan Bin Mohammed Al Harthy, Undersecretary for Education and Curricula, Ministry of Education, commented how closely Oman’s education mission aligns to our own. 

To read more about how Microsoft is transforming the education sector with technology, click here.