Monday, August 3, 2020

Selected as a Microsoft Innovative Educator expert for 2020-2021

I was really excited to receive this badge today as a result of applying to become a Microsoft innovative educator Expert for the 2020-2021 cohort. I have been participating in this program since 2008, and I deem it a great honour to have been selected. Thank you Microsoft!

Learners of this badge are educators who have been selected as Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Experts for 2020-2021. They are self-driven educators who are passionate about teaching and learning. They inspire students with creative thinking, and work in a collaborative spirit to share their learning with the world. Resourceful and entrepreneurial, they relish the role of change agent, and work to achieve excellence in education using Microsoft technologies paired with innovative teaching.

 

Earners of this badge are educators who have been selected as Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Experts for 2020-2021. They are self-driven educators who are passionate about teaching and learning. They inspire students with creative thinking, and work in a collaborative spirit to share their learning with the world. Resourceful and entrepreneurial, they relish the role of change agent, and work to achieve excellence in education using Microsoft technologies paired with innovative teaching.

Microsoft honours teachers

Microsoft really honours and celebrates teachers. The organisation has done a lot for me.

  • In 2008 I was chosen as one of 10 South African finalists in the Microsoft competition which was then called 'Partners in Learning'. My project-based project was called 'Leaders are readers'.
  • In 2009 I was chosen as one of ten finalists again, and this time I became a winner in the collaboration section with a project called 'Bonding through Blogging'. This win took me to the Paun African finals in Mauritius where I achieved second place, and to the World Finals in Brazil. All that happened in 2009.
  • In 2010 I was once again one of ten finalusts in the Microsoft Innovative Teacher competition as it was now called with a roect where I got every class in the school partnered with an overseas class (in a number of countries0 in a project-based learning project.
  • In 2011 I was selected along with 50 other teachers world-wide to attend a week long inaugural 'Microsoft Learning Academy' in Seattle.

All these events were amazing confidence-builders for me. Thereafter Microsoft intorduced the MIEExpert concept where you had to fulfill certain obligations to become a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert. For example, for this badge you had to fulfill the following obligations.

Friday, March 13, 2020

A digital story - The happy girl (by one of my Grade 6 students)

This post was written by one of my Grade 6 students, Onodon.

"This story is part of Challenge #2 in the Blogging Challenge: 'Become a STORY WHIZZ KID'. We used stories from the African Storybook website (https://www.africanstorybook.org/) that are free to reuse and change completely, and we recreated them. We kept the art. We did these in Google Slides. Here is mine...by Onodon"


Thursday, January 30, 2020

Use Remote for Slides - a useful Chrome extension

Have you ever noticed the 'Present with Remote' button when you work in Google Slides? Well, I discovered today that the Remote for Slides Chrome extension works with that on your phone when you present using Googl Slides.  I have just installed the extension from the Chrome Web store.



What is Remote for Slides?

" Remote for Slides is a Chrome Extension and a Progressive Web App that allows you to control Google Slides and Ludus on any device, remotely, without the need for any extra hardware."

How do I use Remote for Slides with Google Slides?

Open a presentation in Google Slides.
On the top right, click the " Present with Remote" button.
Wait until the presentation fully loaded.
Click on the "Show ID & Start Remote" button to view the 6-digits code..
Open s.limhenry.xyz on another device and enter the code on the page.
You are ready to go!

One downside of using Remote for Slides

You can only see controls like next slide and Previous slide. You can't open external links.  Nevertheless, this is a really handy Chrome exptension