Official Microsoft Innovative Educator!

In my educational technology class, my professor Dr. Fecich introduced us to the Microsoft Innovative Educator certifications and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to complete this certification! The Microsoft Educator Center offers teachers and future teachers the opportunity to complete courses, earn badges, and engage in digital professional development! For this certification, I completed two courses: one that taught me how to use Flipgrid for class discussions, and the other, for service learning projects!

Building Literacy: Deep Discussions in Flipgrid Course

In this course, I was able to learn how to navigate Flipgrid from an educators perspective and learn how to set up chats, assign assignments for students, and get an overall feel for how Flipgrid works. In particular, I learned how to set up seminar-like discussions for students. By using digital socratic seminars, I can ensure more student participation (as those who don't speak up as much may simply be shy) and also develop student digital literacy skills. I think I would definitely use this feature in my future classroom!

Service Learning in Action with WE Schools Course

The second course that I completed taught me about how to effectively incorporate service learning projects into the curriculum. Service learning projects are a great way to enrich the learning process for the students as they get to see tangible results that directly improve their community or school environment. Often times though, educators can get overwhelmed with having to design service learning projects for students, yet Microsoft WE Schools offers a solution to this problem. With their pre-written service learning projects, teachers and students can jump right into service learning projects within their community with less hassle and stress.

Steps for a successful service- learning project are as follows:

1. Investigate and learn

2. Make an action plan

3. Take action

4. Report and celebrate

5. Reflection

WE offers schools all different types of service learning projects ranging from 'We go green' to 'We create change.' In order for students to find a problem that is directly apparent within their community though, they can use community mapping techniques and SMART goals to ensure that whatever issue they are trying to solve will be carefully planned and completed.

Overall, I learned to much from this experience, I hope to one day incorporate Flipgrid and WE Service Learning projects into my future classroom. Thank you Microsoft Education!

#MicrosoftEducation #CertifiedInnovativeEducator