Here is the first in a series of blogs which will share and highlight the great stories of our amazing MIEEs who attended the E2 Global Education Exchange in Singapore! We asked them to share their experiences of becoming a MIEE as well as some of their personal highlights from the Road to E2! First up in the series is Dan Bunker, Education Consultant at United Learning Group who attended as one of our MIEExperts.
Tell us about yourself and your MIEE journey so far
I work across the primary schools in a multi-academy trust and my role as an educational technologist, is to support them with consultancy, training and guidance with regard to all things related to educational technology. As a group, we have adopted Office 365 across all our schools with each school managing their own separate tenancies. Having attended a few Microsoft Classroom events at showcase schools I was introduced to the Microsoft Educator Community. Being able to access courses in your own time and gain badges based on their successful completion really appealed to me and became quite addictive! I’m still trying to catch up with some of the other UK MIEEs in terms of number of badges and points etc. and that slight competitive element is definitely a motivator for me. Talking to other teachers and MIEEs, I know I’m not alone on this one!
Through the MEC, I found out about the MIE Expert programme and decided to apply as I had built up my expertise across a range of Office 365, computing and 21st Century Learning Design areas by undertaking the courses and relating this to my own role out in the field. I am so pleased to have been accepted as MIE Expert as it has opened up a whole new world of collaboration for me – especially via the E2 experience.
What were you looking to get out of the E2 experience?
I didn’t have too many preconceptions of the event. I was hoping to get some insights into the Microsoft product road maps and was looking forward to hearing the inspiring stories from the keynote speakers. I was certainly looking forward to meeting the MIEEs from around the globe and working with the UK team - #E2TeamUK. Of course, I was also really excited to be able to visit Singapore. I had been before about 12 years ago and I never thought I get the chance to go again.
Three highlights of your E2 experience were:
Number one has to be working with a great team of UK MIEEs. A number of us supported and cajoled each other into taking the Microsoft Certified Educator (MCE) exam, achieving a 100% success rate across the team. I think importantly, we really gelled as a team and are already collaborating and connecting with each other. We even have our own special Teams area that utilises the guest access functionality, so we can share insights, resources and just keep the conversation growing.
Secondly, the opportunity to work with MIEEs from different countries on the Educator Challenge activity gave a real global perspective to the event. We had to hack a lesson plan, add in an element of computational thinking to the lesson and create a video to explain and extoll the virtues of the activity and show a range of resources / apps we would use in the lesson. Working with people across different languages certainly brought its challenges, but we really proud of our lesson and supporting video and couldn’t believe we didn’t the win the major prize! Fortunately, fellow UK MIEE, Susan Sey, kept the honour of #E2TeamUK high by leading the winning team in the algorithms category.
The educator challenge involved a global dimension
Thirdly, Singapore itself had a real starring role in the trip. The hospitality shown by Microsoft, the venue and the Singaporeans in general was amazing and we had such a memorable time exploring Marina Bay by night and exploring the walks along the Singapore river. Some of us even found time to visit the altitude roof top bar to experience the view and enjoy the odd Singapore sling.
Team UK Exploring Marina Bay
How will this experience impact on your role back in your institution?
I think, and hope, it will broaden my horizons and bring in expertise from outside our group, either directly on occasions or certainly by having an expert group to call upon for additional advice, ideas and resources. The trip has certainly opened my eyes to the opportunities out there for global collaborations. Emma Nääs’ keynote about her use of Skype certainly got us all thinking. I’ve already followed up with Microsoft and other members of the team to put into place support visits for one our schools looking for reference sites for their use of Office 365 cloud storage. I’m sure there will be lots more to follow.
I’ve tried to capture some event highlights in the Sway blog below:
Follow @DCJBunker on Twitter to keep up to date with the great things he is doing using technology.