Q&A: School Technology Innovation Centres: Sharing Technology-Based Best Practices in Education
In Feb 2005, Microsoft announced it would be opening five School Technology Innovation Centres (STICs) across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. With today’s news that three STICs are now open, Microsoft senior director of the Education Solutions Group, Mark East, discusses how these centres support the company’s vision of technology as an aid to learning.
PARIS, France — 23 Feb 2006 — With two new STICs opening today in Belfast and Prague, Microsoft Corp is building on the success experienced by its Jordanian STIC during the first 12 months of operation.
Mark East, senior director of Microsoft EMEA’s Education Solutions Group and architect of the STIC initiative, believes the centres play an essential role in enabling the education community to witness and share technology best practices. The EMEA Press Centre (EPC) took the opportunity to ask him a series of questions about Microsoft’s work in this area.
EPC: First of all, can you briefly outline the STIC programme and where it’s at right now?
Mark East: Sure, the School Technology Innovation Centres are a project that we are very proud of in EMEA. Created under our global Partners in Learning programme, the centres are designed to show how technology can create richer, more inspiring and more effective learning environments. Each one serves as a demonstration and learning laboratory for educators and is a place to share innovative teaching practices and provide information, training and equipment to enhance the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in classrooms and curricula.
When we launched the programme, we committed to setting up five STICs in the EMEA region in collaboration with our partners. The first of these was opened in Amman, Jordan, in February 2005. As of today, we have additional STICs in Northern Ireland and the Czech Republic, and before the end of the year we will be opening the final two centres in Belgium and South Africa.
EPC: What is the vision behind the programme?
Mark East: All across the world, governments are looking at how they can make use of technology to benefit teaching and learning. Very often, the most effective way of making progress is by sharing best practices. This sharing can be done either online or physically in dedicated locations. STICs address the latter need.
Online collaboration is ideal for purposes such as sharing curriculum content. However, it’s difficult to evaluate best practices in technology without first seeing them in action. STICs, therefore, act as technology showcases as well as hubs for sharing, developing and training. Each is a fully interactive demonstration facility designed to enable educators to evaluate new technologies and see for themselves how these technologies can support innovative practices.
EPC: How were locations chosen for the five STICs?
Mark East: We are partnering with governments and academic institutions around the world on digital inclusion initiatives, innovation and contributions to the local technology industry. With the creation of the STICs, the most important factor was the participation and support of local government. In Jordan, the STIC is part of the Queen Rania Centre and its establishment was linked to the Jordan Education Initiative. This is a project backed by the World Economic Forum, involving industry leaders in ICT and the Jordanian authorities.
In addition to Microsoft’s local partners, each STIC involves three major private-sector partners: Cisco Systems Inc, HP and Intel Corp. Each of company funds a specific aspect of the centre’s operations and, once it is up and running, other partners are encouraged to join and contribute in various ways. This is what is happening in Jordan where, for example, a local curriculum developer is using the centre to demonstrate new material to schools.
There is a diverse set of needs for everyone involved in education — from policy makers, to ministries of education, to university administrators, to teachers, to the ultimate beneficiaries, the students, and their parents — and it’s only by taking a broad and collaborative partner approach such as this that we will be able to deliver the solutions that meet these needs.
EPC: Judging by the Jordanian experience, how would you rate the success of the programme to date?
Mark East: Thanks to the efforts of all the partners involved, the Jordanian centre has achieved a great deal in only 12 months. More than 500 people have visited and more than 300 have received training there in association with the Innovative Teachers scheme. We also know that many of these people have gone on to set up pilots of technology in their own schools. Furthermore, the STIC has assisted the Jordanian Ministry of Education in developing the country’s ICT curriculum, and it has contributed to the development of specific learning solutions such as a learning gateway for partners and a learning network management tool.
For us, it is clear that STICs can help address the knowledge gap that so often stands in the way of teachers’ desire to implement technology in schools. We hope that the success we have seen in Jordan will be similar for visitors to the new centres in Belfast and Prague. They will see best practices in operation and then apply them to improve teaching and learning in the schools for which they are responsible. Our hope is that other countries will decide to follow these examples and set up similar centres to encourage sharing of best practice.
EPC: How, then, does the STIC programme fit in with Microsoft’s overall strategy for education?
Mark East: At the moment, we are working on lots of different initiatives over and above the STIC programme. For example, I mentioned online collaboration as a channel for sharing best practices. To support this, we are building the Innovative Teachers Network, a peer-based interactive community of practice that will include a digital library of curriculum content. In fact, both the STIC initiative and the Innovative Teachers Network are part of our global grant programme known as Partners in Learning. Launched in 2003, Partners in Learning is how we work with different stakeholders to offer a spectrum of education resources that will empower teachers and students to realise their full potential through technology. Currently, we are partnering with governments in more than 100 countries all over the world.
Some of the developments we are involved with include the Microsoft Learning Suite, an integrated package of applications that provides a rich, dynamic environment for learning. We are also working on the creation of home-school links, which aim to bring parents closer to their children’s schools with the aid of technology. In support of our 21st Century Skills for Employability initiative, we recently launched a new digital literacy curriculum that will be made available free of charge to governments, academic institutions and other non-governmental organisations across Europe. In short, there’s a lot going on and today’s openings of the STICs in Belfast and Prague are positive highlights to these efforts.
