I started my professional Carrier in year 2011 with vision to help the community by learning skills and influencing the lives of others. Fortunately by the start of my carrier I got an opportunity to work with Microsoft through a partner organization where my Job description was to introduce Microsoft technologies with the educators (Teachers and Students).
When I started getting engaged with the global educators through Microsoft Partners in learning network I realized that each educator is doing a wonderful job to integrate technology in their respective country. That day I decided to play my role for the development of my country Pakistan, where people have lack of resources , lack of carrier counselling and lack of motivation to do something great. I started getting engaged with lot of educators to learn Microsoft tools and technologies and same started delivering session for my country educators free of cost (Direct and Indirect way).
By the blessing of God, and through my parents and friends prayer I got lot of training opportunities from Microsoft to enhance and explore my skills futher , so far I have visited, Dubai (UAE),Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, England and Hungary where I collaborated with global educators and learn the innovative ways of teaching of learning .
From March,8th -10th 2016 240 educators from 75 countries gathered
From March 8-10th, 240 educators from 75 countries gathered in Budapest, Hungary early this month for Microsoft’s Annual E 2 Educator Exchange event, a celebration of innovation and passion, a gathering of great minds and amazing ideas. The theme of the event was “Empowered Teachers to help every student on the planet to achieve more and God has qualified me from all across Pakistan to participate and join the Global educators in Hungary to share and learn form each other. I am blessed enough to participate in Microsoft Global Forum subsequently from the last three years.
There is an immense need to realize that trends in education has been changed from teacher centric to student centric. Student want to learn in their own ways, we are teaching a tech-generation who views life through their devices hence it has become even more important for teachers to embed technology in their teaching to keep students hooked to their lessons.
The three days event provided the platform to collaborate, engage ,learn and share our experiences with the Global Community.This year only one Participant form Roots Millennium Schools Pakistan qualified for E2 from the entire Pakistan country. Hack the Classroom was the main focus during the event meaning innovation in the classrooms. 240 Participants were distrusted in to several groups having 5 members in each group to perform a project based hack the classroom group challenge where we had to identify a day to day real world problem which our students are facing in their classes and come up with the solutions by using Microsoft tools and technologies and then Microsoft team evaluated our Projects and winners were announced at the gala dinner on 10th March,2016 who received certificates and awards.
Beside that each participant prepared a learning activity on several subject topic and uploaded it on Microsoft Educator Community (A portal for educators) and displayed and presented their learning activity on 2nd Day of event to share their learning experiences with all educators joined E2. Proper arrangement to present the project were made in “Microsoft Market Place” Room where projects from different countries were presented to Vice President & team of Microsoft World Wide Education.
The conference highlighted innovative approaches such as using game based learning to engage students in the classroom. Several New tools and add-in were introduced with educator i.e OneNote, Minecraft, OfficeMax, Sway, Kudu.
I am looking forward to share my learning experiences with all the educators of Pakistan. Please feel free to contact me.
About the Author
Waqas Shafique
Microsoft Innovative Educators Trainer/Fellow -Pakistan
Contact: Whatsapp:+ 92 345 5927986 Skype: waqas-lsh
waqasshafique.wordpress.com 