Ask yourself this question: If you could design and build a school from the ground up, using research-inspired learning principles and best-in-class technology, what would YOU create?

The majority of educational systems around the world are asking themselves this question because we face a number of common challenges:

• declining student enrolment and retention rates,
• a shortage of qualified teachers,
• inadequate infrastructure,
• resource inequities. 

So, faced with the realisation that the vast majority of the world’s citizens have not realised the tremendous uplift that technology can bring to people’s lives, Microsoft launched an initiative called Unlimited Potential, reconfirming our commitment to helping people and businesses throughout the world realise their full potential. The mission is to enable sustained social and economic opportunity for the next 5 billion years. 

In Ireland, under the banner of Unlimited Potential, we will focus on the following initiatives which we believe can act as powerful catalysts by using technology through our Partners in Learning (PiL) programme. The strategy will focus on: 

• Innovative Schools
• Innovative Teachers
• Innovative Students

Innovative Schools Programme (ISP)
Over the past year, Dunshauglin Community School has participated in a number of meetings and teleconferences to explore how technology can support the learning process in the school. Staff in the school have attended a number of web-based interactive meetings, presented by academics, on such topics as

• leading change;
• 1:1 computing;
• using tablet PC to teach mathematics. 

The project team has attended a number of face to face meetings in Seattle and Finland to discuss these issues with their peers, and to look at ways to be innovative within the confines of an educational system. 

The school has the following technology available in the school - this year we have focused on using Tablet PC in teaching mathematics:

• Modernised learning spaces. Computers and Data Projectors with high speed broadband available in every learning space;
• Personalise the learning experience (Sharepoint);
• Develop Co-operative and Collaborative Learning Methodologies (Learning Gateway) 

Award Received

• BT iReach Award 2007. Citation: The most innovative project across Government and Health.

Innovative Teachers Programme (ITN)
The innovative teachers programme is run in partnership with St. Patrick Teaching College and teachnet.ie (www.teachnet.ie). 

Kate O’ Connell is a recent winner from the small national school of Scoil Mhuire, Kilvemnon (39 pupils), at the foot of Sliabh Na mBan in the parish of Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary. 

Kate won the Microsoft European Innovative Teachers Forum Award for the project Flying High - Exploring Aviation (www.kilvemnon.net).

Over the past four years, teachers have won awards for the content they created at each of the Microsoft Forums. Over 1,500 resources are available online. This is really important as one of the biggest challenges facing teachers in Ireland is the lack of good digital content to use in the classroom.

Awards Received

• European Innovative Teacher of the Year 2005 (Tallin)
• European Innovative Teacher of the Year 2006 (Paris)
• World Wide Innovative Teacher of the Year 2007 (Helsinki)
• European Innovative Teacher of the Year 2008 (Crotia)

Innovative Students: The Microsoft IT Academy Programme
Irish students John Ortiz from St Andrew’s College Dublin, and Kate Moran from St Paul’s Secondary School Greenhills Dublin, were honoured at this year’s Be The World Champ (www.betheworldchamp.com) Prize Ceremony at Microsoft on April 7th, after winning the chance to compete in the Microsoft Office Worldwide Competition in Hawaii this July.

All schools who participated are part of the Microsoft IT Academy programme, which provides student and teachers with the opportunity to become certified in Microsoft Technology (www.prodigy.ie).

Third Level Engagement
Microsoft engagement with Third Level is extensive and focused around the Imagine Cup (see article). However, we do provide scholarship opportunities to students interested in pursuing a career in technology.

As an example, three Irish PhD students will each receive three-year scholarships under the Microsoft Research European PhD Scholarship Programme under the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology’s (IRCSET) Postgraduate Scholarship Research Scheme, Embark.

A fourth PhD scholarship is being funded by Microsoft Ireland under its Microsoft Academic Scholarship Programme. The PhDs' areas of expertise cover subjects such as:

• Automatic Evaluation Method for Machine Translation (MT);
• designing and testing new predictive algorithms for protein structural features;
• modelling an ad-hoc network that will allow nodes to share local information;
• exploring a new methodology to improve probabilistic parser output based on combining machine learning-based probabilistic parsing and existing extensive lexical resources.

Summary
The Microsoft education team believes that education of teachers in the use of ICT in the classroom is the key requirement to ensure extensive use of the new technologies in teaching and learning. Teachers and students should aim to increase IT literacy, but should also focus on how ICT can be used to improve learning, to create more effective teaching resources, and the opportunity it offers teachers to exploit new learning models. 

By focusing on learning with technology, investing heavily in professional development, breaking down barriers between sectors, learning from the mistakes of others, and leveraging off the flexibility of post-PC technology, Ireland has the opportunity to ‘leapfrog’ other nations and become an exemplar for the constructive, cost effective use of ICT to support and enhance learning.

For more information please visit www.microsoft.com/education

Dr Kevin Marshall is the Academic Programme Manager at Microsoft Ireland