Classroom Connections
Every year, Microsoft host a two day virtual event, the Microsoft Global Learning Connection (previously known as Skype-a-thon). This is a really exciting opportunity for students to meet people virtually from around the globe. It gives students the opportunity to have rich learning experiences from their own classroom by connecting them with guest speakers and other classrooms through Skype or Teams video calls.
This year, the timing coincided perfectly with our ambition to test different ways to amplify our education work using various channels. A big focus of this work is on digital channels, so we were thrilled to take part. We decided that we’d deliver two different types of session — one focusing on learning how to help with a couple of common first aid emergencies (aimed at 7–11 year olds) and one that challenged assumptions about refugees and asylum seekers (aimed at 11–14 year olds).
Once we’d got the date locked in our diaries, we prioritised the work of our newly formed cross-functional scrum team, to get ourselves prepped and ready. The team is made up of people from our digital, communications and advocacy, education operations and education product development teams. This meant we had the right mix of skills in the room to develop the sessions we wanted to deliver, and ensure we had everything in place so that they could go ahead. It’s a relatively new way of working for us, so the opportunity to work in 2 week sprints, sharing back what we’d learnt at the end of every sprint, and refining our plans as we learnt more was great.
This is one thread of some exciting work with Microsoft, being led by Craig Parker, and this partnership helped us to sign up multiple schools over the two days. We ended up connecting with almost 250 students, which was about perfect for our proof of concept. Big thanks go to Craig, Kelly and the rest of the Skype in the Classroom team for all your support.
The sessions themselves were very well received. Teachers fed back that the sessions were really engaging and interactive, and our brilliant educators that stepped up to try out a new way (for us) of delivering education also gave encouraging feedback. You can see a selection of the different connections all across the world in action in the recap video from Microsoft below, and if you skip ahead to around 1:26, you’ll be able to spot one of our educators!
As mentioned, this is part of a wider piece of work where we’re testing new ways of delivering education digitally. We already do some fantastic work in this space but there’s always more we can do, so it’s brilliant to have the space to explore different methods and capabilities. The next proof of concept we’re exploring is Minecraft — so watch this space!
