Quite a few years ago, 10 maybe?, my school switched over to solely using Microsoft products. Whatever we were previously using (Google) was not secure enough [sounds like we had a weird account that was not fit for schools, but I digress]. Outlook for email and all the other apps you are familiar with in Microsoft came with it. Thankfully these companies make it easy to switch over your bookmarks and old emails, etc., etc., with extractable files. No big deal.
Then, about 7 years ago our school was awarded Showcase School status within Microsoft. At the time I didn't really know what that meant, but it seemed like a big deal. Not a lot of schools go for this status and it means that we use Microsoft religiously across the board, everyone is bought-in and it's the standard. Once we had the Showcase status, we had to have Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts (MIEE), at least 6% of our staff had to have this certificate, for us to continue to qualify as a Showcase School. As a teacher-on-special-assignment, me and my colleagues with that title were chosen to apply.
In spring of 2020 the process seemed a bit overwhelming at first, as all the examples on the internet included elaborate videos and projects of all types, but I dove in head-first. These were products I was using and routines I was doing on a daily basis so it really wasn't that difficult to collect artifacts and create a Sway showing off my skills!
Questions included: Why do you consider yourself to be a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert? Describe how you incorporate Microsoft technologies in innovative ways in your classroom, include artifacts, and if you become a MIE-Expert, how do you hope it will impact your current role in the next 12 months?
Link to my original Sway application: MIE Expert Application
Out of the 10 or so TOSAs that applied to be MIEEs, only two of us were selected. Some of that had to do with access to the documents we used but I can't speak to why others were not chosen. This seemed like such a great success and I was so excited to join the community of other Microsoft learners, educators, and experts!
