Educators from across Europe recognized at Microsoft Education Exchange Awards 2019

Educators from across Europe recognized at Microsoft Education Exchange Awards 2019

Educators from Finland, France, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland and the UK celebrated amongst nearly 400 educators and school leaders from around the world for being changemakers in education.

Microsoft hosted its fifth annual Education Exchange (E2) conference in Paris this week with educators and school leaders from around the world exchanging ideas about how to develop innovative experiences in classrooms, as well as explore emerging trends in education that support inclusive classrooms, promote collaboration, and advance modern teaching and learning techniques.

Over the course of three days, Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts were recognized and celebrated for their achievements combining content, pedagogy and technology in exemplary ways to prepare students for success in the digital age.

In Europe, 10 Microsoft Innovative Education Experts (MIEE) won awards including Martin Debenjak from Austria, Marcel Jent from Switzerland and Elaine Topham from the UK who were part of the E2 Educator Challenge Overall Winning team. 

Their lesson was judged as the stand-out learning journey in this year’s Educator Challenge. Focusing on pre-service trainee teachers, it fully encompassed this year’s themes of creativity, inclusion, student voice and collaboration.  The lesson was innovative in showing how trainee teachers could develop their understanding of inclusion by integrating the virtual world of Minecraft into the real world and amplifying student voices through feedback in Flipgrid.

European winners included:

  • Overall Winning Team:
    • Martin Debenjak, MIEE from Austria
    • Marcel Jent, MIEE from Switzerland
    • Elaine Topham, MIEE from the UK 
  • Student Voice 1stPlace Team:
    • Georg Gusewski, MIE Fellow from Switzerland
    • Tatiana Chernobai, MIEE from Russia
    • Marika Suutarinen, MIEE from Finland 
  • Creativity 1stPlace Team:
    • Jacek Zabłocki, MIEE from Poland 
  • Collaboration 1stPlace Team:
    • Anna Zubkovskaya, MIE Fellow from Russia
    • Amandine Celerier, MIEE from France
    • Owen Davies, MIEE from the UK 
  • Inclusion 1stPlace Team:
    • Katarína Hvizdová, MIEE from Slovakia
    • Rémi Lamarque, MIEE from France
    • Dawn Jones, MIEE from the UK

“Every educator is a changemaker, making an imprint on the lives of the students who will be the leaders, innovators and creators of the next generation,” said Anthony Salcito, Vice President of Microsoft Education. “But some like our award winners truly go above and beyond, pushing into unknown territory to bring new technology and techniques into their classroom to inspire and engage their students and prepare them with the skills they’ll need to thrive in the jobs of the future. It is a joy to host this event each year to celebrate educators who are changing education and changing lives.”

For more information on Microsoft in Education visit, https://education.microsoft.com.