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Educator developmentEducation is a central function of any nation or community, addressing a wide variety of purposes and goals. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), such goals include the teaching and maintenance of core cultural values, the personal development of younger citizens, the effective involvement of society in governance, the facilitating of tolerance and understanding across cultures, and the growth of prosperity and economic development.1 Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are also central to the function of a nation or community and have the potential to drive economic growth and citizen empowerment. Top-level policies that combine the central functions of education with the scalable potential enabled by ICTs are critical to the future global success of any country. However, developing the capacity of the educator to use and teach with ICT is a critical, global education bottleneck. Those countries creating and implementing policies that close the widening gap between current and desired educator quantities and competencies will, over time, build a sustainable advantage in the global economy.

Education policy and economic development Connecting policy to practice requires a usable framework for mapping the power of the workforce to economic development. Economists focus on three aspects of human capacity that lead to economic growth: the workers’ ability to use more productive tools, the workers’ ability to better apply knowledge to add economic value to their labor, and the workers’ ability to extract value from knowledge that they create and distribute themselves. To connect economic policy to education policy, we can look at these three aspects as they apply to education:• Technological/digital literacy refers to the level of ICT competency for students and teachers. • Knowledge deepening refers to the ability of student, teacher, and citizens to use ICT in solving problems and adding value to the economy. • Knowledge creation refers to the capacity of students, teachers, and citizens to produce new knowledge that has value in the global marketplace. When top-level policy goals for education focus effectively on these three areas, education reform can become a dynamic driver of economic and social gains.

Teacher time and motivationEvery teacher wishes to change the lives of individual students for the better by exposing them to the tools for acquiring, using, and applying knowledge to their own lives. For the enterprise of education to scale, however, the teacher must function within a system that requires some level of standardization across content and scheduling, forcing the teacher to balance the needs of the individual against the needs of the entire classroom and the education system. Expert, passionate teachersfindwaystooptimizethisbalancesuchthatthemaximumnumberof students is served in the most effective fashion. Teachers who are new or unskilled can take years to get to this optimal balance; those without access to adequate teaching resources might never get there. In the midst of this variety of expert, new, unskilled, and underserved teachers, administrators and policymakers often mandate trainingandcertificationthat,totheteachers,seemsfarafieldfromtheirearnestdesire to change the lives of their students. The end result is that they view these additionalactivitiesasunnecessarydemandsontheirtime,deflectingthemfromtheir core mission. The key, therefore, to building effective teacher training policy lies with making sure that teachers and local administrators have the correct perception of the policies, the implementation, and the content of the development itself: They must perceive that all of these pieces will work together to help teachers to teach more students, more effectively, with (ultimately) less effort. For the firsttimeinperhapsthousandsofyears,soundpedagogy,incombinationwithICTand digital content, can deliver on this promise, thereby unlocking the economic potential of any region that addresses this critical teaching and learning bottleneck effectively. Appealing to the core mission of the educator is a much more cost- effective approach to scalable development than paying them extra to learn something that they perhaps do not perceive as valuable, and this should be a primary consideration when putting together education policy and strategy. ICT competency framework for teachersGlobal Internet access, the richness of digital materials and simulations, the availabil-ity of open courseware, and the growing value of end-user content and communities all work together to provide the potential for robust, scalable education. With the rightdevelopmentandpractice,teacherscanleveragethesebenefitstohelpstu-dents access, use, create, and communicate knowledge. Many teachers, however, do not have the experience, skills, resources, or infrastructure to fully leverage ICT, and

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the problem is compounded by the scarcity of relevant professional development resources and programs to help bridge these gaps.

Bridgingagaprequiresfindingabaseline,soUNESCO,workingwithCisco,Intel, Microsoft,theInternationalSocietyforTechnologyinEducation(ISTE),andthe Virginia Polytechnic Institute, established the ICT Competency Framework for Teach-ers(CFT)projecttodefineacommonsetofguidelinesforprofessionaldevelopmentproviders.2 The objectives of the project are as follows:• Establishacommonsetofguidelinesandvocabularytoidentify,develop,and evaluate professional development programs related to ICT instruction.• DefineabasicsetofICTskillsneededbyteacherssothattheycanintegrateICT into the learning environment and become more effective knowledge workers.• TrainteacherstousethefullcapabilitiesofInternetaccess,digitalcontent,and end-user content and community creation to drive scalable, positive outcomes in teaching and learning.

Teacher professional development is a crucial component of this effort. To have the desired impact, however, teacher professional development must focus on specificchangesinteacherclassroombehaviors,alignwithotherchangesinthe education system, and be perceived as an ongoing effort. Toward that end, the UNESCOICT-CFTexamineseducatordevelopmentagainstcore components of any education system:

• Policies• Curriculum• Pedagogy• ICT• Schoolorganization• Teachertraining

Thefirstphaseofthecompetencyframeworkwascompletedinlate2007andlaunchedinLondononJanuary8,2008,attheMovingYoungMindsconference(now called the Learning and Technology World Forum), an international seminar hostedbytheU.K.governmentforeducationministersandpolicymakerstodiscussusing ICT to enhance education. Microsoft contributed valuable perspective and background on the skills required for using ICT effectively and has a robust selection of programs and initiatives that provide important development options for teachers today, consistent with the emerging standards.

Scalable, effective plans for professional developmentThe Microsoft Educator Learning Journey is an initiative that helps policymakers drive effective strategy toward a transformative vision and approach to the bottle-neckofeducatordevelopment.Theinitiativeprovidesaflexiblesystemofeducatorsupport by connecting the proven Microsoft capability of delivering professional developmentandcertification,atscaleandinanyregion,withtheCompetencyFramework for Teachers mentioned earlier in this paper.

The Educator Learning Journey initiative will:• Diagnose educator competencies.• Engage educators in customized learning paths (online, instructor led, or local/ global, among others) that appeal to their core mission as educators.• Certify achieved competencies so that every educator has the opportunity to work toward benchmarked, international teaching credentials.

Our programs and products include:

Microsoft Partners in LearningMicrosoftPartnersinLearningisa10-year,nearlyU.S.$500millionglobalinitiativeaimedatimprovingteaching and learning experiences through ICT with the aim of helping students realize their greatest potential. In the last seven years, the program has trained more than7millionteachersandreachedatleast170millionstudents in 112 countries. Microsoft is deeply committed to helping teachers and school leaders use technology appropriately to achieve powerful results in every classroom by working with governments, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)toachievebothlocalandglobalimpact.

Partners in Learning includes a number of programs supporting teachers with content, curriculum, and best practices to enable them to effectively integrate technology into teaching and learning practices. The initiative also focuses on helping schools more effectively use technology in their curriculum and pedagogy to create a culture that fosters innovation and the promotion of 21st-century learning:• Partners in Learning Network: Connects a global online community of educators who share a common interest in enhancing teaching and learning through the use of technology. The network offers: • Classroomlearningresourcesfromanetworked collection worldwide that includes many resources created and classroom-tested by teachers. • Professionallearningresourcesthatengage teachers intellectually and help foster a deeper understanding of how technology works within pedagogy. • Onlineteachercommunitiesthatprovide multiple opportunities for teachers to share and collaborate.

These efforts all take place within the context of the core components of any education system (policies, curriculum, pedagogy, ICT, school organization, and teacher training). The diagnosis phase establishes the current state of educator development along each core component. The engagement phase helps to establish the proper, customized learning path that appeals to the core mission of educators and within the allocated budgets. The certification phasetrainsteachersandverifiesthattheyaremakingprogressfromtheircurrenttotheplannedordesiredstate.SeeFigure 1 for an example map of this process.

Figure 1. The educator learning journey initiative can help diagnose, engage, and certify teachers in core ICT components

By working with Microsoft on an Educator Learning Journey initiative, policymakers atthehighestlevelcancontributewithMicrosofttodefineinitiativesthatdrive international credibility and high return on investment in educator development. The initiative is a broad education partnership effort that brokers the relationships between policy, administrators, and educators to meet the economic needs of the geography, the institutional needs of the education system, and the individual learning needs of the educators themselves.

Education partnerships with MicrosoftTofindouthowtobenefitfromtheprogramsoutlinedhereandhowtocombinethemwithotherprogramsandinitiativesthatcanhelpyoutoachieveyourspecific-goals, talk to your Microsoft representative about the Microsoft Education Alliance Agreement. This agreement brings together programs, across the spectrum of the Microsoft investment, that are relevant to your particular requirements.

1.UNESCOICTCompetencyFrameworkforTeachers(http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22997&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html)

2. Ibid

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• Innovative Education Forums: Celebrate innovation at the school and classroom level and provide professional development opportunities for teachers and school leaders. Teachers compete at the country, regional, and global level to determine the bestpracticesinICTineducation.Schoolleaders connect with other like-minded peers to share ideas, learn from one another, and determine their schools’ path to transformation.• Innovative Schools Program: Provides professional development to school leaders, helping them to envision whole-school transformation and to use technology as a learning tool in the curriculum and pedagogy.Schoolsparticipateinthreelevels:Mentor Schools,whichareglobalexemplarsofinnovation and are chosen to participate based on their ability toguideotherschoolsintheirregion;Pathfinder Schoolsarechosenbasedonaglobalapplication process and take part in a one-year engagement with Partners in Learning to set them on a path to transformation;ParticipantSchoolscanuseanyof the online tools (via the Partners in Learning network) to take a self-guided journey toward transformation.• Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) Research: Measures the impact of ICT engagements on innovative teaching and student learning outcomes atthecountryorregionlevel.ITLResearchisa longitudinal study, initially focusing on four countries—Finland,Indonesia,Russia,andSenegal— with expectations to expand to additional countries and regions in the future.

Microsoft Digital Literacy CurriculumTheMicrosoftDigitalLiteracycurriculumprovides essential computing skills for learners new to computing.ThegoalofMicrosoftDigitalLiteracyistoteach and assess basic computer concepts and skills so that people can use computer technology in everyday life to develop new social and economic opportunities for themselves, their families, and their communities.http://www.microsoft.com/education/teachers/guides/critical_thinking.aspx

Microsoft IT AcademyThe Microsoft IT Academy program is a subscription-based membership program designed for academic institutions. It offers comprehensive IT training, resources, andMicrosoftcertificationopportunitiestoenhanceemployability and encourage lifelong learning.www.microsoft.com/education/MSITAcademy

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