Office 365 and Cloud Teaching Seminar 2019

Teachers of the Academic Department attended a three-day seminar on using Microsoft 365 and Cloud teaching from Wednesday 18 until Friday 20 September 2019.
Leading this seminar was Microsoft Certified Trainer, Mr. Ziad Miski of Information Technology Leading Services (ITLS), accompanied by Ms. Maha Ghandour.
Ziad and Maha stayed in the Schneller Guesthouse for the duration of the training.
JLSS was working on shifting to Office 365 teaching for the last three years. This is the second seminar on Office 365 and Cloud Teaching we hold for our teachers. The last was held from Tuesday 4 until Thursday 6 September 2018, and a refresher session was held on Saturday 5 January 2019.
Our plan last year was to start with Grade 7. Teachers were supposed to teach this class using this technologically advanced system.
Although we paid a lot of money on a supposedly fast Internet connection, teachers and students were frustrated with its slow speed. The connection was not fast enough for the 20 PCs of Stammeier Library to run simultaneously. It was not a working solution.
We had to think creatively to overcome this obstacle which was blocking all our efforts to modernize teaching methods. The answer was a 4G connection.
4G is very expensive. We couldn't have Stammeier Library connected all the time to a 4G connection. The idea was to use the DSL connection for connecting Stammeier Library all the time for browsing and system updates, but when we have classes, we would shift to 4G.
Our initial tests were promising, but the true test was when we had all teachers working together along with their trainers during the three-day seminar.
To our delight, the idea worked perfectly. Finally, we have the obstacle of the slow Internet connection removed.
The seminar went very well. Ziad and Maha worked with our teachers through OneNote, OneNote Class Notebook, Sway, and Forms, emphasizing the centrality of Teams for Office 365 and Cloud teaching.
The teachers, having worked with Office 365 for one year, had many specific questions for Ziad and Maha. They worked together for three days to improve their skills and get to know this fully integrated teaching system better.
We thank Ziad and Maha for their patient and productive work with our teachers.
We congratulate our teachers for completing the seminar successfully.
All lesson-plans this year will be prepared using Office 365. Furthermore, teaching of Grades 7 to 9 will include at least one class every fortnight prepared and taught on the Cloud.
We express our sincere gratitude to our partners in Germany, EVS/EMS and the Württemberg Church, for donating the funds for the capacity building projects for the year 2019/2020 of which this seminar was the first.
Thank you very much for this most wonderful grant that will make learning a great joy for our students.
This new technology transforms acquiring knowledge by children in ways never seen before. It empowers teachers with exceptional skills. It is the future of learning.