Richard Marchant moved to Kuwait in 2001 with the intention of staying for one year. 17 years later he is still there, with a family, and is now the Secondary Headteacher at the New English School. The school follows the rigor and standards of the English school system, and their graduates attend universities all around the globe.
Accessing Technology
Six years ago, the computer in the school was only used for PowerPoint presentations and the writing of two reports per year. Other reports of any kind were handwritten and placed in a file. If he wanted any information, he had to go to the file and leaf through it. There were no opportunities for students to use technology in the classroom at all.
Then, three years ago, the school bought a data management system, which, initially was viewed cynically due to the upfront costs. It ended up saving the teachers 100s of hours of work over the course of a year – time that was freed up to focus on teaching and learning.
A New Path to Teaching
Two years ago the school undertook a Chromebook initiative, purchasing devices for every student. Richard tells the story of a 68-year old art teacher who was the most cynical and least skilled when they rolled out Chromebooks for everyone. The teacher had seen gadgets and fads come and go that were supposed to “revolutionize” teaching but fell flat. Richard got him to reluctantly spend time learning the Chromebooks, and now he says that teacher can’t see how he ever taught without them.
Richard’s message to his students and their parents is that the function of technology is to enable collaboration. “I’ve always pushed the notion that this technology allows students and teachers to collaborate in small groups or large groups,” he says. “And any collaboration allows projects to be completed at a high level; it allows collaborative learning; it allows group work. It teaches students skills that can’t be taught individually. It allows teachers to monitor that and see what’s going on and intervene at the point of learning to improve outcomes.”
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All across the globe today, school boards are facing scarce resources and tough choices about how to spend those resources. Dr. Marc Frankel and 
The conversation keeps evolving, shifting, and growing, according to Marc. “I’m hearing much more reticence on the part of governing boards, school heads, and directors to make a technology play for its own sake,” he says. “They want to know ahead of time what the anticipated impact is going to be before investing precious resources and money.” With smartphones and tablets seemingly everywhere, Marc says we should be using the available technology as a means to accelerate teaching and learning. “All these things have a much bigger impact on teaching and learning than we looked for years ago,” he says.
Character education and social-emotional learning are becoming necessities inside K-12 and higher ed. There is a basic need developing for content to be presented in a way that supports the overall psyche of students. Peter Kraft, CEO of
As Peter states, “The challenge is to take our client’s existing experience and content that has already proven effective for them and translate that into a learning environment that is gamified, that’s more interactive, so that students are more interested and engaged in the content.” While this works with standard curriculum and subjects, this approach is especially effective when dealing with sensitive content and topics like bullying, cyberbullying, depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, respect issues, and incidents of racial intolerance.
Peter Kraft is presently the CEO and Co-Founder of 
“In the 21st century global economy, innovative STEM education is one of the most important factors in preparing students for successful futures. Each of the nine STEM Excellence Awards finalists represents the very best in STEM instruction and serves as a shining example of what schools can accomplish with the right vision and leadership,” said Jennifer Womble, program chair of FETC. “We are impressed with the wonderful work each school has done to support their students and look forward to the start of FETC, where they’ll have the opportunity to share their successes with members of the global education community.”
LRP Publications, founded in 1977 by Kenneth Kahn, is a broad-based media company serving business and education professionals. Specializing in the fields of education administration, education law, education technology, federal employment, human resources, workers’ compensation and disability, the company publishes hundreds of books, pamphlets, newsletters, videos and online resources on various topics including Title 1 and Special Education. Additionally, LRP publishes two industry-leading magazines: 