Helping Students and Teachers Learn, Grow and Realize Their Dreams - Orlando Ayala

Today I was privileged to attend the opening of the first Microsoft Partners in Learning school here in Kashgar, which will help Chinese authorities transform the country’s education system by leveraging the integration of technology in classrooms.

The school, the No. 19 Middle School in Kashgar, has 2,125 students and 105 teachers across 38 primary school and junior high school classes. (You can see more pictures of the Partners in Learning school event here.)

Since its launch in 2003, Partners in Learning, which is a key initiative under Microsoft Unlimited Potential, has touched the lives of more than 100 million students, teachers and education policymakers in 101 countries.

In January 2008, Microsoft announced a new five-year, $235.5 million investment in Partners in Learning, which will bring the company's total 10-year commitment to nearly $500 million.

Microsoft has so far donated 100 Partners in Learning schools across 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions in China, and has trained IT classroom administrators for every school. Thousands of teachers have also been trained to help their students study more effectively and become more innovative.

The No. 19 Middle school will offer innovative technology, valuable curriculum guidance, and teacher training in a province where it has never been available before. The integration of technology is a key tool in helping China transform its education system and in closing the digital divide.

The school had scraped together enough money over time through donations from teachers and others to amass a computer class with 30 machines. However, over the years, many of these computers became obsolete and the school was unable to find the components to repair them.

At one point, the school had just seven very old 386 machines operable, which became a serious constraint to computer science teaching.

Around that time, Microsoft stepped forward and donated 30 new computers, and a new computer classroom was quickly set up, which has helped these students learn and help their teachers become more efficient and creative.

It was truly an honor for me to be able to see first-hand what challenges this school and others in this province face and what their needs are. To me, Partners in Learning is all about enabling teachers to teach better and giving kids skills that can better enable them to realize their potential.

Microsoft’s goal is to help ensure that every child has the opportunity to get some computer training, and I told the teachers and students at today’s event that I look forward to coming back and seeing the positive impact that the Partners in Learning program has had on all of them.

While touring the computer classroom, which was filled with the smiling faces of children who were using technology to learn, grow and realize their dreams, I asked some of them what they wanted to be when they finished their studies. One wanted to be a doctor, another an engineer, a third a translator, and another a writer, as he wanted to use his work to put a smile on people’s faces.

I also saw the hope and potential in each of their smiling faces, and I believe that the realization of that potential will benefit not only them, but this province, country, and the world.

I also shared with them my personal story: my family came from a rural village in Colombia, in a hard-working family but with very limited financial means. Despite these limitations, and through hard work, I was able to get an education, before being exposed to computing and all the opportunities that brings.

I also told them that, as a child in Colombia, I had many dreams, and that technology helped me realize many of these. I also told them to never stop dreaming, and to dream the impossible, as that way anything can happen, and that technology can help them get there.

For more news from my continuing travels through China, check back here or visit http://upteam.spaces.live.com for more updates on the trip and the Unlimited Potential team's participation in the Gobi March.

Orlando