This series of posts is all about my magical, mystery tour of Microsoft Headquaters in Redmond, Washington state, USA. You can follow the feed of what happens over the next week by using the official #msftpil or the unofficial #chickengates.
I have been extremely fortunate to be selected to attend Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Institute where 50 top educators from all over the world will attend a weeks training with Microsoft and have the opportunity to share good practice and develop future collaborative projects.
In this first post I am beginning to reflect on the journey ahead, I am sat having breakfast at a very uncivilized time for a Sunday (it is 5am) and Minichickenman is wolfing down some porridge, he is a hungry insomniac. I am sat telling him about where I am going and what I will be doing, he asks me (well I think it is what he asks as he is only 18 months old and with a mouth full of porridge it isn’t really distinguishable but he is responding to me talking), as I was saying he asks me what is the purpose of the visit?
I then think about two famous quotes that Bill Gates once said:
“Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about innovation and fairness.” & As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
I think these two quotes tell you why Microsoft are getting together 50 teachers from all around the world to empower them to innovate, many of these teachers are leaders or potential leaders within their communities, their influence will grow and grow and so the potential impact of the innovations over the next week could have a positive impact on many children in many classrooms.
So finally as I am sat thinking about my future trip (I fly out tomorrow to Seattle) I am sure as always it will be valuable but there are always strange and bizarre things that happen on the way perhaps that is what happens when you wear a chicken suit to the airport. So to help collect all these strange occurrences I have created the #ChickenGates hashtag to follow – it doesn’t take a genius to work where I got it from. The first #ChickenGates I have come across was this morning when looking at images of the Microsoft HQ I came across the Redmond campus being on tripadvisor! How strange, there are only two posts but they are really funny, one lady is really angry because some of the xbox games don’t work and the other is besotted with Microsoft and talks about taking random pictures all over the campus. You can read the reviews here: http://bit.ly/nsKdaA
I leave you with JMGatsby and their picture sat on the Microsoft sign from tripadvisor I will endeavour to replicate the photo at some point soon.
