Embrace & LBMS Support Microsoft 365 Capacity
Building Project
Our partners Embrace the Middle East - UK and
LBMS (Lutheran Board for Mission Support - USA) kindly approved
supporting our capacity building project to train our trainers and
teachers to shift to Cloud Teaching (Microsoft 365).
Microsoft 365 provides amazing tools for teachers. Cloud teaching
revolutionizes learning. It was time JLSS adopted this new technology
that provides light-year leaps into the future.
JLSS has been working on making this shift for two years. Our teachers
and trainers were finally ready for professional training by a Microsoft
certified partner to help them develop their skills in Cloud teaching
techniques.
The biggest obstacles we faced the last two years in moving in this
direction were the very slow speed of the Internet in Lebanon and finding
the necessary funds for this expensive training.
Embrace the Middle East - UK kindly approved our request to support this
project. They agreed to provide us with the necessary funds for holding
a three-day training seminar for our teachers and trainers.
We express our sincere gratitude to Embrace the Middle East for
supporting our vision to bring JLSS teaching methods to the 21st century
through this grant.
Teachers of the Academic Department will
attend this seminar from 3 to 5 September 2018.
Trainers of the Vocational Department
will have their seminar from 10 to 12 September.
All our teachers and trainers have been provided
with high quality laptops through a kind donation of used laptops (in
good condition) from Ernst and Young - Lebanon.
This was kindly arranged by Ms. Nohad Tahhan of the National Evangelical
Church in Beirut.
We express our sincere gratitude to Ms. Tahhan
and Ernst and Young - Lebanon for this very helpful donation.
The last remaining obstacle was the slow
Internet speed.
We appealed to our partners in the USA, LBMS,
requesting a grant to cover the expense of a high-speed microwave
Internet connection. We chose the least expensive bundle to reduce
costs. LBMS kindly approved a grant that will cover the cost of this
microwave connection for six months, after which the project will be
evaluated based on results.
We hope Internet speeds in Lebanon will soon improve, at least for
schools, to make this financial burden unnecessary in the future.
We also express our sincere gratitude to LBMS for
supporting our vision to bring JLSS teaching methods to the 21st century
through this grant.
The Internet provider WISE will install the
necessary equipment in time for the training seminar. Furthermore, WISE
kindly decided to raise the speed as much as is needed during the
training seminar totally free of additional charges.
We thank WISE Internet provider for this kind
gesture to our school.
The challenge facing our teachers and trainers
in acquiring this new technology varies from one person to another.
Younger people take it at a stride while others struggle. The end result
will be great for everyone, especially to our students.
This is a very necessary step as we prepare to
eventually make the shift to tablets instead of the enormously heavy
books that students have to carry daily to school.
The future is here and we have no choice but to
embrace it. Thanks to LBMS and Embrace, we are already embracing it!