Vierailevat Kouluissa - School Visits

The primary reason for my visit to Finland is to visit and observe schools there. Since 2001 Finland routinely has some of the highest PISA scores in the world. Their educational system clearly is doing something right and is worth observing just for that reason.

The school where I work has been putting together a plan to move to a 1:1 technology model - meaning that each student will have their own personal laptop that they use in their classes. As a part of the 1:1 planning committee I have been reading about and observing how other schools use technology, particularly how they integrate it into their larger curriculum.

My school is very close to the Microsoft main campus in Redmond, WA. Many of our students have parents or other relatives that work for Microsoft, Amazon or other technology companies that have sprung up in this area.  We have had ample support from the greater Microsoft community in many ways. Because of our ties to Microsoft, our technology plan uses primarily Microsoft products.

In the research I did writing the proposal for my trip, I learned that two cities in Finland, Espoo and Oulu, are also "Microsoft towns" like the Redmond area. Nokia had a large presence in both of these cities, and when Microsoft bought Nokia, they moved right in. As a result, many of the schools in these areas are Microsoft Showcase Schools. I used the Microsoft Educator Community (which you should sign up for if you are in education) to find names of people in the schools, then a just did a general search for the school's websites and tried to find contact information for people there.

In addition, I connected with a few schools through personal connections and recommendations.

Here is the list of schools I will be visiting (in the order I'm visiting them):

• Salo Secondary High School - The local high school in the town where I have relatives.
• Espoolahti School  - A Google school that works very closely with the tech community. They have a BYOD program. They are also hosting a Google Apps for Education Summit there this fall. In addition, this is one of the few schools in Finland with a school library. 
• Koulumestari School - A Microsoft Showcase School
• TYK - Tampere Arts-Oriented High School - An upper secondary school focused on courses in the arts, in addition to the core courses. 
• Oulu River School - A Microsoft Showcase School where each student has their own laptop.
• Metsokangas Comprehensive School - A Microsoft Showcase School where students use various mobile and tablet devices throughout the curriculum. Also, one of the few schools in Finland with a school library.