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ITALY – Carlo Mazzone

Known as the ‘Digital Animator’, Carlo Mazonne is currently a teacher in ITI G.B.B. Lucarelli in Benevento. He is a former IT Consultant who comes from a family of teaching professionals, his father being a headmaster and his mother an elementary school teacher. His educational background includes a degree in Computer Science and is extremely driven by the prospect of teaching. Apart from being one of the Top 10 Finalists of the Global Teacher Prize, he is also a best-selling ICT author in Italy. Ranjitsinh Disale Foundation has collaborated with him to introduce practical learning that applies to the real-world requirements.

DRIVING FORCE

Apart from the positive influence of his family, what really helped Carlo discover his passion for teaching was his collaboration time with his University. He found himself in the role of a teacher emanating know-how related to technical training. That is where his passion met his purpose and coupled with his excellent computer skills, he became driven to experiment with multiple approaches that have a practical place in real-world application.

He is constantly innovating and coming up with ways to digitize education and as a tool to transform society.

IMPACT

Carlo started capturing his professional learnings as notes which went on to become published books over the years, and one book in particular ‘C and C++ The keys to programming’ was his ticket to becoming a best-selling author.

He came up with a unique teaching strategy called ‘vivariumware’ which essentially challenges his students to act as mini-companies and prepare elevator pitches. The term, loosely translated, means a matter of nursery material. The idea is to design projects with technological aspects that can go on to revolutionising the future.

This teaching method actually translated to a stellar win for his students in the Junior Achievement Competition, an organisation dedicated to business education in the school. The JA network reaches more than 10 million students in the World, and his students got to represent Italy at the competition in 2019 where they fared as 2nd runner ups – a huge leap!

CHALLENGE

The onset of COVID-19 pandemic gave a large push to digital education where technology, previously unavailable to the larger set of students & teachers, suddenly became a necessity. The educators and students were forced to adapt and this called on the need for innovation and collaboration. To redefine traditional teaching methods became the need of the hour, but the problems continued to persist.

Not everyone has access to a digital device, broadband or the technical expertise to function platforms. Even having a location is sometimes impossible for students to access the internet. This has posed a challenge but Carlo has united his two roles – teacher & digital expert – to provide solutions and create awareness about the way-forward strategies to be adopted especially in the ICT context.

The objective is to make education accessible for all, and the time to act on this is now.

STEP FORWARD

Carlo is one of the finalists who will be receiving a portion of the prize money that Ranjitsinh Disale decided to share. Carlo intends to support the students of his territory and keeping alive the spirit of the Global Teacher Prize, he will create a scholarship entitled ‘Carlo Mazzone Global Teacher Prize’.

10 students every year will benefit from this in the Samnite Province who are pursuing training. The intention is to promote culture as it is the foundation of humanism and progress, the idea is to leave nobody behind and create equal opportunities that every student deserves.