Recognising Innovative Teachers at the APAC Partners in Learning Forum

Last Thursday evening (22 March 2012) we had the great pleasure to recognise some amazing teachers from across the Asia-Pacific Region at the Microsoft APAC Partners in Learning (PiL) Forum in Auckland, New Zealand.

GroupPhoto Cropped

_DSC2464aMicrosoft’s Education Director for APAC, Mr Neil Jackson (“James Bond”) and Microsoft Australia Academic Programs Manager, Ms Jane Mackarell (“Pussy Galore”) hosted the James Bond themed evening at the spectacular Wharf  Restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand – bringing style, ceremony and a tremendous amount of fun to the celebration.

Congratulations to all of our award winning teachers from across the Asia-Pacific region.  Below is a list of our Country, Category and Educators’ Choice winners and runners-up.

Country Winners

Australia flag

Australia
Ms Alice Leong Nga Fu from Merrylands High School, NSW
Project Title : Level Up

Brunei Darussalam flag Brunei
Winner : Mr Abdul Walid Misli from Puni Temburong Primary School
Project Title : Digital Technology Fostering Brilliant Learners in Education
Indonesia flag Indonesia
Winner : Mr Estu Pitarto from SD Islan Al Azhar 14 Semarang
Project Title : Indonesian Wisdom through Understanding of Javanese Culture
Japan flag iconshock Japan
Winner : Ms Mariko Okamoto from Fujinoki Elementary School
Project Title : Digital Lyrics Card
South Korea flag South Korea
Winner : Ms Hyun Jung Kim from Dongli Primary School
Project Title : Social Bookworm Project
Malaysia flag Malaysia
Winner : Ms Zamimah Azaman from Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang College
Project Title : The Journalist
New Zealand flag New Zealand
Winner : Mrs Julie Breen from Howick College
Project Title : PE Green Screen
Philippines flag Philippines
Winner : Ms Shateen Serana from Tuan Datu Hadj Abdullah Nuno Memorial High School
Project Title : Mangrove Planting & Rehabitation
Singapore flag Singapore
Winner : Mdm A’bidah Abdul Gafoor & Mdm Sharizah Mohd Amin from St Hilda’s Secondary School
Project Title : To Sell or to Develop on Authentic Learning Experience
Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Winner : Mr Ranjith Priyakelum from Hingurukaduwa MV
Project Tiltle : Let’s learn computer hardware
Taiwan flag Taiwan
Winner : Ms Hsun-Hui Chen & Ms Yun-Ting Hsu from Sacred Heart School
Project Title : Blooming Jasmine
Thailand flag Thailand
Winner : Mr Kobwit Priyawat from Nonsi Witthaya School
Project Title : Learning with ICT : Biotechnology Issues
Vietnam flag Vietnam
Winner : Mr Bao Thien Huynh from Lawrence S. Ting School
Project Title : Narrative Literature


Category Winners

‘Extended Learning Beyond the Classroom’ Category
Runner Up : Mr Stephen Baskerville from Australia
Project Title : Wild School

Winner : Ms Hsiao yun Chuang from Taiwan
Project Title : Tainan – Starved & Stuffed

‘Collaboration’ Category
Runner Up : Mr Estelito Mendoza from Philippines
Project Title : What can the youths do ?

Winner : Mr Byeong Guk Yu from Korea
Project Title : SNS Based Learning

‘Knowledge Building & Critical Thinking’ Category
Runner Up : Mr Peter Smythe from Australia
Project Title : Flipped Learning

Winner : Mr Dongkuk Lee from Korea
Project Title : Technology Education in Middle School

‘Innovation in Challenging Contexts’ Category
Runner Up : Mrs Nura Uma Annisa from Indonesia
Project Title : Delivering Nationalism to the Early Age Students Using Multimedia Interactive Reading Tool

Winner : Ms Edalyn Olis from Philippines
Project Title : e-Dokyo ITO

Cutting Edge Use of Microsoft Technology for Learning’ Category
Runner Up : Ms Kanteera Ouanapaporn from Thailand
Project Title : MS Paint Game

Winner : Mr Takayuki Mineshima & Ms Yoshiko Nakahira from Fujinoki Elementary School
Project Title : Digital Block

Educators’ choice awards

Runner Up : Ms Barbara Warne & Mr Mark Thornton-Pett from New Zealand
Project Title : Powerful Learning Piece by Piece

Winner : Mr Zainuddin Zakaria from Malaysia
Project Title: Borderless Classroom

Congratulations again to all of our winners and finalists!

Background to Microsoft Partners in Learning

Some of you may not be aware of the history of Microsoft Partners in Learning and the PiL Forum, so here’s some of the background…  Back in 2003, Microsoft announced Partners in Learning to help educators and school leaders connect, collaborate, create, and share so that students can realize their greatest potential. PiL includes elements such a:

Over the last eight years Microsoft has invested over USD$400M in Partners in Learning. We have programs in place in 119 countries and through those activities have trained over 10 million teachers and reached over 204 million students. 

The Partners in Learning Network now has over 4.8 million registered users. Are you one of them?  If not, you should sign-up today!  It’s an easy way for you to be a part of Partners in Learning.

And a final word –don’t forget that you may be an Innovative Educator!   Be sure to sign up to the Partners in Learning Network to keep updated on next year’s Innovative Teachers Awards and events – Microsoft may well recognise your efforts and you could be among next year’s award winners!!

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Filed under Awards, Innovative Schools, Innovative Teachers, Partners in Learning

Educational Tools from Microsoft

Today I had the opportunity to join nearly 200 educators and education leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region at the Partners in Learning Forum in Auckland, New Zealand. 

Each time I do a technology showcase, I get people asking for links and details of what was demonstrated so they can explore at their own pace and integrate these often simple technologies into their own teaching and learning activities.

So today I’m being a little more clever (and prepared) than usual – I’ve prepared a blog entry (offline initially, using Windows Live Writer) and then posted to my blog during the presentation! Here’s some of what we covered….

Microsoft Office

(most schools have licenses for Microsoft Office Professional through a volume licensing agreement, or you can download a trial of Microsoft Office).

  • Microsoft Word provides some really powerful shared document authoring features. You can work collaboratively on a document that’s shared through SharePoint, Windows Live SkyDrive or SharePoint Online (part of Office 365 for education).  And by collaborative I mean multiple simultaneous authors and the ability to chat/conference using Lync directly from within the document.
  • Microsoft Excel has some really easy ways to format cells with conditional formatting that bring improved meaning and understanding of a data series using visual cues, dashboard colours and graphs.
  • Microsoft PowerPoint has some really powerful features to jazz up your presentations and class materials with a minimum of effort. You can use image editing tools to remove the background of images (no expensive photo editing software required), use SmartArt to add impactful graphics, and fancy transitions. The limit is only your imagination!
  • Ribbon Hero 2 is a fun way to learn how to get the most out of Microsoft Office in a fun and engaging way.  You’ll be surprised at how addictive learning can be and how much more productive you’ll become in using Microsoft Office.
  • These amazing Microsoft Office 2010 PowerPoint templates will show you what’s possible with the latest version of PowerPoint’s picture and animation tools.  The notes on each slide explain how to repeat the steps.

Learning Suite

(can be downloaded from the resources page on the Partners in Learning Network)

  • AutoCollage is a Microsoft Research application that allows you to produce a beautiful montage of your photos in seconds. You can also customise your montage with extra options if you like to express your creativity further.
  • Photosynth is a powerful set of tools for capturing and viewing the world in 3D. You can share these views with your friends on Facebook, publish them to Bing Maps, or embed them in your own Web site. It’s a great visual tool for excursion reports, and showcasing your school to your local community.
  • MovieMaker is a basic movie editing tool. OK, you’re not going to produce a Hollywood blockbuster using MovieMaker but you can edit movies, do auto voiceover, create a movie clip from photos and music etc. It’s simple to use and makes it easy to publish directly to YouTube.
  • Interactive Classroom Add-in for PowerPoint and OneNote bridges lessons delivered in PowerPoint to students using OneNote in 1:1 classroom settings, or lecture environments. It enhances the learning experience by enabling educators to insert polling questions (multiple choice, yes/no, or true/false) into their presentations when creating lessons, increases student engagement by allowing students to answer in-class polls, and supports agile teaching practices through the sharing of ink annotations and slides within the students OneNote Notebook.
  • Mathematics 4.0 provides a set of mathematical tools that help students get school work done quickly and easily. You can learn to solve equations step-by-step, while gaining a better understanding of fundamental concepts in pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, and calculus. There’s also a full featured graphing calculator including 3D features.
  • Math Worksheet Generator makes it easy to produce a printable maths worksheet with problems of a similar complexity to that entered. 
  • Windows Live Writer is a great blog and wiki tool that makes is super easy to compose your blog entries. You can prepare your posting offline, save drafts and post directly to popular blog platforms including WordPress (which is what I use).

Web Tools

  • Montage is a flexible web-based service that makes it fun and easy to create and share a visual album of the web on the topics you care about. You can design your Montage around any topic you can imagine by adding content that pulls information from a variety of sources, including RSS feeds, Twitter, Bing News, and YouTube.
  • Digital Narratives is another Microsoft Research project combining multimedia content with rich interactive navigation and web integration. You can explore a data set and multimedia in exciting ways.
  • ChronoZoom is a project from University of California Berkeley using technologies from Microsoft Research to display a huge amount and depth of information through a chronological user interface (timeline) and zoom techniques.
  • Flashcards is a cloud hosted version of paper flash cards – you can build memory through repetition, matching images and words.
  • Worldwide Telescope brings a planetarium and the worlds astronomers to your classroom. Explore the universe, solar system, planets with 3D navigation.  You can also view or even create your own guided tours.

Game-Based Learning

  • Microsoft Flight builds on the legacy of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which has been used by schools to teach subjects as diverse as Geography and Physics.
  • Kodu enables students as young as 7 years old to build their own games using a simple user interface and Xbox controller on a standard Windows PC. With Kodu, students learn storyboarding, game design, logic and computer programming techniques – all while having fun!

Interesting Videos

But wait, there’s more….

There are many other tools that Microsoft has built directly or in partnership with other researchers and organisations.  Sometimes though, I don’t hear about all of them so please respond with other tools you’ve discovered on your learning journey.  

What are your favourite tools?  How have you integrated them into your learning activities?

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Filed under Learning Tools, Technology

Launching my new blog

In this post I introduce my new blog and reflect on the growth of the social web.

Over the last few months I’ve been reflecting on the impact of the social web on our professional and personal lives. 

  • Back in 2009 I attended the twenty year school reunion of Caloundra State High School. It was huge with about 140 of my schoolmates of a total around 180 attending.  I didn’t even know about the ten year reunion and was told only about 30 attended at that time. What’s the difference – Facebook!
  • Business connections through LinkedIn have led me to new market opportunities, helped build mentoring partnerships and provided useful connections though two-three degrees of separation.
  • TripAdvisor has helped me make better choices of hotels and discover some travel trip gems thanks to the contributions of the online community.

I am active on all of these communities but want to take my professional contributions up a notch through the combination of this blog and my new Twitter (@TrumpOnEdu) account.

So welcome to my personal blog which centres around my learning, research and reflections on education, technology (especially Microsoft) and their intersection as I travel the world, listen to others and browse the web.

Remember, this is a personal blog so the ideas, thoughts and opinions I share here are my own and not those of Microsoft.

I welcome your feedback as well so please share your thoughts to blog postings. 

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Filed under Purpose, Technology