Microsoft Partners in Learning Asian Pacific Forum united educators, leaders and influential voices from Asia counties, who are passionate about the future of education. This year, the event is held at the Skycity Convention Centre in Auckland, New Zealand from the 20th to the 22nd March 2012. This international event is supported by Ministry of Education, New Zealand and provides a unique opportunity for the most innovative educators and school leaders from around the Asia region to come together to share and collaborate.

1. INNOVATIVE SCHOOLS:

1. INNOVATIVE TEACHERS

Microsoft Partners in Learning Asia & Pacific Forum on-the-go!!!

Microsoft Partners in Learning Asian Pacific Forum united educators, leaders and influential voices from Asia counties, who are passionate about the future of education. This year, the event is held at the Skycity Convention Centre in Auckland, New Zealand from the 20th to the 22nd March 2012. This international event is supported by Ministry of Education, New Zealand and provides a unique opportunity for the most innovative educators and school leaders from around the Asia region to come together to share and collaborate.

The event aims to

• Recognize educators who use technology innovatively and effectively to help improve the way students learn.
• Provide opportunities for educators to learn from each other and collaborate on global relevant projects.
• Share their innovative practices within Asia's regional community.

This forum will provide opportunities for educators and school leaders to engage in reflective conversations about existing practices and explore innovative approaches to new ones which will empower students to not only manage their own learning and development paths but also to develop communities which work together across boundaries to address global issues.

This forum will be attended by more than 250 educators, school leaders and government representatives from 17 countries around the world.

Some highlights of the event will include:

• Poster sessions where the teachers will share their innovative teaching practices and compete for the recognition of "Innovative Teacher of the Year" Award
• Professional development workshops for educators and school leaders
• Technology emersion session for educators to get hands on experience with the latest Microsoft technologies
• A half-day field trip to visit Auckland schools

From Vietnam there are 6 teachers and Microsoft staffs attend the event including 3 teachers, and 2 Education leaders. The 3 teachers who were granted high awards on 7th Vietnamese Innovative Teachers Competition comes from Hochiminh city, Da Lat city and Hau Giang province. They represent Vietnamese teachers to attend the Poster Competition for the best e-learning project. Especially, Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu was invited to undertake the role of one of our distinguished judges for the annual Innovative Teachers' Awards competition and this is the first Vietnamese was asked to be judge in the Poster competition. Dr. Vu was also known as one of 50 selected Top Innovative Teachers in the World in 2011. The event is a good opportunity for teachers to show their talents, knowledge and apply their good understanding of IT in learning and teaching for better education in Vietnam.

Dr. Nguyen Van Long, Head of Academic Affair, College of Foreign Languages, University of Danang shared: Starting from the first day, what impressed me is the reminder of the famous and widely-quoted saying, "If you teach today as we taught yesterday, then we rob our children of the future", stated by John Dewey in the 1920s and quoted by one of the Microsoft speakers, David Faulkner at Microsoft APAC Forum 2012, Auckland, New Zealand. It has been nearly 100 years since Dewey's book that teaching methodologies have always been the urging issue that requires educators and teachers to update their skills and capabilities. Above all, technology is something that we could hardly avoid in the 21st century teaching methodologies.

On the school visit tour on the second of the forum, another saying that struck me and other educators is "Teaching is not a job; it's a calling", written on the board of an intermediated school. Yes, it is a calling, calling for those who are willing to share their head, their heart, and their hands with the community for the development of a succinct future of the next generation.

It is hard to say what Vietnam's education can learn from the Microsoft APAC Forum 2012 in a limited space in this bulletin. However, from my point of view and applicable to my current commitment to education in Vietnam, what we can learn is to start small and share. You are not alone; there are teachers around who are willing to talk with you about your initiatives. ...

For further information, please visit: https://www.rhapsodyconcept.com.sg/website/MS/RIEF2012/

RIEF Attendees

THE MOST AMAZING MICROSOFT PARTNERS IN LEARNING FORUM 2012 EVER…

This is sharing of Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu – Dean of English Department, Hochiminh University of

Education

Kodu, scenario based learning, innovation in challenging context, personalized learning, 21^st century skills, nature as school, community as school, inter-disciplinary learning, art based learning, green screening … These things keep flitting through my mind during the Microsoft Partners in Learning Asia & Pacific Forum 2012 in Auckland, NZ. The conference has been very rewarding to me both personally and professionally.

Touching down Auckland, we were full of excitement for the forum. This was the first visit to NZ for some of us and Nzers were positively surprised when asked to join our photo shooting at the airport, the hotel reception, the conference lobby and the restaurants. First day at the conference, Vietnam team was the first to set up display posters. Conference cameras kept pointing at us trying to record collaboration, teamwork and the happy smiles. This is my first time as a judge for Microsoft PiL event too. Judge briefing done with Chirp, judge facilitator and time for trial judging with the guessing game. We had to trial judge posters without the presenters there. It turned out that our judge team was most generous and we decided to stick to the lower band to be consistent with others. Day 2 was full of hard work. Liam from Australia, Alias from Malaysia and I were responsible for judging 5 Japanese and 6 Indonesian posters. Things went well and we were very happy with our evaluation. Day 3 and 4 were lots of fun with show cases, poster displays and workshops.

To me, the most valuable experience is the chance to learn from other colleagues in the region. Vietnam's education context is different from those in the showcases. It does not make sense to expect small class size, nice facilities and highly qualified teachers coming soon. However, it strikes me that "teacher as innovator or change agent" is one of the theme of this conference. One of the most important criteria during our judging of the posters is the ability of teachers to change their own teaching through ICT. For the time being, this can be one of the keys to our education renovation. More investment in teacher professional development can really bring about "less for more" in Vietnam.

To begin with, to get access to the vast teaching resources now available on the internet, Vietnamese teachers need good English skills. Weakness in foreign language skills has always been a hinder to integration and change for our teachers. In addition, more ICT training should be provided for teachers at all levels. Ideally, these trainings should be conducted in the form of peer coaching in which teachers share experience and develop skills. Last but not least, good examples and best teaching practices should be shared more often for Vietnamese teachers. I just wish all teachers in my university could be here to see the amazing things teachers in other countries are doing.

In a nutshell, I have learnt a lot from this conference. Not everything is applicable right away to Vietnam's education context. However, "teacher as innovator or change agent" is what we can all do to better our education. I'm quite impressed with this quote from Bryant of Silverton Primary School, Australia at day 3: "In order to transform schools successfully, educators need to navigate the difficult space between letting go off old patterns and grabbing on to new ones." (Deal, 1990).