Friday, March 09, 2007

Asia-Pacific's most innovative teachers? Cambodian teachers win hands down, where else can a teacher survive with just $30 a month salary?

Teachers at Angkor (Photo: Microsoft)

Poster competition (Photo: Microsoft)


09-03-2007
Asia-Pacific’s most innovative teachers find inspiration at Angkor

UNESCO (Paris)

Held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, from 28 February to 2 March 2007, the third annual Asia-Pacific Innovative Teachers Conference, organised by Microsoft in partnership with UNESCO, was the culmination of national competitions that attracted over 22,000 entries from nearly 8,000 schools across the region.

In three days of collaboration, 180 teachers from 18 Asia-Pacific countries celebrated the common bond of teaching and shared the innovative ways they are using information and communications technology (ICT) in their classrooms.

Sheldon Schaefer, Director of the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education said the Conference was a showcase for the benefits ICT could bring to education across the region. “ICT is a vital tool for extending educational inclusion, quality and efficiency, and also for promoting science, culture and sustainable development in education,” he said.

Peter Moore, from Microsoft Asia Pacific, said it was tremendously exciting to see so many teachers using software with such creativity and joy to expand their students’ potential.

This year’s Conference location, next door to Cambodia’s fabled ancient metropolis of Angkor, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was also an inspiration for the participants.

One of the highlights of the conference was a unique collaboration among the teachers to share understanding across borders about Angkor itself. Working in 18 multinational groups, they created digital images of Angkor to illustrate one of several themes, including war and peace, environmental sustainability, planning of liveable communities, gender relations, kingship and class systems, and protection of the public heritage. These photographs will be compiled into a “Virtual World of Angkor” for further use in the classrooms with Microsoft’s forthcoming “Photosynth” technology.

The other highlight of the Conference was the competition for the coveted “Innovative Teachers of the Year” awards. The teachers presented the innovative ways they are using ICT in their classrooms. It resulted in a very colourful exhibition space buzzing with nerves and excitement as the judges – a multinational panel of education experts - made their rounds.

Several of the teachers focused on using ICT to learn to read, write short stories, create animated artwork and speak new languages, but also master national cultural traditions such as calligraphy, the meaning of local proverbs and wisdom or the interpretation of the country’s artistic heritage.

A special needs teacher showed how she is using ICT to automate the conversion of both graphics and text documents into Braille for her blind students, which takes an hour per page instead of two days by hand.

Other teachers showed how ICT can be used to promote languages; to apply maths, science and geography to real life situations; to help students learn from each other (peer-to-peer learning links between very different schools). There were also examples of using ICT to teach specific applied skills: using a machine virtually before moving on to the real thing or improving students' techniques and experience in playing soccer.

All of the teachers’ presentations will be placed on a regional Innovative Teachers Portal which Microsoft launched at the Conference to provide a platform for teachers across the region to share their best practices and curriculum, exchange knowledge and initiate online dialogue amongst the teaching community. In addition, an e-newsletter is being created for teachers to debate and discuss key topics for their profession. To register for the e-newsletter, go to this link.

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