Top honours for Singapore at Microsoft in Education Global Forum

Microsoft has announced that teachers from Chestnut Drive Secondary School and Crescent Girls’ School were in winning teams for the inaugural Learn-a-thon awards at the Microsoft in Education Global Forum. Both teachers, Chen Siyun from Chestnut Drive Secondary and Richard Koh from Crescent Girls', were earlier recognised by Microsoft under its Expert Educators programme. 

Source: Microsoft. Ms Chen Siyun (4^th from left) from Chestnut Drive Secondary and team received the top prize in the Sustainability category of the Microsoft in Education Global Forum Learn-a-thon from Mr Artur Mas, President of Catalonia, Spain (1^st from left) and Mr Anthony Salcito, VP, Worldwide Education, Microsoft (1^st from right).

Introduced this year, the Learn-a-thon is a 24-hour challenge where education experts are grouped with peers from different parts of the world to design a learning activity that teaches students 21^st century skills and displays innovative use of technology in three Millennium Development Goals: Poverty, Sustainability and Gender Equality. The groups competing in the Learn-a-thon were judged by a panel of five judges from NGOs around the world, with one winner and two runners-up for each Millennium Development Goal.

Chen, a science teacher and ICT Head of Department at Chestnut Drive Secondary School, took home the top prize for the group project ‘Saving Nemo, Sustain the World' for Sustainability, along with three other team mates – Jessie Mann from Canada, Elizabeth Angel from Colombia and Kelli Etheredge from the United States.  

“Having the chance to meet with other teachers from around the world who share my passion for innovative education has been a rewarding experience. This has given me so many great ideas to take back to the classroom,” said Chen, who was also first runner-up in the Collaboration category at the 2012 Global Forum Educator Awards.

In the Gender Equality category, English language teacher Koh, who is also the ICT Director for Staff Development at Crescent Girls’ School, emerged as second runner-up with his team mates – Tien-Hsi Chuang from Taiwan, Jeanette Delgado from Puerto Rico and Francois Jourde from Belgium – for the project ‘A Metaphor for Change’.  

“The Learn-a-thon was truly a unique opportunity to interact, share and work with innovative teachers from different countries. I’m proud that our combined efforts to tackle the issue of Gender Equality in the classroom have been recognised on a global stage," said Koh.

“It’s exciting to have the chance to see these innovative teachers and school leaders in action and recognise their efforts,” said Anthony Salcito, Vice President Worldwide Education, Microsoft. 

The Microsoft in Education Global Forum was held from 11 to 14 March 2014 at Barcelona, Spain. The event united over 1,100 attendees, including 150 government education leaders, private sector executives, 250 educators and 75 mentor school leaders, to recognize and share ideas on the best of innovative teaching and learning enabled by the meaningful use of technology. 

Sustainability – Winner

Project: Saving Nemo, Sustain the World

Group members: Chen Siyun (Singapore), Jessie Mann (Canada), Elizabeth Angel (Colombia) and Kelli Etheredge (United States)

Schools from around the world (Singapore, Canada, America, Columbia, Australia and possibly South Africa and UK) will be coming together to embark on a journey of environmental sustainability, one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

‘Nemo’ the fish, an icon for environmental sustainability, will travel to schools in six different countries around the world to spread the sustainability message. Over a period of six months, students will take turns to host ‘Nemo’ and during the visit, create videos and other materials to share sustainability efforts in their community on the project blog. They will then apply knowledge across subjects such as mathematics, science, geography, history and languages to build a meaningful sustainability service project. 

Students will train their ICT skills by using Microsoft Office for content creation, OneNote to share research and Lync for collaboration with peers from different countries. 

Gender Equality – Second runner-up

Project: A Metaphor for Change

Group members: Richard Koh (Singapore), Tien-Hsi Chuang (Taiwan), Jeanette Delgado (Puerto Rico) and Francois Jourde (Belgium)

For this project, six learning activities incorporating technology were designed to help students better understand gender equality and to create awareness on the issue. Working in groups across two countries, visual metaphors for gender equality are used as a focal point. Students are first tasked search and identify visual metaphors for gender equality and present their interpretation on Microsoft Powerpoint to their peers. 

Using collaboration tools such as OneNote and Lync, students work together to research, discuss and analyse gender equality indicators, trends and actions. Students will be encouraged to take action on the issue by developing a gender equality awareness campaign by designing and sharing flyers and by using social media tools such as Twitter and Pinterest. Through the use of Microsoft Project Siena, students learn to create an app with the aim of sharing their community work globally.