About 30 teachers from various K-12 schools in Singapore gathered in Science Hub, Science Park 1, Singapore for HeuLab’s i-Teach workshop, held on March, 18th - 19th 2009. Designed as practical hands-on session, i-Teach aimed to give participants insights about how to optimize the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in classroom to enhance teaching and learning experiences.

Showed “Education Today and Tomorrow” opening video, HeuLab’s Deputy CEO, Mr. Lim Soon Jinn reminded the participants how in this ever-changing world, education has dramatically changed. 

“The aim of education is to prepare students for workforce. Thus, with changes in demand of skills to prepare future knowledge workers, education should change too”, he mentioned.

Conducted in 2 breakout sessions- the workshop was started with teachers’ sharing session of how to integrate ICT to day-to-day lesson.  

Miss Mano, shared how HeuCampus has benefited teachers and students in Fairfield Methodist Secondary. “When comes to using the tool for lesson, I think we need the teachers to think, not merely bringing it to the class… Teachers should collaborate across departments, even schools to collectively generate ideas to integrate ICT to lesson”, she said.

Mr. Alan Goh shared how the integration between Schoollive and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method has benefited students in Bendeemer Secondary.

“The portal is indeed a useful ICT tool to engage our students in learning. The ease of downloading tasks and uploading accomplished task is added benefit for teachers and students.  They also enjoy using the discussion forum feature for clarification of ideas and misconceptions. Overall, students’ critical thinking is enhanced”, he summarized benefits of Schoollive.

The second session was sharing and practical session led by Mr. Mark Christensen from HeuLab’s Australia.  

Formerly a secondary mathematic’s teacher, Mark who has been working closely with K-12 teachers from Independent Schools of Queensland (ISQ), shared how Fun With Construction (FWC) can be adapted to mathematic lesson plans in the classroom to supplement and enrich teaching and learning experiences. 

Participants were given opportunity to have first-hand experiences with award-winning software FWC and to access to invaluable teaching resources, allowed for practical reinforcement of skills.  Interactive Question and Answer (Q & S) session with Mark facilitated deeper understanding of the mathematical concepts previously discussed.

At the end of the workshop, a competition was held to test participants’ creativity in using FWC to augment mathematic teaching in classroom.  3 winners were chosen and were given chances to do brief presentation of how FWC help them to enhance learning in the classroom.  Congratulations to the lucky winners who can bring home a pair of webcams, exclusive FWC licenses and executive laser pointer pens.

We are delighted that the feedbacks from participants were quite positive and encouraging. 

“The demonstration was quite effective. Both presentation sharing by fellow teachers and practical, hands-on session helped me to learn. More importantly, I can apply concept from the workshop in my future teaching”, a teacher mentioned- voiced out the majority of the participants’ opinions about the workshop.

We are looking forward to see you again in the next workshop.