Mr Ong was touched and inspired by the passion and creativity of the teachers at the forum. “The atmosphere was very vibrant and you could feel the energy!” he said. “The other educators were very eager to share their ideas and the challenges that they faced in teaching. I was also amazed at the creative ways with which they infused technology into their lessons.”

However, he was even more excited when his project, The Rise of Li’Titledot - a game that he designed to teach Total Defence - won the third spot at the Forum in the Most Innovative Content category. In this game, students play secret agents of a fictitious island and, depending on their roles, devise attack or defensive plans. To make the game engaging, Mr Ong incorporated videos, audio records and kinesthetic elements. The idea for this game arose while he was still a trainee teacher in NIE.

Mrs Tan-Lee was similarly impressed by other educators’ exhibits. Her project, Wipe It, generated much interest amongst teachers from Europe and the US. Wipe It is an interactive multimedia programme, designed using Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Paint, to help students learn Chinese. Through the programme, students have shown improvement in recognising the different characters and remembering the sequence of strokes, among other things. They have also found learning Chinese easier and more fun.

So what lessons have the two teachers gained from the Forum?

“I’ve learnt that technology can be a powerful tool to enhance lessons. One should not use it just for the sake of using it but rather, purposefully and always with the students in mind,” shared Mr Ong.

He highlighted one project that caught his attention. A group of students had taken water samples from a river in India and tested them for bacterial content. They then presented their findings to the community and tried to persuade them to observe good hygiene practices.

“Sometimes, students can be a great way to reach out to the community, such as promoting awareness about issues like hygiene or sharing their knowledge. In one project, students went out to the community to teach the elderly how to use computers.” said Mr Ong.

When Wipe It is uploaded on MS Sharepoint, students can go through their lessons in school or at home.

Mrs Tan-Lee noted that many of the exhibits were about websites, a good number of which were created by students. She picked up some pointers from China-based educators and was most impressed by one of their projects, Pay Attention to Sandstorms, which won the top honour in the Educator’s Choice category. Inspired by this project, for which students spent months conducting painstaking research, Mrs Tan-Lee hopes to embark on similar projects to teach her classes how to perform research, gather information and eventually put up all these resources on a website.

Mr Ong is also looking forward to implementing some of the ideas from the Forum in his school. “I would really like to try out the community projects which involved students going out to the community to do some voluntary work,” he remarked. “It would be an excellent opportunity for them to practise the skills they’ve learnt and to do service for our society. Many students are really tech-savvy and they could be an excellent resource to conduct ‘classes’ for others.”