On February 17^th, Steven Mckee and Steve Hicks led a session with teachers in Jakarta, Indonesia. Twenty teachers from around Jakarta attended the “proof of concept” session and took a knowledge audit regarding ICT skills and interests. The teachers provided significant input into the customization and redesign of the audit to make it more meaningful and accurate in the local Indonesian context.

The knowledge audit maps a teacher’s ability and willingness to use technology in the classroom. Labtech advocates for an approach on data collection through reflective exercises such as knowledge audits. In the case of the Jakarta, participants were placed into a “Technology Integration Matrix” based on their responses and given insight into their strengths and weaknesses as well as an individualized plan for their personal development. Aggregated data is passed on to decision-makers to enhance their approaches towards policy.  Holistic approaches like this can help educational institutions get a much better return on ICT investment while simultaneously providing stakeholders with development opportunities.

Labtech thanks the state of Jakarta and all the teachers for their valuable insight and support in our endeavors!

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On September 11, 2013 in Krabi, Thailand, Steven Hicks, Labtech’s Manager of 21^st Century Skills Division, gave the keynote address at the Annual International Seminar on Open and Distance Learning co-conducted by SEAMOLEC and the Office of Vocational Education Commission (OVEC), Ministry of Education, Thailand. The theme of the seminar was “Open and Distance Learning and Partnership among Southeast Asian Educational Institutions towards ASEAN Community 2015”.

Among the many excellent and informative speakers, Mr. Hicks’ keynote addressed the topic of, “Enhancing Organizational Capacity to Infuse Teaching and Learning with 21st Century Solutions”. Mr. Hicks stressed the need of Ministries to allocate a percentage of ICT budget’s towards developing robust info-culture in schools and the importance of effective, formative teacher assessment and profiling of ICT capability.

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Labtech will be exhibiting at the World Didac exhibition in Mumbai from Sept 11 to 13^th.   Labtech CEO Steven Mckee will also be participating on an educational panel discussion at the parallel conference for the Asian Summit on Education and Skills.  Labtech will host a special workshop seminar on Sept 13^th on “TVET for the 21^st Century”.  We hope to see many of our education friends and colleagues at this conference.  Labtech attendees will include Steven Mckee (CEO), Shafiek Sultan (Asian Marketing Manager) and Deepak Mehrotra (Indian Marketing Manager).  More information can be found at http://www.worlddidacindia.com.

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Labtech recently participated at the FICCI Global Skills Summit conference, September 4-6 in New Delhi India (http://www.globalskillsummit.com)  as both an exhibitor and  as a conference presenter.  Attendees from Labtech included Steven Mckee (CEO), Shafiek Sultan (Asian Marketing Manager) and Deepak Mehrotra (Indian Marketing Manager).  This international event focused on skills development in India which is currently undergoing rapid change.  Labtech CEO Steven Mckee participated in a panel discussion and gave a talk on “Making Skills Development Aspirational” (see photo below) , a theme about making TVET a more attractive choice for career education.  Another highlight of the conference was when Steven McKee and Deepak Mehrotra met with Dr. Mangalpati Pallam Raju, Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development , National Government of India (see photo below) as well as other high ranking officials from the Ministry of Labour and Employment as well as other government and private agencies.

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