Microsoft Korea will join forces with teachers, educational administrators at local and national levels, and like-minded corporations to make “Smart Learning” available in schools across the country. As part of this initiative, Microsoft will soon hold a tour event “Smart Learning Concert” in 16 cities and provincial towns in which teachers make presentations on success cases of incorporating technology in learning.

The conferences will consist of information sessions on Smart Learning, presentations of exemplary cases, special lectures on humanities education, and short film viewing. The company is participating in all these events as the primary sponsor and as the provider of technology and instructors.

On the first day of the event on April 18 in Seoul, Kim Hyun-Jung, the schoolteacher (Dongil Elementary School, Seoul) who received the best award in the 2012 Microsoft Partners in Learning Asia Forum in which as many as 203 teachers from 20 Asian countries competed in presenting cases of using technology in classroom, presented the case of reading class using social networking services. In addition, Microsoft Korea gave a lecture on cloud computing in classroom.

Microsoft has for years promoted the Partners-in-Learning program through which schools around the world could upgrade their quality of education and overcome the digital divide. Currently schools in as many as 130 countries across the world are participating in this program. In Korea, Microsoft Korea has sponsored several programs as part of this global initiative, including the program to help teachers share their experience (Innovation School), the Partners-in-Learning Network to facilitate networking among teachers, the teacher training program, and the program to improve students’ learning abilities.

Any schoolteacher wishing to take part in the Smart Learning Concert events can do so by visiting the website www.smarted.kr.

Sean Chung (press@whowired.com)