Team Thoughts: Learning New Things with Friends!

What is FrogAsia all about? And why should you care? While we could point you to our website, we’d rather tell you in our own words so you can get to know us just a little more. 

We asked FrogAsia's Student Engagement Team Leader, Aizat Izyani, what she looked forward to most when going Back2School. Here's what she has to say: 

Aizat, alumni of Garden International School, KL

“I looked forward to seeing all my friends! Trading pictures and stories on what we did during the holidays was great!

Recess on those first few days back are filled with hugs and

friendly hellos. Oddly enough, I also missed sitting in class - I loved learning new things, and my homework during the first few weeks of school were top-notch!”

Webinar 5: Extending Activities Beyond the Classroom. Co-curricular Activities with Frog

Chinese New Year week is over and Webinars commence this week! We hope you had an eventful holiday and are back to school refreshed and excited.

In this week's Webinar, teachers will learn how Frog can support co-curricular activities in schools. Hear success stories and testimonials on how teachers and students enjoy using Frog for their school activities.

Click on the image below to register for the session!

History teachers collaborate on Frog to share lesson resources nationwide

For the academic year 2013, the Ministry of Education (MOE) added History to the list of compulsory subjects for Form Four and Form Five students. The Curriculum Unit (Bahagian Pembangunan Kurikulum) under the MOE invited History Subject Specialist teachers (Guru Cemerlang Sejarah), including History textbook authors, for a workshop on using the Frog VLE to enhance teaching through collaborating and sharing of content nationwide.

During the three-day workshop, participants created Frog Lesson Sites for the Form Four and Form Five syllabus and sent them to the MOE repository for approval and publication. These Sites will soon be available on the FrogStore, accessible by History teachers from all over Malaysia through the Frog VLE. 

Additionally, a group called eKIS (Komuniti Ilmu Sejarah) was created by the History Subject Specialist teachers for History teachers nationwide to network and communicate, in order to continually improve the quality and standard of teaching for the subject.

Watch the video below to hear the Guru Cemerlang Sejarah share their thoughts on the Frog VLE:

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FrogAsia Goes to London!

Last month, FrogAsia together with Frogtrade UK took part in the British Education and Training Technology (BETT) show held at ExCel Stadium, London. The four-day exhibition gathered an international crowd of around 30,000 stakeholders in the education and technology field. It was a whirlwind of excitement as exhibitors and their eye-catching stands from around the globe packed the hall to promote their latest tools and best practices in education technology.

A few names worth mentioning among the many exhibition stands present were Microsoft, Lego Education, Twig, Pearson, Designmate, Intel Education, and Google. 

The Frog stand's impressive set up gathered familiar Frog VLE stakeholders and was a hit even among new BETT visitors with its trademark blue and brightly-colored merchandise taking prominence over the general scene of the exhibition hall.

New to the Frog family is the games-based app, I Am Learning, that is currently available on the FrogStore. The shared space between I Am Learning and Frog proved to be a powerful duo as BETT visitors and potential stakeholders could see how the capabilities of the Frog VLE, combined with the games-based assessment tools provided by I Am Learning, enhances the teaching and learning experience.

Frogtrade UK's Training and Implementation Consultant, Justin Blytth explains how the VLE is made relevant to the 21st century student through usage of a touchscreen. 

FrogAsia's Head of Transformation, Elizabeth Lopez shares her excitement about the 1BestariNet project. 

FrogAsia also took the opportunity to showcase at BETT the achievements and successes of the 1BestariNet project thus far, together with updates on Frog's progress in Malaysia. We had the opportunity of presenting authentically-Malaysian content within our VLE as well as success stories from our Champion Schools to the many international visitors that stopped by the Frog booth.

FrogAsia's Marketing Manager, Adrian Loh, explains how the 1BestariNet project provides an integrated solution to over 10,000 schools in Malaysia. 

Frogtrade UK's Carl and FrogAsia's Aizat at the BETT show, receiving a "Hello from Malaysia!" greeting from the students in SK Sri Petaling, through the innovative Frog platform. 

Billy Downie, Headteacher of Streetly Academy, presenting Streetly Academy's journey to success, and how they incorporated the use of the Frog VLE in the process. 

The FrogAsia team, proud to be "Changing a Nation". From left: Adrian Loh, Lou Yeoh, Elizabeth Lopez, Aizat Iziyani, and Sarah Lim. 

The BETT show was indeed an exciting experience and an eye-opener as to how the future of education is being shaped with the diverse range of education technology tools that are in the market today. It was particularly inspiring to see what could possibly work for our local schools to bring education in Malaysia to a whole new dimension.

FrogAsia would also like to thank Frogtrade UK for their excellent hospitality throughout BETT. We had a fantastic time working with you guys and we're looking forward to an exciting future for Frog!

CBN Prefects Go Frog!

Prefects from Convent Bukit Nanas (CBN), one of our pilot schools that has recently taken the lead in going paperless for 2013, impressed us with their spirit, enthusiasm, and creativity in using the Frog VLE. Together with the help of their teacher adviser, the CBN prefects took the initiative to develop a Prefects Site on the Frog VLE, which gave the prefects an avenue to make their voices heard and communicate with the rest of the school.

The Site has been independently driven by the prefectorial team, who regularly post up relevant topics and actively collaborate on it. By using the Wall widget on their site, they encourage other students to contribute and share their thoughts on topics of relevance.

This engaging site has interesting bytes of information like Interview of the Month, Highlight of the Week (which includes book, song and picture of the week), Just Sayin' (a channel for all students to freely express themselves), Dear Prefects (an advice column), and Discover (which currently highlights Architecture as a career).

We found it incredibly refreshing to talk to these young leaders who are getting a head start in learning to speak their minds and lead their peers. Their well-crafted Prefects Site is a testimony to their talent and creativity.

Watch the video below to see what these bright sparks have to say about Frog.

CBN goes paperless to streamline admin work on Frog

Going paperless is a sure mark of a school that is harnessing technology efficiently, cutting down cost, time, and effort spent on administrative tasks. The teachers and students at SMK Convent Bukit Nanas have shown their utmost enthusiasm in making the VLE a part of their daily use for administration purposes as well as for teaching and learning (TnL). 

This puts them as one of the current leading schools under the 1BestariNet Champion School Programme as both administration and TnL usage on the Frog VLE are activities at the core of the programme.

According to CBN’s Senior Assistant (Academic & Administration) Puan Chee, SMK CBN faces a tight budget being a mission school, as financial aid is different from that of other schools. She sees the Frog VLE as a simple solution to this. 

In efforts to cut down the cost of paper, all administrative documents are uploaded to the VLE and shared among teachers within the school. Also, instead of printing calendars for teachers this year, their school calendar is now available on the VLE where changes can always be made easily when necessary, and viewed by all teachers, instantly. 

“We often have problems of having too much clerical work to do, such as the printing and sorting out of papers. Therefore going paperless would be ideal for us administrators. Save money, save time, save paper,” she said.

Holiday homework was also given to CBN students via the Frog VLE. This way, students can access their homework easily from their personal computers at home without the school needing to spend extra on printing homework paper. Students would also be able to submit their homework during the holidays by uploading their assignments to the VLE. 

Teaching and Learning tools on the Frog VLE go beyond just quick transfers of assignments between teacher and student. CBN’s Physics teacher, Puan Tan, uploaded all her teaching materials including videos and Powerpoint presentation modules to the Frog VLE. This was so that her students could access them as many times as needed instead of only using these materials once during class, especially if a student misses the lesson.

“Technology is much better than a chalk and talk lesson,” she said. “It is more interactive as it has video and audio coming together, making the lesson more interesting and engaging for students.”

Like many other schools, CBN's journey with Frog had its fair share of getting used to a new method of doing things.  

"When the VLE was first introduced, we often said that we had no time to visit the website or that we had problems accessing it. But after sometime, we got used to it and we now understand how to log into the VLE and use it. We've found that it has become easier for us," said Puan Noor Haida who is an Assistant Exam Secretary at CBN. 

Well done CBN! We're proud of you and excited to see just how much more you can do with Frog!

Team Thoughts: New Things for a New Year!

What is FrogAsia all about? And why should you care? While we could point you to our website, we’d rather tell you in our own words so you can get to know us just a little more. 

We asked FrogAsia's Design Executive, Vinnie Chan, what she looked forward to most when going Back2School. Here's what she has to say: 

Vinnie, Alumni of SMK Convent Sentul

“When I was a highschooler, the thing I looked forward to most when going Back2School was all the new stuff!

New bag, new pencil case, new uniform, new EVERYTHING! I just loved new stationery and new things for a new school year! 

That was really the best thing about going Back2School. :)”