SaigonNezumi.com » AIS

Update from Saigon (Working in International Schools)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:47:43 +0000

Well, now I am moving unto Year 6. I am making some new changes starting this month in regards to my work with international schools here in Saigon.

Last week, I completed my third year as the part-time Computer Science/ICT Teacher at the American International School. The first two years were interesting but the last year was a bit long. AIS now has three campuses and will be opening their main campus in Nha Be, past Phu My Hung, in January, 2011. They did receive their IB so I wish them the best in the future. There really is no passion for education at AIS that I felt at the Zaman International School in Cambodia and the Horizon International Bilingual School (HIBS) in Vietnam.

One school that will exemplify a true passion of education is the newly formed The American School of Vietnam (TAS). I will fill in two weeks for their ICT teacher. The two weeks will be a great transition for me. I will be moving from an American educational environment at TAS to a British educational environment at HIBS.

I will be fully on board at HIBS, also known as Horizon, starting July 1st. My first task is to work with the IT Teachers and principal to implement the Moodle learning management system before the start of the 2010-2011 school year. We will use Moodle system wide between the 5 HIBS campuses located in Saigon and Hanoi. We are pretty much going to implement an entirely new IT network at Horizon that will meet international standards including using interactive wide boards and distance learning. Expect me to blog a lot about my IT work at Horizon. Time permitting, I will also teach the Computer Studies course based on the Cambridge system.

Transitioning to HIBS will be great, it will mean I can get to eat Turkish food everyday. That is a huge benefit in itself and the Turkish management is very supportive of education. Most people may have never heard of Horizon. The school is about 5 years old but in the next 5 years, I guarantee you will hear a lot about this school.

Thus, starting this month, I will be lucky enough to work at 2 of the top 5 best international schools in Saigon (The other three are the British International School, International School Ho Chi Minh City, and South Saigon International School). These five place quality and education over quantity and profit. If you are a parent, these values should be very important. The other international schools do not seem to place any value on quality anymore. To determine whether an international school is focusing on quality or not, just look at the turnover of the teachers and staff. The higher quality international schools can retain their teachers and staff, the lower quality cannot.

Just my ten cents worth on international schools in Saigon…

Zaman International School While I was in Phnom Penh, I visited my Turkish...
The American School of Vietnam Well, I think I am a bit behind the times...
IT class update, more Vietnamese Linux users :-) Well, I just completed week 3 at the American International...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I got my work permit (^_^)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:09:37 +0000

Well, finally, after trying for nearly 10 months, I got my work permit. I can now legally work in Vietnam for the Horizon International Bilingual School for the next 3 years in various capacities relating to IT. My work permit can be extended three times possibly up to 9 more years for a total of 12 years.

My school is now working on getting me my 3 year temporary resident card.

Yes, it was a bit difficult to get my work permit. I originally started with my company, SLG Vscapeone. Due to problems related to my ex-business partner, the documents filled out for the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISA) were incorrectly filled out. One document listed me as General Director, the other as Assistant Manager. Yes, this was purposely done and many know I was forced to leave Vietnam for 4 days to fix my visa in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last March. Now everything is good to go and I hope many Expats do not have to experience the headache I went through.

So here is my recap on how “Americans” can get their work permits. There are still many who need to obtain them before the July deadline at which point Vietnam will start to deport those foreigners who do not hold work permits.

Rule #1, DO NOT USE AN AGENT to get your work permit. They are worthless and not worth the time and money you will spend with them. I used my ex-business partner’s friend who, for nearly 5 months, did nothing to help me obtain my work permit though I had to pay him. When Horizon resubmitted the forms, we had to start from scratch (minus the police report and health check). My lawyer filled out my job experience form. Skip the agent, ask your employers or very close friend to help you. You have to do most of the work anyway.

Here we go:

1. Diploma: First thing first, get your university diploma (DoLISA only needs the latest one) notarized in the US. Contact your university and tell them that you need a copy of your diploma notarized. Indiana University required me to FedEx my original master’s diploma to them ($48 US) to start the process. Be sure to tell them that Vietnam is not a member of the Hague Convention so it does not recognize the apostille. This is very important.

For me, the process started after IU got my diploma. It first went to Monroe County for an apostille ($1 US). The apostille here is okay since you need the notarized stamp from the state-level, not the county-level. From there a registered notary republic at IU notarized my diploma (Free) and then sent it to the Secretary of State for Indiana. This took a couple days but in the end, you should have a Gold State Seal on your document with the country apostille and a notarized stamp.

From there, have the Secretary of State’s office FedEx your document to a relative or friend in the US ($30 US). Then they will FedEx it to the Department of State for authentication ($8). Go to this website to fill out the form: http://www.state.gov/m/a/auth/ Be sure to include a ‘domestic’ FedEx airbill so it can be sent back to you. For me, it took less than 5 business days to process but unfortunately now, it takes 25 business days. Once they authenticate the notarized stamp, they will append a tan document with Madam Secretary Hilary Clinton’s signature with a gold ring. They then will FedEx this back to you (if you included the airbill – $30 US).

Now the last part is to FedEx the document to the Vietnam Embassy in Washington, DC. This time include an international FedEx airbill with an address to Vietnam ($48). Make a check out for Vietnam Embassy and send it to the following address:

Embassy of Vietnam
1233 20th St NW, Suite 400 – Washington, DC 20036

It was cost $50 US to legalize your diploma and another $20 US to expedite it. It took only one day for me to get the legalized stamp at the Embassy and then they FedEx the document back to my school in Vietnam.

Once you get the legalized document, it will need to be translated into Vietnamese by an authorized translator. When they are done, the translated diploma will be submitted you can keep your diploma. The translated diploma is good for six months.

2. Criminal Background Check: If you have been in Vietnam for less than 6 months, you will need to get a criminal background check from the US. This will need to be authenticated and legalized as above but I am not sure if it will be double the price.

For those who have been in Vietnam for over 6 months, you can just do it here. Just ask your landlord where you lived for six months (should be in one house) to give you the housebook. You then will take this to the Judiciary Department on Pasteur street. They will have you fill out some forms there. They are very helpful so if you do not have an interpretor, you should be okay. After you submit and pay for the fee (I think about 100,000 VND), they will give you a receipt which tells you when to return to pick up your background check.

3. Health Check: You can do this at Cho Ray, Columbia Asia, or Family Medical Practice. I think it was about $40 US but I forgot. They will know what to do. You can pick the results the next day and they are good for 6 months.

4. The Rest: Your employer will help you translate your resume into Vietnamese based on DoLISA’s guidelines. They will also fill out two more forms stating your Job Title and duties with their company. You will need to submit 4-5 passport pictures as well. They will also need an ‘official’ copy of your passport and visa.

It took 20 business days for me to get my work permit and the forms were submitted to DoLISA. Overall, I paid nearly $700 US for my work permit process but it should only cost around $350-400 US if you do it by yourself. Much cheaper if you are in the US.

My lawyer was very helpful in this matter after the “agent” really messed up things. HIBS was the lifesaver in getting my work permit processed in the end but I give a lot of credit to my lawyer who helped me figure out how to finally authenticate and legalize my diploma. Even DoLISA was helpful back in March in explaining the process.

For now, if you needed to start your work permit process FROM Vietnam, it should take about 2-3 months.

Best of luck to those seeking work permits in Vietnam. Email me if you need any help. Again, avoid the agents, they just cost needless money…

Work Permit Update – Authenticating Well, here is another update in regard to my work...
Work Permit Update – Diploma approved by MFA First of all, my apologies to the Ministry of Foreign...
Work Permit and Visa Hassles Yesterday was the first working day of the Year of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The American School of Vietnam

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:21:59 +0000

Well, I think I am a bit behind the times in regards to new international schools in Saigon. I found out that Fran Radano has helped open another high-quality school in Vietnam called The American School of Vietnam. I met Fran about 5 years ago when he was still running Cleverlearn which attained a good reputation for high-quality while he was working there.

The American School of Vietnam

About 3 years ago he also helped form the American International School where I currently teach ICT part-time. At the time, I accepted the part-time position because of Fran. AIS had an early reputation for high-quality, I use these word with Fran a lot, before switching to a business model focusing on quantity over quality. Fran left over a year ago and I heard rumors that he was forming his own international school. I got the actual name a couple weeks ago.

Below is the school profile I took off the website:

Located in the tranquil suburb of Thao Dien, in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 2, The American School of Vietnam is a fully-licensed international school program designed by American educators experienced in the development and operation of American and international schools. An independent and private college preparatory school with a highly individualized and personalized program, The American School of Vietnam offers a strong, US-based curriculum for Kindergarten through Grade 12. The newly-built primary and secondary campuses have state-of-the-art technology in each classroom, two libraries, well-equipped science and computer labs, dance and drama studios, an intimate auditorium, swimming pool, soccer field, basketball court, and rock climbing wall. On a secure, safe and friendly campus, just minutes over the Saigon Bridge, in an undisturbed setting, free of city noise, led by a faculty of fully-credentialed, enthusiastic, dedicated American and international teachers, the school prepares students for the demand, rigor, and academic challenge of America’s universities.

From the website I do recognize some good American teachers. This school has a good future. Consider it more as a college predatory or gifted school since this time around, I suspect the high-quality standards Fran is well known for will remain.

Best of luck to Fran and The American School of Vietnam! This is the definitely one of the schools parents should send their children to…

Website: http://www.theamericanschool.edu.vn

Update from Saigon (Working in International Schools) Well, now I am moving unto Year 6. I am...
My favorite student at The American School Today I was so happy when I arrived to The...
Zaman International School While I was in Phnom Penh, I visited my Turkish...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Surprise birthday party at AIS

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:07:38 +0000

Last Friday was my 38th birthday. I went to my IT class at the American International School and was surprised to find two of my students, Joy and Long, had prepared a surprise party for me. Joy had made me some pasta with spaghetti sauce, sushi for the entire class and brought a huge cake. Boy was I glad I skipped lunch that day.

Thanks Joy and Long! This will be a memorable AIS moment for me to reflect upon in the future.

My Birthday Cake at the American International School, it says 'Big Belly' and 'Handsome'on the cake.

Joy preparing for the surprise party

Early Birthday Gift from a Friend One of my friends surprised me yesterday by sending me...
Birthday Party with SaigonTech Students Yesterday afternoon I joined my SaigonTech students to celebrate 4...
Bill’s Birthday Party – SaigonTech My student, Bill, had a birthday party last month. Had...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Free and Open Source Software Feature on VTV (Vietnam)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:09:09 +0000

I mentioned over a month ago that VTV visited my Linux Lab. A couple weeks ago they aired the 10 minute segment on VTV. I know several of the guys featured on the program including An Nguyen of SaigonLUG and Professor Son from the University of Education. The open source community is starting to grow in Saigon but it still has 5-10 years to mature. It is definitely more active then 5 years ago which is very positive.

My piece is at the 7 minute mark after the interview with Professor Son. Oh, the entire clip is in Vietnamese…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sorry for adding this late, I posted it on Facebook over a week ago and then just got lazy

Vietnam Ministry Appraises Open Source Software The Ministry of Information and Communication currently is appraising open...
Opportunities for open source software in Vietnam Thanks to Tracy Reed for forwarding this story. 2008 could...
VTV visited my Linux lab today Ms. Quynh Ngoc from VTV visited my Linux lab at...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

VTV visited my Linux lab today

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:23:19 +0000

Ms. Quynh Ngoc from VTV visited my Linux lab at the American International School today through a referral by An Nguyen of SaigonLUG. Though we knew about it for a couple days, we only received permission from the school at the last minute. My students were not prepared but since this was a normal lab day, I was not worried.

This is actually my third academic year using Linux and open source software at AIS. For their ICT projects, the majority of my students are using either Synfig Studio, Blender and/or GIMP this quarter on either Ubuntu Linux or Windows platforms. I am impressed at how fast they transitioned to Linux and open source software. My 10th, 11th, and 12th graders this year are definitely my brightest open source users to date. I will blog about some of their projects in late January, 2010.

The visit by VTV was went okay. They just visited one class and got the footage they needed. Long, my ICT student, and I were interviewed outside the classroom. That was a little nervous for a guy who hates cameras.

I am glad that Vietnam is taking a stronger look into open source now. I also thank AIS for supporting open source and Linux from the first day I started there back in 2006. Our students will be some of the leading IT experts in the future, in my opinion…

IT class update, more Vietnamese Linux users :-) Well, I just completed week 3 at the American International...
Free and Open Source Software Feature on VTV (Vietnam) I mentioned over a month ago that VTV visited my...
Ubuntu Grading today Well, today was the day. It was time to start...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

IT class update, more Vietnamese Linux users :-)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Well, I just completed week 3 at the American International School here in Saigon, Vietnam. I signed a one year contract to teach 2 ICT classes part-time for about 40 high school students ranging from the 9th – 12th grades. This most likely will be my last year teaching IT at this school do to my limited amount of time I have outside of my company.

This year my curriculum and syllabus were prepared for me before the school year started. As usual, I decided to add an open source component to my curriculum. My students were very receptive and by the end of week 3, the majority of my students already installed Ubuntu Linux on their laptops or netbooks. Ubuntu has come a long ways since my first Vietnamese student installed Ubuntu nearly two years ago. I only had to take about 4 netbooks home the last week to get them running properly, mostly just wifi issues. One of my brightest student was able to get the hda sound card to work after some tweaking. He also had the coolest laptop running Compiz. Yes, I allowed the Mac users to keep running their Macbooks in class

For the individual IT projects, I decided to make it interesting for most of my students. My students had to either design an airplane with X-Plane‘s Planemaker, design their future Saigon house with QCad, or edit music with Audacity. For the first quarter, I want them to learn how to use their chosen software (over half decided to use QCad which surprised me). The goal by the end of the year is to match the Audacity students with the Planemaker and QCad students. I want all the student groups to create a movie of their QCad or Planemaker projects. This seems quite exciting from an IT teacher’s point of view.

For me, one of the goal of these IT projects is to get my students to teach themselves how to learn the new software. You will be amazed at how fast Vietnamese IT students can learn new software. I also found them some really nice YouTube tutorials as well that will help them thanks to the help of my students (See below).

I am looking forward to my final year with my IT students. Hopefully by the end of the year, I will post some good movies of my student’s IT projects.

Audacity Tutorials

Click here to view the embedded video.

Planemaker Tutorials

Click here to view the embedded video.

QCad Tutorials

Click here to view the embedded video.

My Vietnamese 8th Graders are new Linux users With just less than one month left of class, I...
VTV visited my Linux lab today Ms. Quynh Ngoc from VTV visited my Linux lab at...
Ubuntu Linux Install Week at AIS Picture Gallery It all started at the beginning of last week. I...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My Vietnamese 8th Graders are new Linux users

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:21:19 +0000

With just less than one month left of class, I decided to see if my 8th Grade students at the American International School in Saigon would be interested in learning Linux. I am glad I tried because these kids seemed to be having a lot of fun.

This week I just wanted them to learn the basic Linux command line. Since the school only uses Windows XP, I worked with the IT staff and got Putty installed on all of the student computers. They then used Putty and and secure shelled to my Easy Peasy Ubuntu Netbook. I just created one generic username and password for my 8th Graders. Next week they will all get their own accounts on my Netbook. I just wanted them to get a feel of Linux first.

Last Friday they had fun playing with the mkdir command as you will be able to see in the below photos. My students are very bright and quick learners. Most aced my first Quiz on the command line last Friday as well. My goal for this month is to teach my students how to create a simple webpage with the command line and the text editor, nano. That is what they really want to learn anyway, making their own webpages

Next year if I have these students, I will have them install Ubuntu Linux on their laptops. Add another 50 new Linux users in Vietnam…

Fun with mkdir and Putty

(Read the directory -> kevinxauzhai means Kevin is Ugly )

IT class update, more Vietnamese Linux users :-) Well, I just completed week 3 at the American International...
Ubuntu Linux Install Week at AIS Picture Gallery It all started at the beginning of last week. I...
First Ubuntu Linux Lesson at AIS Finally, all laptops and netbooks have a variant of Ubuntu...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mozilla comments on Vietnam

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:58:59 +0000

Mozilla Developer and Blogger Gen Kanai, just posted an entry looking at the survey of Internet users in Vietnam that some may find interesting.

Gen Kanai is helping the Mozilla Foundation launch the first Vietnamese language version of Firefox 3.5 for the Vietnamese market. This will be one of the first attempts to provide an internet browser for Vietnamese speakers who do not speak English.

Last month, my students helped out by testing Firefox 3.1 Beta (not known as Firefox 3.5 Beta) for the Mozilla Foundation. Gen Kanai posted the feedback from my AIS students on his blog.

Browser Wars Update – Google Chrome back up Just checked the stats for the browser usage of the...
Chrome down, Firefox Up Big change since I posted 6.8% Chrome usage – SaigonNezumi.com. ...
6.8% Chrome usage – SaigonNezumi.com PCMech was reporting 5.67% Chrome usage for their blog. I...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Thanks Vivian (Ha)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:49:17 +0000

When I arrived into the Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) International Airport, I was surprised to see one of my former AIS students, Vivian (Ha), at customs. We were both waiting for our luggage when she noticed me. It turned out we both flew on the same EVA Air flight from Taipai. Vivian was returning to Seattle after visiting her parents in Hanoi.

Vivian was kind enough to lend me her cell phone so I could call my parents who were already at the airport.

Thanks for your help Vivian

(Vivian (Ha) on the airport subway)

Returning to Vietnam Returning to Vietnam on this trip took me roughly 23...
At Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport What luxury, finally I you can get access to the...
Saigon to Taipai – Eva Air Finally got my computer connected to the Internet with some...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.