In the situation of Covid-19, digital transformation in vocational training is more urgent than ever. At LILAMA 2, initial steps have been planned and implemented, from technical facilities to human resource. A two-day training course in using digital tools conducted at LILAMA 2 on January 16 and January 23, 2021 by Dr Christian Hoffmann – the GIZ’s Development Advisor to enhance the capacity of teachers in online teaching. Aimed for teachers at Mechanical faculty, this was the first course in digital topic which concentrated in the instruction to online teaching, the application of free online tools to create interactive questionnaires (e.g. mentimeter) and online conferences (e.g. Google Hangout Meet, Skype, Zoom). The teachers also had a great opportunity to experience a course on Moodle from a user’s perspective to see how training contents could be delivered with different exercises and activities.

Apart from computer-based sessions, the workshop applied the “total physical response” theory to organize discussion in which participants could remember a topic better through an exciting activity. Through the “TV battle”, the teachers were divided into two teams, each team chose a leader to take turn to point out the advantages and disadvantages of traditional learning versus online learning. The whole class came to a conclusion that in vocational training, it is important to figure out which modules can be taught online, meanwhile some modules must be carried out in an actual workshop with the support from some online theoretical sessions.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Dung, the Dean of the Mechanical faculty, shared his thoughts about the course: “We already knew the tools like Zoom or Skype but we only had limited experience with them. We mostly used them for online meeting during the pandemic. The workshop has helped us see how powerful these tools are, we now know how to share the powerpoint slides effectively as well as the pros and cons of each tool to choose an appropriate one for our own use.”

This activity was held within the component “Supporting High-Quality TVET Institutes” as part of the Vietnamese-German “Programme Reform of TVET in Viet Nam”. The programme is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) together with the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA).