Darren Moon

Moon Jihoon  /  Changwon, South Korea

Darren Moon

I get people to work in new ways when nothing obliges them to. Ten years of that inside Korea's public school system, where teachers, principals and parents can all quietly decline.

Founding board president and executive advisor of a 600-member digital educators' alliance, and co-researcher on four provincial education policy reports. This page lists what has been published or covered by others. Most of the work never is, so it is a partial record by design.

Most of what follows is in Korean. Some items have no public link because the material is held in print or sits in institutional records.

2026

Generative AI for thirty-five vice principals

In October I taught 35 vice principals in a provincial office of education programme how to use generative AI in their own work, what to watch for, such as bias and personal data leaks, and how to back teachers who adopt it and keep that use safe.

2026

Champion sessions for educators from Taiwan, Japan and Korea

In October I planned the Champion sessions and coordinated the speakers for a Google for Education Champions event in Yakushima, Japan, for educators from Taiwan, Japan and Korea. I opened the sessions with a photo bingo icebreaker on an AI-assisted tool I built and led a session on bias in AI-generated images.

2026

Fifteen-session course on AI and digital competency for teachers

디지털 완행열차 · 교원 AI·디지털 교육역량 마스터 클래스

Built by seven teachers from Gyeongnam province against the Ministry of Education's 2026 competency framework. I wrote three sessions on teaching and assessment design and delivery. Hosted on the National Education Training Institute platform, which serves teachers nationwide.

2026

A learning product for slow learners, built with a software company

해밀이음 · 2주기 교육현안 해결형 에듀테크 프로젝트

Our team of three teachers was selected in the Ministry of Education and KERIS national competition for teacher and company teams, with two years of government funding, to build a learning product for students with borderline intellectual functioning. The software company writes the code and we own the learning design, validation and school pilots. I lead the social and emotional strand, recruit the pilot schools and experts, and present the project. One feature I proposed, a "text diet" that shows the key words before the full sentence, went in after we brought special education and counselling practitioners into the decision.

2026

Bringing Google's AI course for educators into Korean

Our chapter union localised the US edition of Google's AI Educator Series into Korean and introduced it to Korean teachers through training sessions. In August I directed the Google for Education booth built on the series at the national science, mathematics and information teachers' conference at BEXCO, which showed classroom AI use to more than 250 people.

2026

A ten-session certification bootcamp for a company's leadership team

Running a certification track for seven people including the chief executive, in their own meeting room. It began as preparation for moving to Google Workspace at enterprise level. By the midpoint the team was proposing where else to take it without being asked. All seven have since earned Google Certified Educator Levels 1 and 2.

2026

A Google for Education roadshow for about 120 teachers

Held with Google for Education at Changwon National University in May. I planned it, secured the venue through the university's software programme, sent official notices to institutions under the provincial office of education, promoted it through our own communities, set the speaker budget and line-up, and ran the day from the microphone to the car park. The cap of 100 filled and we opened about 20 more places.

2026

Leading a Korean delegation to Singapore

A cross-sector delegation I designed and led under Kookmin University's Global Insight Expedition. The team drew on accounting, geotechnical engineering, banking, e-commerce, university administration, and public education. The Grange Institution later covered the visit.

thegrange.edu.sg  ·  in English

2026

Joining the southeast edtech alliance

부산대학교 × 동남권 에듀테크 Alliance

A regional alliance built in stages at Pusan National University. The first round in 2025 included Microsoft Korea, KT and LG Uplus. G-DEAL signed in the second round, one of twelve organisations alongside two universities, the Busan city government, the metropolitan office of education and academic societies. Over a hundred companies took part in the exchange around it. I attended and spoke as G-DEAL's representative.

cnbnews.com  ·  asiae.co.kr on the first round

2026

Co-founding an Asia-Pacific educator coalition

GrowSA launched in June with an operating team spanning Korea, Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan. It grew out of a one-to-one exchange between Korean and Indonesian educator groups. We deliver training to educators outside Korea through the network, in person and online, and the coalition covers nine participating countries and roughly 800 educators by a conservative count.

2026

Mentoring fifty teacher learning communities

Advisory committee member for the Ministry of Education and Seoul National University's 2026 programme for vocational high school teachers, mentoring 50 professional learning community teams.

2025
–2026

Reviewing trainer certification applications

I review Korean-language applications for Google Certified Trainer certification with Deploy Learning, an Australia-based Google for Education PD partner, and have reviewed more than 300 so far.

2025
–2026

Three provincial AI education grants, won in the same cycle

Digital transformation, AI literacy, and specialist teacher training. Mine was the only school in the province to secure all three. The province selects twenty-one schools in total across primary, middle and high school levels. I wrote each application, ran vendor selection under public procurement rules, and cleared the provincial audit without finding. The provincial office then asked me to present to other schools on how the budget was used.

2025

A study visit to Google Korea and NAVER for twenty-four principals

In December I used part of one grant to plan and run, on my own, a two-day study visit for 24 school principals to the offices of Google Korea and NAVER, with an evening session for reflection and feedback, on bringing AI and edtech into how they run their schools.

2025

Co-hosting a national edtech expo

2025 K-에듀 웨이브 부산

A teacher-led education expo at BEXCO with about 150 booths, backed by the Ministry of Education, the Busan metropolitan office of education and KERIS. G-DEAL was one of the co-hosts. I organised and directed it with our executive leader, as the alliance's former chapter leader and advisor.

te.co.kr

2025

Thirty lessons for an AI writing product

Twelve teachers, five grade-band teams, thirty lessons of social and emotional learning content for Teampl100's writing tool, produced in Canva between July and December. I ran the operations. One template, one metadata standard, a shared schedule, and a payment split that paid the design work separately so the writers could think about content alone. The lessons are live in the product.

2023
–2025

School in the New Light

A Google for Education programme for teachers. I lectured to over a thousand educators in Busan and to three hundred and fifty in Daegu. Both figures are conservative counts.

2024

Why the tool was never the point

[G-DEAL] 신규 교사가 학습공동체를 만난 이유

A column I wrote for The Edu on why edtech only works once the lesson design does. It also traces G-DEAL's origins back to my asking a senior colleague where they had learned to collect a staff dinner order in Google Sheets.

te.co.kr

2024

A forty-five part series on digital education in practice

The Edu ran a series through the second half of 2024 on what G-DEAL's member communities were actually doing in classrooms, from drone instruction to assessment design to AI education. I wrote one of the opening pieces and helped shape the run.

te.co.kr  ·  the series and other G-DEAL coverage

2024

The alliance at its founding

경상디지털교육자연합 창립총회 개최

Electronic Times coverage of G-DEAL's founding assembly. The alliance grew out of a Google Educator Group chapter I helped start in 2019 and later led. It opened with about 200 educators and now has 600.

etnews.com

2024

A partnership agreement with EDULIFT

Electronic Times coverage of a cooperation agreement between G-DEAL and EDULIFT, covering jointly designed teacher training and a shared pool of specialists.

etnews.com

2021
–2024

Four provincial education policy reports

Co-researcher on four reports published by the Gyeongnam Office of Education. The 2024 report was written with two university professors of education.

  • 2024How digital transformation changes what teachers do 디지털 전환에 따른 교사 직무수행 변화에 대한 교사 인식과 지원 방안 연구 · gnfe.gne.go.kr
  • 2023Teacher agency and edtech learning communities 교사 행위자성에 기반한 에듀테크 교사 학습공동체 활성화 방안 연구 · gnfe.gne.go.kr
  • 2022Metaverse in the classroom 메타버스 활용 교육의 학교 현장 적용 사례연구 · gnfe.gne.go.kr
  • 2021Blended learning in practice 블렌디드 수업의 현장 적용 방안 연구 · gnfe.gne.go.kr
2019
–2020

From a failed rollout to province-wide training

My first attempt to bring digital tools into my school failed in 2019. I started again with a few curious colleagues, ran short sessions for them and had them lead open lessons for everyone else. When the pandemic hit, the school was among the fastest in the province to move online. In 2020 the provincial office of education invited me as the instructor for its online-teaching training for all teachers in Gyeongsangnam-do, and Seoul National University's Teacher Training Institute has invited me back every year since.