Mr Gan Chin Huat, Deputy Director, East Zone Schools

Cluster Superintendents

Principals

Distinguished Guests

Teachers, students

Good Afternoon

INTRODUCTION

1.         It gives me great pleasure to join you this afternoon for the Official Opening of the East Zone Centre of Excellence (COE) for Information and Communications Technology (or ICT for short).

2.         In the last decade or so, we have witnessed the transforming power of ICT on education, business and economics.  Today, educators all over the world await the promise of technology's power to pave the way for further improvements in the educational system.[1]  By observing how our students today interact with great finesse with the technological tools available to them, we catch a glimpse of the potential of ICT to put individuals in charge of and in control of their own learning.

THE FUTURE OF LEARNING

3.         In the area of education, we can expect ICT to continue to empower individuals to learn at their own pace, place and time.  The written text and physical walls of classrooms will no longer place limits on teaching and learning, as teachers and students tap on a wealth of interactive digital resources either individually or collaboratively through virtual communities. Both within and beyond the school, teachers will be able to monitor the progress of learners through new assessment modes.

4.         Given this exciting glimpse of the possibilities in our education landscape, how will teaching and learning be like in 10 to 20 years’ time? How will our classrooms be transformed?  What kind of relationships will teachers have with their students, and students with their peers?  What will our schools’ curriculum comprise?  How will timetables be structured to leverage on the resources available to us?

5.         No one can tell for sure, but an interesting video posted on Youtube by Dr Tony O’Driscoll of IBM might give us an insight into the myriad possibilities.  In this video, he talks about the seven sensibilities of learning in three dimensions.  To give you a glimpse of what the future of learning could be like, I will briefly touch on two of them.  Let us first watch a video clip on the ‘Sense of Space.’

[VIDEO 1 – Sense of Space 1 min 45 secs]

6.         Chemistry teachers, can you imagine what it will be like to just call out the name of an element and have its molecular structure rendered immediately?  This clip highlights that learning in three dimensions will require a change in our concept and sense of space.  The way we perceive things will be quite different especially since we will be able to interact with the molecular structure of virtually any element that interests us.  Let us now look at the next video clip which shows architecture students combining their skills in a virtual environment to build a house.

 [VIDEO 2 – Architecture students co-creating in virtual space – 55 secs ]

7.         This clip gives an inkling into the dynamics of ‘group work’ in a virtual environment.  Students will have the power to co-create knowledge and see it materialize in real time.  The immediate feedback they get will accelerate their learning.

8.         I hope these two short clips give you a feel of the possibilities of immersive learning in a virtual world.  With a host of different tools and applications, ICT will transform learning and enable more realistic experimental and experiential learning for our students.

TRAIL-BLAZING IN THREE AREAS

9.         All these changes are exciting but they can also be unsettling, especially for some of our teachers.  Indeed, our students will be more at ease in this environment than many from my generation.  How do we challenge them and how can we make sure that we keep pace with them so that schooling remains current, relevant and stimulating?  I’m glad to know that the East Zone COE ICT, venturing into this frontier, will endeavour to lead the direction for schools in the East.  It will blaze a trail in 3 areas simultaneously, namely:

a)         Enriching the curriculum,

b)         Enhancing capacities and competencies, and

c)         Establishing partnerships.

Let me elaborate on each of them.

ENRICHING THE CURRICULUM

10.       First, to enrich the curriculum, the East Zone COE ICT will actively encourage all east zone schools to enmesh ICT in teaching and learning.  The 30 innovative ICT projects by East Zone schools on display this afternoon at both centres are worthy examples of how the use of ICT can spur teaching and learning.  For example, pupils at Eunos Primary have innovatively added another dimension to learning with data loggers. Besides using data loggers to compare the differences in temperature and air humidity as part of a joint project with their counterparts in Xiamen, China, they also had to prepare instructional materials in Chinese to teach their friends in Xiamen how to use the data logging equipment.  This project not only heightened pupils' awareness of the interactions between organisms and the environment and how these contribute to the differences in the measurements taken, but also provided the opportunity for pupils to hone their Chinese language skills.

11.       With some ingenuity, many commonplace ICT tools can be used in innovative ways to enrich the curriculum.  It is not necessary to always use cutting-edge technology for teaching and learning.  Rather it is more essential to have a teacher who can spark students’ imagination and facilitate their learning journey.

ENHANCING CAPACITIES AND COMPETENCIES

12.       Hence, the COE ICT is committed to enhancing the competencies of teachers and school leaders.  As we progress further into the digital age, the role that teachers play will be even more critical, in helping students make sense of the information at their disposal and to do so using the right values. Take Google or Wikipedia for example.  These are huge information repositories but unless you ask the right questions and make the right decisions, you won’t find what you are looking for or derive the appropriate conclusions.  Also, whether you choose to live life in the real world or a virtual life through an avatar, you will still need to have a set of sound values.

13.       In these situations, you can see that the teacher’s role will have to change from that of purveyor of knowledge to instigator, promoter, coach, helper, model, and guide to knowledge construction.  Teachers need not be experts in using the computer nor all the software tools.  However, they can show their students how to go about discovering what they do not know and use the new knowledge gained to solve problems and make decisions.  Teachers must become more willing to accept different perspectives and interpretations of the world and yet, make sure that when students offer these perspectives that they are based on facts and evidence and not an extension of their fantasies.  Because of this changing role, enhancing school leaders’ and teachers’ capacities will be one of the key success factors for the effective use of ICT in teaching and learning.

14.       To this end, the East Zone Teachers Resources Sharing Portal or EZ (pronounced as ‘easy’) SHARE for short, will be launched today.  I understand that this is the first portal developed at a zonal level to facilitate a sharing of ideas and best practices in teaching and learning among schools in the zone.  In order to experience the sensibilities of learning in 3 dimensions, the COE ICT is envisioned as a virtual social world for teachers to creatively co-produce knowledge and share experiences and expertise.  The potential wealth of knowledge when the 91 schools in the zone are linked up through EZ SHARE is indeed immense

ESTABLISHING PARTNERSHIPS

15.       Finally, by establishing partnerships with industry players and building on their networks, the COE ICT will be able to explore and experiment with various technologies.  The two host schools will leverage on these partnerships to create a communication network to share the knowledge gained with other schools.  As a start, Victoria School’s partnership with Sun Microsystems will explore the potential of mobile computing and Ngee Ann’s collaboration with InfoComm Asia Holdings will serve to catalyse the use of multimedia games for teaching and learning.  The inaugural National GENE (Granado Espada in National Education) Machinima competition which is taking place at Ngee Ann Secondary is an example of what partnership can do to bring about different learning experiences for our students.  In this unique competition, students create machinima (machine animation) with a National Education (NE) theme using characters from the award winning LAN game, Granado Espada.  Let us see an example of how this was made possible through our students’ imagination.

[VIDEO 3 –1min clip showing the winning entries will be shown.] 

16.       We certainly hope to see more fruitful partnerships between schools with the industry or the IHLs.

CONCLUSION

18.       In closing, I congratulate the members of the East Zone COE ICT Steering and Working Committees, and the staff of the East Zone schools, for the launch of your COE ICT and EZ SHARE.  May all of you venture boldly into new frontiers and prepare our young well for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Thank you