I think it is important to make school
fun and when school is fun you don't get
kids waking up in the morning and say oh
do I have to come to school again so we
embrace technology because it helps us
make learning more engaging
I believe that when kids are engaged
when kids are interested
that's where learning takes place
the kids are really from a very
different world now I really to reach
out to the kids you need to be savvy
with technology if you are not savvy
with technology you're going to lose the
kids in the school
pick up top 20 questions
neon secondary school is a typical
school in Singapore where we take in
students with different academic
abilities and we have about 1500 and 12
students in this school and in the all
come from the neighborhood we get
students from the age of 13 to about 16
many students want to come to this
school because of its strong program
especially in the use of ICT infocomm
technology and the teachers here are
known to produce very good teaching
materials and very innovative teaching
ideas to engage the students in the
classrooms
in the early 1990s the teachers really
are the monopoly of knowledge and they
are the one that comes to class to
deliver that knowledge so that the
students can acquire them
but today knowledge is no more a
monopoly amanda teachers because
students can get knowledge from a myriad
of sources and hence the role of the
teacher today is facilitation you know
that means facility students where they
could get the right knowledge how they
could synthesize them how they could
discern the information that they get
Velocity's defines the rate of change of
distance of time is it true or false
so I want you to tweet me answer so this
is how your tweet this is a formatted in
between so you put in at sign vote by
tweet one we look at technology very
meaningful and we see how can we
leverage this technology to make a very
significant impact in the classroom
instruction I'll give you an example in
a classroom of 40 it is really
impossible to get 40 students to ask 40
questions at one goal when we use the
instant messaging tool we open 40
windows 240 kids they could ask 40
questions at the same time and a teacher
could see they are thinking on on the
technology - that they use and kids get
more excited because they are using the
tools that they are very very good in
using not just a pen and pencil okay so
same thing we will have a two student so
every time you know if you have any
issues with the terminals raise your
hand to me okay oh let's go
what the students are doing is they're
currently exploring this Second Life art
gallery which the square set up okay and
the works that are shown in this gallery
is actually made up of our local works
that been done by local artists because
of all the online platform is very very
useful because it's something that
really engages the students there will
be chatter by another okay about the
works using the LMS of our principles of
design as well as reading other students
comments as well if they like to they
can actually leave notes for other
students
web 2.0 world with wiki with your
Facebook your blocks you find that that
it's a very participatory culture it
calls for a lot of collaboration they no
longer become just a consumer of
knowledge they actually produce
knowledge what are the important things
that you have discovered so far the
nature no tendency
I find that students themselves are
often on Facebook so instead of looking
at them that look at Facebook as a
distraction I would rather use it to
engage them they even like when they're
stuck with certain question they post
out the question to the class and you
see responses and they are learning from
each other which I think it's better
because there's more motivation
intrinsic motivation for them to learn
rather than famil okay I tell you to do
this and let's hope you come back I
would say that the teachers in this
school myself included we we scan the
globe for best practices
we are in the process of watching a
model lesson that's being run by my
colleague here and the whole process of
us watching the lesson is to gain some
kind of points from her lesson and also
to provide our feedback we discuss it to
come up with a better lesson because
definitely learning grows with sharing
and communication and there's definitely
in scope for improvement for any lesson
all right first of all I understand that
the purpose of this skype session we
want to confirm the suitability of the
pretest is this the common agenda that
we have yes your comment that's right
yeah it might be we think about it if we
give it to the children and some of them
might actually come up with the idea of
the speaker's slide there's always
something new to learn you're never at a
standstill you're always moving ahead
pushing boundaries trying to discover
new things new ways of teaching so it's
exciting because even if the pedagogy
sound there's always a technology that's
always challenging us and we always have
to find new ways to connect with the
kids and to challenge them
so I think we do look at how the world
has changed and teaching cannot stay
stagnant so the teachers recognize the
fact that they cannot teach the same way
they were taught 1020 years ago that
they have to be very adaptive in their
methods and when they do that well they
know they are going to engage the kids
and when you engage the kids that is
where real learning takes place