Singapore ‘Future School’ Project
08.07.2011In 2007, FutureSchools@Singapore was initiated to promote innovation and facilitate ability-driven education paradigm in school by integrating frequent use of ICT in students’ daily school lives.
Through this initiative of digital learning, schools hope to equip students with essential ICT skills they need to become effective global workers in the fast changing digital age.
FutureSchools@Singapore are promoted by the Singapore infocomm companies and led by education technology research community partners to adapt traditional school learning into a holistic learning environment using ICT. Five schools were chosen at first to test out the result of this initiative.
The implementation of the project involves integration of technologies and innovative school designs to enable an efficient management in administration.
In addition, technologies are purposely utilized in educational programs to create a more interactive, engaging study environment. For example, in Canberra Primary School, students try and solve puzzles in spelling and science on a touch screen whiteboard and remote devices. And blogging is part of English lessons.
Upon reflection of the new way of learning, one student comments "People can type more words from other classes and then we can see what they are writing. We will learn more words which we don't know."
This innovative method of learning also proves to be environment-friendly since the schools rely on touch-screen whiteboards and tablet PCs instead of papers.
Teachers also seem to welcome to the new initiative, Kevin Cheng, an English Literature teacher from Hwa Chong institution, explains why the project is good for students and teachers, “How their work applies to a real world situation and not just rote learning or what they call scholastic, academic learning. So everything they learn has a direct and very pragmatic application in the real world context."
The majority of funding comes from the government, however, to portion of funding depends on the ideas and directions school choose to implement the initiative.
As one government official explains, the project aims to be inclusive, hence before schools work out the details of their projects, government will see for the amount each school requires.
- Links:
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The report on the status of ICT integration in education in Southeast Asia
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Singapore invests 610US$ million in ICT infrastructure for schools
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