BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Thursday, February 2, 2012

e-Hijrah OPM Co-Programme Manager, Shahrizal Hj Emran, delivering a comprehensive overview of the six-year e-Hijrah Implementation Plan at the Regional Forum on New Media and ICT Trends in Education at Seameo Voctech yesterday. Picture: BT/Low

Education system may go paperless

BRUNEI’s education system may go paperless as the Ministry of Education is exploring the use of tablets as a learning resource for students, the Programme Manager of the e-Hijrah Office of Programme Management (OPM) disclosed yesterday.

At the Regional Forum on New Media and ICT Trends in Education, e-Hijrah OPM representatives delivered a comprehensive presentation on the six-year e-Hijrah Implementation Plan to bring ICT into Brunei’s education system.

In an interview with The Brunei Times, e-Hijrah OPM Programme Manager, Josephine Seah said the move to use tablets in schools is currently under the review of the E-Government National Centre (EGNC), and would be introduced some time at the end of the year when it is approved.

“We have a project covering this one-to-one computing and we are exploring the use of (tablets),” Seah said, adding that the use of tablets opens up many opportunities for students to engage in independent learning.

“If you have this rich content, it will surely enable students to research and find out more information and they would be more independent in seeking knowledge.”

Using tablets will be an appealing learning strategy for students of all ages as it will be “more fun” than the traditional chalk-and-talk method, she said.

“It has been proved that even two-year-old kids can play around with iPads with no problem,” she added.

Though budget has been allocated for the purchase of tablets, Seah declined to disclose the amount.

She added that the tablet brand has not yet been decided but assured that there would definitely be tablets in schools as part of the e-Hijrah plan.

According to her, the content of the tablets would be developed by the Media and In-Service Centre, which will be evolved by the MoE in collaboration with the Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB).

Co-Programme Manager Shahrizal Hj Emran said a space has been allocated near the Knowledge Hub at Anggerek Desa for the MISC, which will be a training and a learning lab to develop media content as teaching and learning resources.

The MISC will be a “full-fledged training centre” for teachers and content developers, he said.

“If (the) plan goes well, we may begin (the construction) in February. And the Media Centre will be available in June or July this year.”

Officers from the Curriculum Development Department will be trained by global multi-national corporations (MNCs), who are partnering with the ministry on the e-Hijrah implementation plan in specific areas such as creating animations, and developing digital content.

Knowledge transfer needed to be conducted through trainings from the global MNCs before the centre is fully handed over to the ministry when the local teachers and developers will carry on “generating assets and developing content” for the schools, he said.

The Brunei Times
Leng May
Low Leng May

From low-tech to truly innovative, here’s a round-up of digital tools teachers are using in their classrooms.

1. Interactive Whiteboards

Yoko Furukawa/The Associated Press

Interactive whiteboards are replacing traditional chalk and blackboards in many Canadian classrooms. With the flick of a switch, this technology connects a computer to a projector – allowing teachers to show students graphics and charts, live Internet searches and streaming videos. The drawback? Price – interactive whiteboards cost from $3,000 to $6,000.

2. Laptops

Juli Leonard/The Associated Press

Many teachers complain that laptops distract students – letting them check e-mails or browse Facebook instead of paying attention in class. But a 2010 University of Calgary study found that elementary students with access to laptops for educational activities understood concepts better.

3. Graphing Calculators

Tony Gutierrez/The Associated Press

Graphing calculators have made their way into many a high school math class, with some teachers making the tools (on-average $100) mandatory. The calculators allow students to focus on mathematical concepts instead of worrying about number crunching, argue many teachers.

4. Moodle

source: http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01345/moodlenewest_1345242cl-5.jpg

Moodle is a content management system that allows students and teachers to interact online. For example, it lets students submit their assignments online and instant message their teachers, and lets teachers create online quizzes with automatic grading.

5. E-Reader

Sheila Boardman/The Canadian Press

Heavy backpacks will soon become a thing of the past in South Korea with the digitization of all textbooks in state schools by 2015.

The move will allow students to download digital textbooks on a variety of platforms, including computers, smart phones, and tablets. It’s considered a cheaper model for updating textbooks.

6. Wi-Fi

source: http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01345/wifinew_1345148cl-5.jpg

While some Ontario parents and teachers argue that Wi-Fi should be banned from schools for health reasons, Health Canada has said the low-level radiofrequency energy emitted by Wi-Fi systems is not dangerous to the public. For now, Wi-Fi is commonplace in most Canadian schools.

It’s also helped close the education gap in Canada’s northern and rural communities, where distance and weather can prove challenging, by allowing teachers to easily and more efficiently connect with students in virtual classrooms.

7. YouTube

source: http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01345/youtube_jpg_1345107cl-5.jpg

Why listen to your teacher lecture in class when you can watch a YouTube video of him doing it at home?

Teachers at the Okanagan Mission Secondary School in B.C. are trying the “flipped classroom” model where teachers lecture through pre-recorded YouTube videos, which students watch in the evening, and use class time to work with students individually on assignments.

8. Clicker

David Zalubowski/The Associated Press

Clickers are becoming more and more common in universities, especially in large classes. These wireless handheld devices transmit student responses to classroom polls and quizzes straight to the professors’ computers, which allows them to see if students have understood the concept.

9. Wikipedia

iStockPhoto

Although many academics and teachers preach about the unreliability of Wikipedia as a source for essay writing, the tide is slowly turning.

The Wikipedia Education program is asking university professors to toss out the traditional research paper in favour of writing Wiki articles. This, some Canadian professors say, is a neat way for students to learn research and analytical skills, which is then held up to public scrutiny.

An added bonus? The research paper remains live online instead of collecting dust in the attic.

10. Powerpoint

source: http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01345/powerpointnew_1345216cl-5.jpg

The highly dependable PowerPoint presentation has been around for ages. But when combined with good pedagogy, PowerPoint can be a powerful learning tool, says Alyssa Wise, an assistant professor of education at Simon Fraser University.

For example, instead of writing a linear report, students studying Shakespeare can create slides that use font, colour and other design elements to express characters’ points of view.

For lectures or tutors in University:

http://piazza.com/ &
http://coursekit.com/

For Primary and Secondary you may want to introduce:

http://www.engrade.com/,
http://www.learnboost.com/,
http://www.classdojo.com/

Just check it out, its truly amazing how it can assist you in class with their Discussion facilities, Homework Management, Assessment reports, Learning etc.

If you may want to socially interact with teachers all over the world and you can use it for your students, rather than on Facebook, you may want to try:

http://www.edmodo.com

As mentioned by  Mashable: 11 Tech Factors That Changed Education in 2011

Via All Online Colleges

Scribble Maps is a fun and useful application for drawing and typing on Google Maps. Using Scribble Maps anyone can draw and type on a map. All of the zoom options and most of the search options available on Google Maps are available when using Scribble Maps. You can zoom in on an area and then type text, draw a circle or a box around an area, you can even doodle stick figures or whatever you like on your map. Scribble Maps Pro allows you to import KML files, import spreadsheets, and import SHP files. Importing KML files allows you to add free hand drawing on top of files that you may have already created for Google Maps or Google Earth. Importing spreadsheets makes it easy to quickly add placemarks to a large number of places. SHP file importation allows you to add custom shapes to your maps. Watch this video to see these options in action.

As posted on: Free Technologies for Teachers (Richard Byrne)

Guest post from Rod McCloy & Andrea Sinclair

In this blog entry, we provide some of our recommendations for developing teacher evaluation systems. These recommendations rest on the performance theory (Campbell, McCloy, Oppler, & Sager, 1993) presented in our previous two posts¹ and its differentiation between performance and effectiveness.

Our recommendations for developing teacher evaluation systems then are as follows:

1. Develop appropriate performance measures, keeping multidimensionality (multiple distinguishable components of teaching) in mind. Performance measures should focus on those behaviors teachers are hired to do and do well. Also, teacher performance is complex. We need to look for these various dimensions of performance rather than settling for an “overall performance” measure.

2. Maintain the performance/effectiveness distinction. This distinction is essential and not just an exercise in semantics. Performance drives effectiveness, but effectiveness regards the results of that performance; they are not the same thing. Keeping these concepts distinct allows us to learn about both; confounding them prohibits us from learning about either one.

3. Focus teacher evaluation on performance rather than effectiveness. This means that evaluators will focus on behaviors under each teacher’s control, thus facilitating the identification of appropriate developmental interventions for improving teacher behaviors and greatly improving the perceived fairness and usefulness of the evaluation system.

4. Consider teaching to be not just one job but possibly several jobs. Teachers in different settings (e.g., a low-performing school with poorly motivated, low-achieving students vs. a high-performing school with highly motivated, high-achieving students) will likely need to enact different strategies and engage in different behaviors to be effective. Therefore, the “teacher” occupation might be profitably viewed as comprising several jobs, each with its own set of performance dimensions that likely differ across contexts/settings. It seems to be explicit in teacher training that the job of a primary school teacher differs in meaningful ways from that of a secondary or post-secondary school teacher. It might be just as useful to consider the possibility that the various environmental settings in which teachers find themselves mandate different sets of work behaviors that should be measured and perhaps even different means by which teachers can be maximally effective.

Measuring teacher performance is challenging. Many important behaviors are likely difficult to observe and even more difficult to accurately measure. Nevertheless, industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists know how to define and measure performance in jobs where behaviors can be difficult to observe (e.g., managers). Perhaps we can work together to improve the evaluation process for one of society’s most critical professions.

Dr. Rodney A. McCloy is a Principal Staff Scientist for the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO). With more than 20 years of experience conducting and directing personnel research, he serves as an in-house technical expert and a mentor to junior staff. His assessment and testing experience has spanned both cognitive and non-cognitive domains and has involved several large-scale assessment programs (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, National Assessment of Educational Progress, General Aptitude Test Battery). He has served as adjunct faculty at both The George Washington University and George Mason University. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). He received his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1990.

Dr. Andrea L. Sinclair is a Senior Scientist in HumRRO‘s Validity Investigations for Education and the Workplace (VIEW) Program. She conducts research in education, government, military, and private sector settings with a particular focus on performance measurement and program evaluation. She regularly develops performance measurement instruments, surveys, and observation and interview protocols for use in schools. In addition, she regularly advises clients on the validity and reliability of their assessment systems and on the development of competency models. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Virginia Tech in 2003.

Footnote:
1 ”Performance or Effectiveness? A Critical Distinction for Teacher Evaluation“, “Ramifications of the Performance/Effectiveness Distinction for Teacher Evaluation“

Reference:
Campbell, J.P., McCloy, R.A., Oppler, S.H., & Sager, C.E. (1993). A theory of performance. In N. Schmitt & W. Borman (Eds.), Personnel selection in organizations (pp. 35-70). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

By Justin Baeder

We all know learning is an anytime, anywhere pursuit. I’ve asked my colleague, Alexis Menten, who heads Asia Society’s Afterschool and Youth Leadership Initiatives, to share why global learning is important beyond school as well.

by Alexis Menten

Where better to learn about the world than out in the world?

We’ve been hearing a lot about “expanded learning time” lately. Education policymakers and district and school leaders are considering how best to increase learning time for all students. The rationale often cited is the need to help American students become more competitive against their peers in other countries, many of whom go to school for more hours per day and more days per year. (See this Washington Post piece on a new study on this topic.)

However, many argue that the discussion should not be centered on how to extend schooling in order to increase learning time, but how to leverage a variety of non-traditional learning experiences and settings in order to improve learning.

These types of learning opportunities include those offered by community-based organizations like museums and libraries, youth-serving organizations like the YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs, and other out-of-school providers, and those assisted by technology tools and platforms.

The distinction between adding more learning time to the school day versus incorporating more learning experiences beyond the school becomes particularly important in the context of educating for global competence.

The definition of global competence includes the ability to investigate the world, recognize perspectives, communicate ideas, and take action. In order to help students achieve these four domains of global competence, many schools are finding that they need to think creatively about how they leverage time, resources, and partnerships beyond the classroom and beyond the school day.

For example, schools with a focus on global competence are

• extending class periods and school days to offer in-depth seminars that delve deeply into complex global issues and projects.
• establishing technology-based virtual exchanges after school and in-person travel opportunities during school breaks and summer to help their students experience multiple perspectives firsthand.
• structuring community-based service learning projects linked back to core curriculum that help students uncover the relevance of local issues in a globalized world and the impact of global issues on local realities.
• integrating internships that help students apply their recently-acquired global knowledge and skills to real-world contexts.

Out-of-school programs can be strong partners for schools who want to leverage expanded learning time to help their students achieve global competence. Youth-serving organizations share the broad mission to promote student success in work and life in the 21st century. Out-of-school program organization and management is often based on an asset model that values diversity. In order to attract and retain participants, out-of-school programs are centered around youth engagement through hands-on and experiential learning, often with a focus on 21st century skills, service learning, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, and others.

This deep connection between global learning and high-quality out-of-school programming was recently demonstrated when Global Kids, a globally focused afterschool and summer program based in New York City, was awarded a 2011 Excellence in Summer Learning Award from theNational Summer Learning Association.

Educators, business leaders, and the general public alike have come to similar conclusions—students graduating from American high schools today are ill-prepared to compete for jobs in a knowledge-based global economy. The need is particularly critical for underserved students. What better way to help students learn about the world, than to take advantage of the many learning opportunities that exist beyond the classroom and beyond the school?

By Anthony Jackson