Tuesday, October 20, 2009
“The Malaysian Smart School is a learning institution that has been systemically reinvented in terms of teaching-learning practices and school management in order to prepare children for the Information Age. The Malaysian Smart School has the following qualities. First is a philosophy that says all students can learn if taught, coupled with high expectations for all students, then a broad curriculum that considers the different capabilities and needs of all students.Other than that, a school climate that is conducive to learning, an on-going assessment that supports good instruction , strong and professional principals and teacher and a high level of parent and community involvement and support.
The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Smart School Flagship Application Conceptual Blueprint was launched in July 1997 by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the then Prime Minister of Malaysia. The MSC Smart School Flagship Application is a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC). The ICT expertise for the initiative was provided by the Telekom Smart School (TSS) industry consortium. The MDC, which has been entrusted with the development of the MSC, plays a key role in the implementation
and ensuring that targets are achieved as planned.
In order to develop this talent pool, the government announced under the Eighth Malaysia Plan the need to re-engineer the country’s education system and align it with its Vision 2020. The Smart School Flagship was one of the seven applications identified under the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative, which envisages the creation of high-value jobs in the country, achieving high and consistent growth driven by exports, improving national productivity and competitiveness and achieving value creation. All these will eventually translate into economic growth, wealth creation and competitiveness for the country.The MSC’s vision for Malaysia in the Knowledge Economy outlinesthree phases of incremental progress, right from the launch of the seven flagships to their gradual expansion, enhancement and pervasiveness. The implementation of these flagships will lead to the creation and nurturing of a local pool of world-class companies that will position Malaysia as an export hub for new-wave multimedia technologies and products.
The teaching and learning environment comprises four areas that are curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and teaching learning material. Curriculum is designed to help students achieve overall and balanced development while pedagogy allows for appropriate mix of learning strategies to ensure mastery of basic competencies and promotion of holistic development. Assessment is designed to give accurate feedback of students readiness, progress, achievement and aptitude and teaching learning material is cognitively challenging and motivating by combining the best of network-based, teacher-based, and courseware materials.
The use of technology enablers contained in the Smart School Concept. Technology alone will not make a school smart. Only improved teaching-learning strategies, management and administrative processes, and capable, well trained people with enthusiasm for their work can do that. However, information technology can enable the process of transforming traditional schools into Smart Schools. Consequently, a nation-wide system of Smart Schools will depend on advanced information technology at the school, district and national levels. Technology has many roles to play in a Smart School, from facilitating teaching and learning activities to assisting with school management. Fully equipping a school might include the classroom, library, computer laboratory, teacher’s room and server room. The technology will enable the school to draw on a variety of external resources, while also making the school more accessible to the community. Students and teachers will be able to tap into public and university libraries; access companies and industry associations; investigate museums and other archives; keep up to date with local authorities.
The great challenge for Malaysia facing at this moment is to make longer the concept of smart learning to all school. Special efforts are made to provide equality in terms of facilities and quality of education especially to rural school. As we know, almost 60% of primary school is located in rural areas.
Furthermore, there is also a challenge to train and retrain teachers to the new concept of teaching learning. Teachers need more training on ICT programs than the students to ensure that teachers capability to deliver their curriculum. Teaching should be student centered whereby learners are allowed to access knowledge at their own step even when a school is not in session, thus the students can explore their studies at all the time. Teachers should be innovative and use the internet as an important resource.
Educators create enough digital contents for used in new learning environment. At the same time, connectivity stable enough to support information anytime and anywhere so that teaching and learning is not just confine to the four walls of the classroom. It must be a teaching and learning community that extends beyond the traditional school walls.
The government also set up the Malaysia Grid for Learning (Mgfl) to enable teachers and students to access international as well as aboriginal content. So, the technological infrastructure must more than enough to replace the traditional way of teaching and learning. Malaysia highly recommends that each Asian country will set up a similar learning portal so that networking can be established among countries in this region.
The progress for Malaysian Smart School have to shift focus from teacher to the learner. In other words, the importance of teaching learning in school has to shift from specific knowledge to enabling students in constructing their knowledge by asking questions, reading and others.In other words, the learning process should move away from the memory-based rote learning designed for the average students, to education system that stimulates thinking, creativity and caring.
Within this context, technology is an essential for the success of this new learning process. Multimedia courseware, presentation facilities, and e-mail are required in classroom settings, while library/media centers and computer laboratories are the resources that will facilitate learning and teaching. Technology enables the schools to expand their external resources, such as public and university libraries, companies and industry associations, museums and other archives. Technology also provides a bridge between schools and the outer community as it makes communication more effective and easy.
Labels: smart school concept
