Reinventing Education through the Smart School Initiative

The national project is to build up the human capital for the information age, to reduce the digital divide through various flagships and to increase productivity and export growth. Against this background, the smart school was introduced as one of the flagship applications of the MSC.

Merging Concept and Real Classroom Challenges . The concept of the smart school is an outcome of the convergence of minds representing the IT industry and the education sector. Numerous IT education initiatives around the globe were carefully examined. The Smart School Flagship was conceptualized out of the dire need for Malaysia to make the critical transition from an industrial economy to a

knowledge-based economy. Education is the vehicle for the fundamental shift towards a more technologically literate, thinking workforce, able

to perform in a global work environment and use the tools available in the Information Age.

As a premiere e-education initiative, the smart school flagship aims at shaping the e-education development in Malaysia as well as meeting the objectives of the MSC. The Ministry of Education (MOE) implements the smart school flagship through a partnership between the government, the private sector and the MDC.

The smart school flagship application is a government ' s initiative to enhance learning institutions through a "teaching-learning" process

of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and teaching-learning materials, made possible through the application of multimedia technology and world-wide networking. A value add of the smart school flagship is the management system for teachers and school administrators. The smart

school management system is a solution that facilitates teachers and administrators in their daily tasks of teaching and managing the schools.

The assessment, teaching learning materials, technology infrastructure are all integrated making the smart school flagship application an integrated system. In this way, learning institutions are systemically reinvented in

terms of teaching-learning practices and school management in order to prepare children for the Information Age while achieving the goals of

the National Educational Philosophy. The Malaysian National Philosophy of Education underpins every element of the Smart School Conceptual Model for Malaysia.

The smart school flagship has encouraged a market- sensitive education system. The challenge of globalization requires not only change in the

content of curriculum and programmes but also more importantly the delivery systems. IT-enhanced teaching and learning are already making computers, distance learning, video conferencing and Internet link common place in schools.

The smart school project has been successfully piloted in 90 schools

in Malaysia. During the pilot stage in Malaysia, the smart school flagship covered the curriculum from Primary Year 1 up to the Secondary

Level 5 for the four core subjects; Malay language, English Language, Mathematics and Science. The National Integrated Curriculum for Primary Schools and the Integrated Curriculum for Secondary Schools form the basis for the development of multimedia applications for the four core subjects. While the integrated curriculum emphasises knowledge, values

and thinking skills, the added values in smart schools are IT competency, the globalization and proficiency in an international language such as English. Students must also be able to build network with students from other countries and collaborate in areas of mutual interest. This could be the foundation for collaboration in economic and social fields when they are adults.

There are three basic learning strategies incorporated in the teaching learning materials covering the core subjects, which comprises of self-accessed; to be able to access information from various sources (books, journals, TV, networking, etc.) independent of the teacher; self paced is to let students to learn at their own pace without being held back by slower students or having to deal with material beyond their capability; and self-directed wherein students are allowed to explore

topics of interest without being tied down to a rigid curriculum. As such, the smart school experience is hoped to build highly competent workforces who are able to create new products and processes. Classroom practices therefore focus on inquiry, discovery of knowledge

and understanding, development processes and the design and creation of products. A practical emphasis, as well as research, information

gathering, design and production is what smart schools hope to bring about in the classroom.

MDC Smart School Initiatives in ASEAN

With the experience of the MSC, Malaysia sets to collaborate in promoting the uptake of ICT in the neighbouring countries with aims to narrow the digital divide through capacity building projects. This is done by leveraging the existing infrastructure and best practices in the region and by facilitating linkages between public and private sectors amongst countries in this region.

In meeting the above objectives, MDC, with the support of the Economic Planning Unit of Malaysia, undertakes the technical cooperation

programme with selected ASEAN member countries. The activities are focused on human resource development and education, specifically in the following areas of on-the-job attachment. scholarship awards, and the smart school pilot projects.

As an initial step at collaboration, the ASEAN smart school pilot projects have been established in Myanmar and Lao PDR as a form of

national cooperation with ASEAN countries; as test beds in making the educational transition from a traditional model to the smart school

model; as a promotional effort to establish the selected schools as a community center for the diffusion of ICT to neighboring communities and

as a model for the country ' s educational enhancemen; and as a platform for the establishment of global linkages at the school level via the use of ICT and multimedia tools.

In the current smart school pilot projects in Lao PDR and Myanmar, the challenging infrastructure conditions enable certain omponents of the smart school concept to be tested. Given this, the smart school teacher

training programme, hardware, courseware, and a lab are being introduced in the pilot sites in both Myanmar and Lao. The smart school teacher training took place successfully in Malaysia last year. A total of 16 teachers from Myanmar and Lao pilot schools attended the training which was conducted by Internexia, a Malaysian IT teacher training company.

The training was aimed at equipping the participants with ICT skills and appropriate pedagogical skills to help implement and develop the smart school project in their respective countries. The hardware is the provision of computing facilities for teachers and students. The English courseware developed by I-Venture, a Malaysian company under the MSC, has been provided for both pilot schools in Lao. The courseware is a "smart" content where interactive learning and teaching management are incorporated for a more meaningful and productive teaching and learning experience. The lab is essentially a classroom with computers where teaching and

learning of academic subjects actually take place. The difference between the smart school lassroom and the normal classroom is that

teaching and learning in the smart school classroom is facilitated by the use of multimedia applications. Further, the experience of learning

is enhanced by the multimedia content that is designed to enable students to be more in control of their own learning. These are elements of smart school features that have been introduced

in the existing pilot schools. In future, the inclusion of more schools under the smart school initiative may be the next move to be considered

by the Lao Ministry of Education. Most ignificantly, a courseware developed according to the Lao curriculum should be one of the

strategies in the long-term plan. With the rapid growth in IT-related initiatives in Lao over the last few years coupled with improved infrastructure, the smart school initiative in Lao in future may consider a more robust and dynamic integrated solution. On this, MDC with its experience of implementing such solution through its MSC smart school flagship will be among the forerunners to cooperate with Lao.

Dr. Norrizan Razali heads the Smart School Flagship Unit at the Multimedia Development Corporation, Multimedia Super Corridor, Malaysia.