Edtech is still playing “catch-up” in Singapore’s K-12 market, according to Tony Ang, general manager, Southeast Asia at Crestron Electronics. Ang told The Educator that there’s more tech use at tertiary institutions but believed that things will change soon as the Ministry of Education promotes ICT initiatives in schools.
We spoke to Ang about how technology is transforming education and how schools can strike a balance when implementing tech.
TEA: How is technology transforming education?
TA: It’s transforming the way teachers teach and students learn. I would say that teachers being in the classroom just to teach would soon be a thing of the past. It’s about how content can be distributed in a digital way prior to lessons. Classrooms are going to be meeting spaces for teachers and students to discuss, brainstorm and collaborate.
At the end of the day, it’s about engagement. If the teacher is always going to be the one talking in a classroom, how long can students stay engaged? Only when you have a space that promotes interaction and student engagement can the effectiveness of learning come in.
There are also discussions about teachers being replaced and I don’t think that will be the case. I would say their roles would be changed. Teachers are going to be more of facilitators, acting as a guidance for students. They probably won’t be doing so much of the teaching per se, but they will be crucial in motivating and guiding students to learn.
TEA: Is edtech more harm or good for education? How can schools strike a balance?
TA: Technology can trigger additional curiosity in students but the harmful thing is if [the implementation of tech] is not done properly, you may lack human interaction. For example when you take a train in Singapore, everybody’s heads are down using their smart devices, so where’s the interaction?
You need to strike a balance to ensure that tech has a more positive impact. It’s about educating students. Like what I told my son, “every night at 8pm, no more phones, PCs – it’s family time”. We should be at the living room and talk.
There’s never a “best of all worlds” situation but there are a lot things that schools need to enforce. From my experience with my children, you need to make it clear to them why we are restricting the use of devices or the TV for instance. Also, it’s just about being reasonable to prevent them from being over-reliant on tech.
TEA: Recently, many countries were discussing a possible ban on smartphones in schools. Should it be done?
TA: I don’t think banning is the right way to go – especially for students in K-12. At that age sometimes the more you want to stop them from doing something, the more they’ll find ways to work around it.
What needs to be done is a re-education of students, to let them know the best use of a smartphone. It’s really about the intention of use. If you want to let students use their devices the right way in classes, you can say, “kids, take out your smartphones, share your content on the main screen and we can have a discussion”. If you redirect them this way, you are actually asking them to explore technology and making learning more interesting.
TEA: Technology is an expensive investment for schools. How should school leaders go about deciding what to invest in?
TA: It’s important to understand the needs and wants of the school. There are a lot of schools that try to take too big a step and make everything software driven, while some are too conservative and keep things too hardware driven.
Also, schools must make sure that tech adopted is easily used, because not all staff may be digitally savvy. The platform must be easy to understand and use, so that technology doesn’t become something feared.
Schools may also have 20 different types of learning spaces for example. The technology needs to be easily deployed and standardised in all rooms. The platform has to have a standardised interface for all the rooms as well, so that how you’re going to use it in one room, will be the same in another. You need to also ensure it promotes engagement for both teachers and students.
Lastly, do consider the administrators of the technology, for instances the technicians and IT personnel in the school. It’s about effective manpower deployment – you don’t want to have an entire department of 20 just managing all the different rooms.
You cannot afford to have them constantly checking every room to make sure everything’s working. This can be solved with SMART technology, where they can check the status of all products in one go through their laptops, for instance.
The number one thing is to ensure that you future proof the investment in terms of ROI. For example, if an entire campus has SMART classrooms, it can even support inter-campus global learning.