NCS SG50 Education

EDUCATION Laying the foundations for vibrant and inclusive learning

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EDUCATION In 1997, Singapore unveiled its Masterplan for IT in Education, which sought to harness the rich, interactive capabilities of IT-based resources to shift the learning process from absorbing information to nurturing thinking skills. Programmes were rolled out to enable self-paced learning by allowing students access to lesson packages for review at their own time via the Internet. It also made the ambitious move to provide local area networks in all government and government-aided primary and secondary schools in Singapore, and to link them with the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) headquarters.

Today, we will be taking this vision even further. NCS is putting in place a smart education system where schools will make innovative use of ICT to create a vibrant and inclusive learning environment which allows teachers, students and their parents to actively participate and collaborate with each other, improve the quality of education and bring out the full potential of each student.

The focus will be on self-directed, collaborative learning made possible through 1-to-1 computing environment and other emerging technologies that facilitate ICT-based pedagogies in the digital age.

Laying the ICT foundation Over the years, NCS has partnered government and educational institutions to lay the ICT foundation for this smart education system, providing solutions that enable connectivity and enrich the learning environment for teachers and students. One of the major initiatives in this area is the rollout of the Schools Standard ICT Operating Environment to provide a common ICT environment for all government and government-aided schools, comprising 40,000 teachers, administrative staff and 500,000 students.

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We are also in the midst of building Smart Campus together with tertiary institutions. These Smart Campuses will be enabled by platforms that can ingest and analyse data through the use of advance analytics from various applications to provide greater insights, enhance productivity and improve learning experiences and outcomes.

The ICT foundation that we have implemented enables schools and learning institutions to promote collaborative learning through the use of emerging technologies. NCS‘ eNGage platform, for example, is designed as a tool for social learning, allowing teachers and students to collaborate and communicate more effectively.

Early cloud adopter We are proud to partner MOE, one of the earliest public sector adopters of cloud in Singapore. In 2009, we successfully rolled out the Google Apps (Education version) suite of online communications and collaboration tools to more than 30,000 teachers and staff in over 350 schools in Singapore.

MOE became the first Ministry in Singapore to adopt an open standard cloud computing platform and the first in Asia to provide Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools to all teachers in the public school system. Beyond putting the right tools in the hands of students and educators, another important area that we are focusing on is enabling analytics in education so as to derive insights that can be useful in improving learning outcomes.

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Laying the foundation for schools of the future Envisage this – as primary school pupils are having their lessons at an eco-pond, mobile carts allow them to use their computing devices so they can access information online. They will do their research before collaborating and presenting to their classmates in the classroom.

This is just one small example of a much bigger learning transformation that is taking place in Singapore schools today, and it is being enabled in no small part by the Schools Standard ICT Operating Environment (SSOE), an S$850 million initiative introduced by the Ministry of Education in 2010 as part of its masterplan for ICT in the education sector.

SSOE was a massive undertaking that involved all 351 schools in Singapore and impacted over 500,000 students. In all, more than 120,000 devices were rolled out to some 40,000 principals, teachers and administrative staff.

SSOE consolidated the provisioning and management of desktops and notebooks, networks and ICT support for all MOE schools in Singapore. It involved building an enhanced wired and wireless network environment in each school to improve network performance and accessibility to school applications. It required identity management as well as centralised network and security monitoring.

Under the SSOE programme, NCS continues to provide desktop support to teachers using remote assistance technology that allows our service desk engineers to take over the teacher’s notebook and guide him as to what he should do.

Mobile carts are made available in schools for students to use computing devices anywhere, thus encouraging ICT-based learning. Managed print services have also been rolled out as an option, allowing schools to subscribe to cost-effective print services on a pay-per-use basis without the need to buy and own the printers. The use of a single ID to log in across applications has also provided greater convenience to users and enhanced the user experience.

SSOE is not just about infrastructure; it plays a crucial role in shaping the future of ICT-enabled teaching and learning in Singapore. By placing ICT resources within the reach of every educator and student, it empowers them to gather, process and apply knowledge much more effectively and innovatively. It opens up innovative new possibilities for educators to redefine their pedagogical approach. And it equips future generations of students to harness the full potential of ICT and excel in the digital era.

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Engaging students through social learning At a secondary school in the western part of Singapore, students are eNGaged to learn in new ways that they never were before. Using their iPads, they are able to download learning materials produced by their teachers using an app. Teachers and students can also insert annotations, photos and videos and share them in real time to enrich learning. eNGage is a tablet e-book publishing platform that enables students to learn collaboratively. By consolidating all digital resources for learners and educators via a digital library, they can access information readily using a mobile device anytime, anywhere in the world.

The students can download content and annotate it using freehand writing, videos, audio, images, text and hyperlinks. They can then share these via the eNGage platform with other students, employees or readers.

With the ease of communicating with each other, users will be encouraged to raise questions and share valuable insights with one another. Over time, this will help build an engaged learning and collaborative environment. eNGage also serves the wider publishing community, allowing educators, organisations and publishers to deliver content seamlessly to readers with easy-to-use features, while ensuring that their intellectual property remains protected. Publishers can also leverage the platform as an additional revenue channel and offer an electronic version, enriched with captivating multimedia content, on top of their print edition.

There are many potential applications for eNGage in the commercial world as well. The platform acts as a knowledge trove for staff who will have access to the resources provided by their organisation. With its unique social collaborative features, the users will be able to share their thoughts, ideas and notes effortlessly with like-minded people. And that’s how they will be truly eNGaged.

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Creating smart campuses Connect, Collect, Comprehend and Co-create.

With these 4Cs, Temasek Polytechnic is set to transform itself into a Smart Campus, aligned with Singapore’s Smart Nation vision.

Under a collaboration announced in November 2014, NCS is working with Temasek Polytechnic and other industry partners on a pilot project which will leverage the polytechnic’s comprehensive and robust IT infrastructure and emerging technologies to create innovative services and solutions for students and staff.

With close to 20,000 full-time and part-time students and staff at its campus, Temasek Polytechnic presents a microcosm of digital natives who consume and produce digital services and data naturally. The Smart Campus pilot will help enrich this ecosystem by facilitating the secure collection and analysis of rich data and deriving insights that can help improve decision-making and enhance the experience of studying and working at the Polytechnic. The Temasek Polytechnic Smart Campus will be a standards-based pilot site, aligned with the Smart Nation Platform (SNP) that is being built by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. This allows integration of solutions and projects to connect, collect, comprehend and co-create data and services within and beyond the campus. The early adoption and test bedding of the SNP standards will also allow the Temasek Polytechnic Smart Campus to tap on SNP developments and produce students who are aware of the architecture, technology and standards in this space.

NCS is focused on enhancing the education paradigm through the use of advanced technology that facilitates student-centric learning in the new digital environment. With this collaboration, our aim is to transform Temasek Polytechnic into an intelligent and effective hub which serves as a test bed for innovative solutions and equips students with the essential skills for the workplace of the future.

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Connecting our educators Singapore’s educators are Web 2.0-ready. They have been since 2009, when the Ministry of Education made the unprecedented move of adopting an open-standard cloud computing platform and providing Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools to all teachers in the public school system, making it the first Ministry in Asia to do so.

The solution, iCONnect, is an Internet email and collaboration system incorporating Google Apps for Education. It includes Google Docs, Google Sites, calendaring, flagging of emails and email to-do lists, which are aimed at increasing the efficiency of teachers and helping them in their day-to-day tasks. iCONnect is also bundled with collaboration tools such as instant messaging, blogs and wikis which enable teachers to collaborate within and across schools.

In all, iCONnect was rolled out to some 30,000 teachers in over 350 schools, paving the way for future implementation of Web 2.0-based applications, which will enhance interactions within and outside the classrooms.

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Mapping IT solutions to education milestones Every year, in the five days following the announcement of “O” level results, some 50,000 students will go online to the Joint Admission Exercise (JAE) system to select their preferred junior colleges, polytechnics or central institutions.

Within days of applications closing, the system would have computed the various options filled in by the students, factored in special admission criteria, different admission schemes and other parameters, and matched each application against available places to arrive at the posting results, which are then communicated to students via SMS or online.

The JAE system is one of several developed by NCS to support the student cycle from primary one registration to the administration of the post-secondary education accounts.

The Primary One Internet System is used to register pupils a year before they are slated to begin school. As they move on to the next phase of their education, the Secondary One Internet System supports the annual secondary one posting exercise where students who pass their Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) are posted to a secondary school based on their results and choice of schools. Another system, the DSA-Sec Internet System, handles admissions under the Direct School Admissions (DSA) scheme which allows schools to select students for admission based on other achievements and talents, even before the PSLE results are released. On completion of secondary school, the JAE system handles postings for the next phase of the student’s education journey.

At each juncture, where there is a national examination, the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board uses the web-based iExams system to manage the operations. We have also developed a system to help administer the Post-Secondary Education Scheme.

Under this initiative, a Post-Secondary Education Account is maintained for each eligible child to help parents save for their children’s post-secondary education.

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