Schools of the future

The Business Times, 30 November 2009

Schools of the future


New ways of learning: With 3D glasses on during their geography class, students from Crescent Girls' School get an all-round view of a river bed being whittled away by water. The school's principal Eugenia Lim (left) sits with her students and guests at the launch of the programme, which aims to aid learning through the use of technology.

A TECHNOLOGY sea change is afoot at Crescent Girls' School (CGS). Last year, the school became one of the select few Singapore schools to embark on FutureSchool@Singapore, an initiative by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and Ministry of Education (MOE) to incubate novel education ideas that harness ICT (infocomm technology).

Among new technologies expected to transform teaching and learning at CGS include a student-teacher social networking Web portal; virtual reality tools to help bring subjects like geography and science to life; new-fangled textbooks that feature interactive learning objects, simulations and animations; and more.

In other 'future schools' - Beacon Primary School, Canberra Primary School, Hwa Chong Institution, Jurong Secondary School and soon, the upcoming School of Science and Technology - a raft of other interactive and high-tech learning tools are now being hatched and tested by teachers and students.

At Tao Nan School, students can receive learning activities via mobile devices armed with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and take their learning beyond the confines of their classrooms and school.

And when Singapore's Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) opens its digital highway to the public starting from next year, the immense bandwidth on tap are expected to further stoke the tech-savvy quotient in Singapore schools.

Let's party, says schools

TODAY, 5 November 2009

MDA developing virtual world, e-book potential

The Business Times, 28 Oct 2009
MDA developing virtual world, e-book potential
By WINSTON CHAI

THE Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) is looking to grow the local digital media market further by tapping on the nascent potential of electronic books and virtual worlds.

The media regulator has introduced two new programmes - FutureBooks and FutureWorlds - to spur the development of new applications and services that can be delivered through online publishing or virtual world environments.

The MDA has identified these platforms as new 'high-growth areas' in the digital media space and it is seeking proposals from companies to help seize the opportunity.

According to a Deloitte study last year, the global interactive publishing market is expected to grow 14 per cent annually from 2007 to 2015, while the virtual and immersive media segment will soar from around $18 billion last year to $44 billion in 2012.

Short-listed projects under the new MDA schemes will receive support in research and development, content aggregation and commercialisation, the MDA said in a statement.


The two initiatives will draw their financing from a combined $730 million war chest created under MDA's Singapore Media Fusion plan and the National Research Foundation's IDM R&D (interactive digital media research and development) fund.

ASEAN meet highlights status of biodiversity

Manila Bulletin, 26 Oct 2009
ASEAN meet highlights status of biodiversity
October 26, 2009, 3:50pm

SINGAPORE – As the International Year of Biodiversity draws near, countries all over the world are assessing how they are faring against the 2010 Biodiversity Target of significantly reducing the loss of biological diversity.

The ASEAN member states, home to 20 percent of the world’s known species of flora and fauna, are actively participating in international efforts to determine the real status of biodiversity and to reduce biodiversity loss.

Over 300 key biodiversity stakeholders from the region and other parts of the world gathered for the inaugural ASEAN Conference on Biodiversity (ACB2009) at Republic Polytechnic in Singapore to discuss the pressing issue of biodiversity loss from 21 to 23 October.

The conference, with the theme “Biodiversity in Focus: 2010 and Beyond,” was hosted by the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and the National Parks Board, Singapore (NParks).

Guest of Honor Ms. Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education, Singapore, encouraged ASEAN member states to pool together their resources, expertise, and experience to jointly tackle the challenges of biodiversity conservation.

Ms. Fu also reaffirmed Singapore’s commitment to play its part in contributing to biodiversity conservation in the international arena. She cited the development of the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity which, when formalized, will help cities benchmark the success of their efforts to reduce biodiversity loss and hopefully enhance urban biodiversity in the longer term.

“Leveraging on our experience as a Garden City endowed with rich biodiversity, Singapore is now working with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and other partner cities to develop the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity,” she said.

Children’s Cancer Foundation’s Magazine, 28 Oct 2009

Children’s Cancer Foundation’s Magazine, 28 Oct 2009

Nature lessons in the palm of your hand

The Straits Times, 27 October 2009
Nature lessons in the palm of your hand

Smartphones let Radin Mas Primary pupils have fun learning about Sungei Buloh

Radin Mas Primary School pupils (from left) Joey Ong (with cap), Shameen Fathimd, Kamaleeshwan, Leow Qi Qi and Felicia Loh Yi Qin using their smartphones in Sungei Buloh yesterday to learn about the flora and fauna there. -- ST PHOTO: LAU FOOK KONG


SMARTPHONES have changed the way schools run nature trips for their students.

Armed with such phones, students can now roam Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve's 'intelligent' wireless trails and learn about the flora and fauna there.

Yesterday, about 100 Primary 6 pupils from Radin Mas Primary School worked in pairs, using hand-held smart technology to receive photos of plant and animal life, sound clips and to answer quizzes on the go.

Their partner in this: the mobile network coverage in the wetlands.

No more lugging around of laptops. No more jostling to peer at the screen with each laptop being shared by five students. No more being confined to the wetlands' visitor centre, beyond which Wi-Fi coverage does not extend.

And definitely no more carrying of workbooks that get sodden on the go.

When Radin Mas' pupils hit the trail yesterday, they had with them their phones and a sheet of paper containing a series of 'colour codes'.

All they had to do was use the smartphone's camera to snap a picture of a code, which triggered a download and display of multimedia content - say of a particular tree - into their phones. They then went in search of such trees in the wetlands. They also answered quizzes sent to their phones by their teachers.

Singapore is Asia-Pac's 2nd most competitive IT market

The Business Times, 18 September 2009

Singapore is Asia-Pac's 2nd most competitive IT market
By WINSTON CHAI



(SINGAPORE) The Republic has inched ahead of Taiwan and South Korea to become the second most competitive information technology market in the Asia-Pacific region, a new study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) reveals.

The annual report, sponsored by anti-piracy trade group Business Software Alliance (BSA), scores 66 countries around the world on six key yardsticks which EIU uses to ascertain the competitiveness of a nation's tech sector.

These include a country's business environment, technology infrastructure, legal framework, as well as its research and development (R&D) landscape.

Singapore scored 68.2 out of a possible 100, placing it just behind regional frontrunner Australia, which garnered a score of 68.7. The tally moves it to second position from fourth last year.

Taiwan and South Korea, which clinched first and third position in 2008, dropped to fourth and fifth place in the latest EIU rankings. On a worldwide basis, Singapore retained its ninth ranking this time around.

According to Manoj Vohra, EIU's director of research, Singapore was in pole position in five out of the six categories used to measure IT competitiveness. EIU ranked Singapore first in the region in terms of its R&D environment and support for the IT sector, thanks to the strong backing of the local government.

The Republic's legal environment was deemed to be the second best in Asia behind Australia, a result of its stringent intellectual property protection regime and cybercrime laws, Mr Vohra said.

'There's a distinct possibility Singapore could become No 1 (in the next few years),' he told reporters at a briefing yesterday.

In order to clinch top spot, EIU highlighted one key area for improvement: IT human capital.

Singapore ranked eighth in the region in terms of human capital, a category which encompasses factors such as the number of people in higher education and enrolment numbers for science-related courses.

'This (human capital) is the place where most work needs to be done,' Mr Vohra stressed.

Singapore is already disadvantaged by the small size of its IT labour pool compared to countries such as India and China.

To compound the problem, the number of students enrolling in the science discipline - the talent supply pipeline for technology companies - is also lower than many of its Asian counterparts, EIU found.

Singapore should encourage more students to take up science courses and consider introducing 'labour mobility' initiatives to tap into the vast pool of skilled IT workers in places such as India, Mr Vohra added.