Bett has been the global meeting place for the education technology community, as seen by many of its world-class events. This time, Bett has brought its mission to promote the discovery of technology and knowledge to enhance lifelong learning, to Singapore – Asia’s meeting place for education decision makers.
Nonetheless, it was exciting to see some big names up there such as Intel, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, who were dishing out their takes on how technology can be used, adapted and even innovated to better help the learners of today and the future. Along them, many other technology companies and organisations were also putting their take into the mindshare that is technology-aided education.
Many quotes were passed around, including bold statements such as:
When we let children drive learning on their own, they do extraordinary stuff by destroying things that didn’t work and re-incorporating what worked better in their learning.
This was supported by multiple case studies of schools and other academic institutions, that made kids in charge of their own learning. This fundamental shift in mindset caused students to make over their own classroom by collecting their own data to enhance their learning experiences, such as by using differentiated furniture for different students to fit their body shapes and sizes. It was so successful, that it even lead to a school having their own students break into their campus during the holidays to continue doing their work!
The magic is still in the teacher, and that magic is when the teacher knows how to use technology. However, when educators aren’t ready or willing to accept technology, they’ll find all sorts of reasons to not use it. This means that everyone has a part to play in helping to aim for more student engagement, make the current technology less threatening to educators, and even by going the extra mile to make informed parents. Yet, this all fundamentally comes down to a new mantra that speakers at Bett Asia are chanting: learn to trust the kids.
Kids love to be in charge of their own learning and they love to make their learning better; which actually includes helping their educators, if they’re open to it.
Let’s move into some of the case studies and more specifically, Intel Education’s case of transforming education in rural Philippines. As Intel believes that young people are the key to future innovation with a solid foundation in STEM-D, combined with skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, and digital literacy, it was only natural they would jump at the opportunity to assist in any way they could.
Thus, Intel worked on designing a technology solution for the rural infrastructure of Marilog Central Elementary, located in the small agricultural town of Marilog which is only 50km from the country’s third-largest city, Davao. It was only partially electrified and had no electricity, so the students definitely had no access to modern learning technology at the time. Yet, after overcoming all the technical obstacles, students themselves started to become invested in technology’s role in improving education – for themselves and their peers.
“I used to be careless about things – always dropping or breaking them,” said Grade 6 student Shella Mae G. Siy. “But I want to take care of our new devices because there is so much information in them. I want students in the lower grades to be able to use them and receive that information, as well, so I need to make sure I take care of the devices for them.” You can read more on Intel’s site here.
Topping it all off, Bett Asia and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) held the inaugural Bett Asia and IDA: EdTech Excellence Award at the 2014 Summit. The award is designed to celebrate and showcase some of the most innovative small to medium sized education technology solutions and companies operating in the Asian education space.
Nonetheless, with the union of the world’s most innovative minds to discuss education and technology and consider their successes and challenges (with a specific focus on Asia, of course), it looks like the future of our next generations are going to be brighter than ever.
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