Reviving free-tablet project urged as Thai education must adapt to digital age

[webfact]

Reviving free-tablet project urged as education must adapt to digital age
PHOCHANA PHICHITSIRI
THE NATION
BALI, INDONESIA


Students at a school use computer tablets, as technology assists learning.

BANGKOK: -- THE GOVERNMENT has been urged to revive the project to give students computer tablets if the country is to climb into the ranks of the world's most competitive economies and prepare students to adapt to the fast-changing, technology-driven millennial age.

Adobe's senior director of education and government, Trevor Bailey, has made this recommendation to Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha. While understanding that the government has to be prudent with taxpayers' money, Bailey said investing in the future of education would be money well spent.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar titled "Adobe Education Leadership Forum" in Bali late last month.

In a survey held by the company, Wayne Weisse, Adobe Asia-Pacific business manager for education, was quoted as saying: "The ability to visualise or integrate interactive learning experiences in the classroom via mobile devices can make a huge difference in learning outcomes.

"Educators should ensure that students are empowered not only to consume digital content but also to be the creators of that content."

The survey found that 77 per cent of educators in the Asia-Pacific region felt there was a positive overall net effect from having mobile devices strategically integrated into the teaching process.

However, Dr Manuela Taboada of Queensland University of Technology appeared not to agree totally with the survey, saying the "physical object used in teaching is not important" as long as children are being inspired and made curious and understand what they are studying.

"Lighting the fire is important, sparking curiosity and creativity is important. It does not matter what tool we use, it can be sand or a stick. Tablets are one of the tools but not the only tool to learning," she said.

Although Taboada does not believe that technology is always the answer, she does not underestimate the power of technology. "Technology is a tool to help show creativity to the world," she said.

The project to provide free tablets to students, the brainchild of the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, was scrapped not long after Prayut seized power in a coup.

Associate Professor Bundit Thipakorn of King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi said the free-tablet project was a good initiative but failed because it was poorly planned, as teachers were not properly trained on how they could integrate the devices into students' learning.

Most of all, there wasn't adequate digital content available when the tablets were handed to the young students.

Bundit said the failure of the project was living testimony of the utter failure of the education system, as it reflected that too many Thais are unable to see the small details relevant to the big picture - a key quality that will help students become a success later in life.

He said students at his university were taught the ability to "connect the dots" or envision the forest from the trees - the ability to "come up with something they have not seen", in other words "creative thinking" and solving complex tasks.

"With these qualities, they will survive because it will take a long time before technology can do these tasks and replace them,'' he said.

Sparking creativity

Adobe's survey also showed that although mobile devices are used by millions around the world, their integration into the formal learning process has not yet been extensively adopted. The survey found a lack of structured strategies designed to impart "high-impact" as well as practical programmes in institutional methods, even though most developed countries have access to both expertise and resources.

It has been forecast that as this digital age progresses, many jobs as we know them now will not exist in the next decades as they will be wiped out by computing and robotics technologies. The success of students at Sripatum University's School of Digital Media, who sometimes bag jobs even before graduating, may have other schools doing their homework.

Dean Dr Kamon Jirapong's "getting real" principle may take credit for that. Instead of burying themselves in textbooks, his students get actual assignments or jobs from companies that give them real problems to solve.

One of the most thought-provoking questions raised at the seminar was whether education should create jobs or people like Steve Jobs.

Great innovators like Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple's Jobs or even Bill Gates were school dropouts, and yet their technology companies have provided jobs for millions.

But why do children hate school? Educational thinker Dan Haesler asked: "Would children go to school even if they didn't have to? Children would go to school if schools instilled in them a sense of living a life high on interest, curiosity and absorption."

For instance, Haesler, who supports learning through digital devices, called the computer game Minecraft a game changer because it is a game with no rules and children learn to "survive" by playing the game.

Haesler said teachers complained that students do not read enough, but the fact is they are reading what they are interested in, not what the teachers want them to read.

Wattpad chief executive officer and co-founder Allen Lau noted: "Penguin published 5,000 books in the last 12 months, while Wattpad users uploaded 10,000 stories in just the last 12 hours."

One of the late Steve Jobs's most memorable quotes on education is: "School was pretty hard for me at the beginning … I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me."

Curiosity is a fundamental basis of creativity, and art fosters it. Bailey stressed the significance of fostering art in science. He cited the great physicist Albert Einstein, whose famous relativity theory is the result of musical perception. Music was the driving force behind his discovery.

Bailey pointed out that in this digital revolution, the world was being bombarded with masses of information that lead to noise pollution, and that was why innovative solutions and creativity are key to solving the problem.

Dr Stanley Frielic of Auckland University of Technology asked why did Apple, and not Sony, invented the iPod? Apple products are indeed products of creativity that claim to have changed the world.

Haesler summed up the Adobe education seminar with the question: What is the ultimate objective of education? The answer, he said, is to change the world so it becomes a better place, to give and to help others.

Taboada has told her students: "I am here because I want you to be better than me, because you are the future and I am the past."

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Reviving-free-tablet-project-urged-as-education-mu-30257533.html


-- The Nation 2015-04-07

[thesetat2013]

Although I am not against student having technology to aid them in learning, I am against giving students tablets in Thailand. Unless they can make a tablet that blocks all social media and chats it is a waste of funding. I have seen how thai students who received tablets last year utilize them in the classroom. 99% of the kids only opened them to talk with friends or look at vdos in YouTube. Using them for learning was not on their agenda. This is not to say they can't be used in this manner. The Thai kids were just more interested in social than learning. If they want Thai kids to have technology they need to find another way that ensures the kids will use it constructively.

[zaphod reborn]

Although I am not against student having technology to aid them in learning, I am against giving students tablets in Thailand. Unless they can make a tablet that blocks all social media and chats it is a waste of funding. I have seen how thai students who received tablets last year utilize them in the classroom. 99% of the kids only opened them to talk with friends or look at vdos in YouTube. Using them for learning was not on their agenda. This is not to say they can't be used in this manner. The Thai kids were just more interested in social than learning. If they want Thai kids to have technology they need to find another way that ensures the kids will use it constructively.

Unsupervised use of tablets won't further the students' education. Better computer centers with adequate monitoring software and supervision is the way to go. Have you ever seen a school library in Thailand? What a joke. A well-equipped and staffed computer center would help greatly.

[WhizBang]

Bring the standards of Thai education up to the standards of the rest of the world FIRST. Then, once all students are being properly educated, and are academically capable, think about computer (tablet) learning, but NOT before.

Adobe, like Microsoft, is only interested in selling licenses, or subscriptions, to their software.

[tbthailand]

oops, ....

[tbthailand]

this is pretty funny ...

I agree with many people that there needs to be a serious investment in many things besides tablets.

On the other hand, it is not a zero-sum game.

Access to and leveraging of normal, modern technology has always happened in good education systems. Today that technology is a tablet. Go for it.

(btw, getting fast internet everywhere in Thailand by - what was it? 2016 or 2017? ... that only puts Thailand nearly 20 years behind South Korea... Kudos to Thailand for investing in the future... )

[EnzoRippo]

If tablets are introduced in classroom, at least the kids will be able to explain to the teachers how it works.

[samsensam]

IT should be included in the curriculum here. facilities should be provided by schools as should appropriately trained teachers.

IT is a wider subject than can be addressed by the provision of tablet computers.

the UK government did a feasibility study into the provision of tablet computers for students which came to the conclusion it was a solution looking for a problem.

[Oziex1]

Social media is blocked in many workplaces nowadays, can be blocked in schools as well.

Giving the kids tablets is one thing is the whole learning experience going to be updated as well, Teachers qualifications and all.

[MaxLee]

Just a knee jerks reaction. How about improving the overall infrastructure and hardware first, or the devices made in China will break apart easily.

Edited April 7, 2015 by MaxLee

[ezzra]

Ok, it sound more like the time to feed the monkey on someone's back, somebody looking

for a quick profit, in the billions perhaps, the usual kickback merry go around is grinding

to life again... any one want to jump on?

[SABloke]

this is pretty funny ...

I agree with many people that there needs to be a serious investment in many things besides tablets.

On the other hand, it is not a zero-sum game.

Access to and leveraging of normal, modern technology has always happened in good education systems. Today that technology is a tablet. Go for it.

(btw, getting fast internet everywhere in Thailand by - what was it? 2016 or 2017? ... that only puts Thailand nearly 20 years behind South Korea... Kudos to Thailand for investing in the future... )

If you want fast internet move to SA. For the low low price of 2000 Baht you can enjoy the thrills of 3MB lightning internet.

[Bluespunk]

"However, Dr Manuela Taboada of Queensland University of Technology appeared not to agree totally with the survey, saying the "physical object used in teaching is not important" as long as children are being inspired and made curious and understand what they are studying.

"Lighting the fire is important, sparking curiosity and creativity is important. It does not matter what tool we use, it can be sand or a stick. Tablets are one of the tools but not the only tool to learning," she said."

Correct and well put.

[Balance]

Perhaps the thinking is that tablets will magically make up for the abysmal competence and professionalism of 90 percent of the teachers? Good luck with that.

[noosard]

So the kids were given tablets a year ago to use

Then the tablets were taken away

Really bright as had already been paid for

Make nice dust collectors somewhere

[Jeremy50]

If tablets are introduced in classroom, at least the kids will be able to explain to the teachers how it works.

Hardly. All teachers at my school have tablets and smartphones. They use them all the time even while sitting at the front of the classroom or sitting outside the classroom. The students are doing the same so I guess everybody is happy happy.

[Bluespunk]

So the kids were given tablets a year ago to use

Then the tablets were taken away

Really bright as had already been paid for

Make nice dust collectors somewhere

I thought the problems were that they were so poorly made they broke down and couldn't be repaired quickly enough, that the school curriculum was not catered to allow their inclusion in teaching and in a lot of cases never actually arrived.

[JOC]

Perhaps the thinking is that tablets will magically make up for the abysmal competence and professionalism of 90 percent of the teachers? Good luck with that.

I think you are being unfair. You got a lot of good teachers in this country, trying their best with small means.

Just yesterday, I helped my daughter with homework, and was impressed with the high standard of the questions asked.

Had to use google to help her answer some of the questions, and asked her, what is the point of asking so difficult questions to your class (she is 12).

The answer I got: "to teach us to use the internet"

So we decided to buy her a tablet, which will no doubt be a very useful tool in her school work.

Yes free tablets will be wasted money on some students, but more and more will embrace the technology for the right reasons, so IMO the way to go!!

[car720]

"However, Dr Manuela Taboada of Queensland University of Technology appeared not to agree totally with the survey, saying the "physical object used in teaching is not important" as long as children are being inspired and made curious and understand what they are studying.

"Lighting the fire is important, sparking curiosity and creativity is important. It does not matter what tool we use, it can be sand or a stick. Tablets are one of the tools but not the only tool to learning," she said."

Correct and well put.

I think I will put my sixpence in this slot.

How many times is this topic going to be routed and rerouted?

It is only when someone in authority, a plenipotentiary, has the balls to say that Thais in general cannot keep pace with the modern world's rate of progress - due to the fact that they have been kept cowered for far too long - that anything of substance will be undertaken. All initiative and incentive is gone for these people.

i am not denigrating them, I am merely stating the obvious.

Thailand needs to take a page out of China's book and close all schools for at least 6 months while they bring in accredited sociolinguists who have the ability to reformat the entire learning process here.

There is a bubble here that, if burst, will be catastrophic for the Thai people.

[DM07]

I was against this populist policy, when it was first introduced under YS and I am still against it now (though, when it is the mighty Mr. P's idea, it can not be populist...the mind boggles!).

It would be way more helpful, to have good equipped computer- labs, where children learn about stuff like Exel etc.

Guess what: a tablet IS in essence a PC, so....

[casualbiker]

If the want to go interactive then spend the money on interactive whiteboards in the classroom. Train teachers in the proper use and make sure that the linked computer has class appropriate software installed...

[ChrisY1]

Just a continuation of the excuse for not enabling real education in Thailand!.....An Education Department cop-out at best!!

[Christie Paul]

Seamless integration and flow of information threatens the engines that power state control.

Peer to peer technology in particular, in which the block chain offers transparency and anonymity simultaneously will not just compete with banks, monopolies and cartels - it will render them redundant.

Authorities will gingerly attempt to cultivate advancement on the one hand and clamp down on it on the other.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Christie Paul

[comeondoit]

It is so typical for the actual world (not only in Thailand), everybody wants to jump the steps necessary to be completed in order to achieve. That tablet stuss is making me sick.....first the teachers must learn how to make children curious and interested (as you can read that somebody just mentioned this t!!!!)......that is the first step, the second step is then to choose the adequate tools which could be simply a drawing board. ..... tablets are way steps further up and here in Thailand they are far, far away (of course not far away for facebook and gaming...even the naughty boys of my wife know to do it now, with completed 5 years of schooling and since then never learnt anything more). Well it is Adobe`s business to look for new customers and that they are talking their interest must be everybody clear, which is a genuine interest of them.

Thai governement officials are very good in sorting big mouthed projects out to profile themselves, which are not thought through and not organized...I do not recall any of good organized projects. The newest example is the idea to have the 90 days reporting throuhg every 7 eleven (in our town they knew nothing about it and they have no employee knowing English), or the idea to do the 90 days reporting online....I know nobody how could do it successfully yet (I tried and it doies not work), all dead births or what??? Which does not say that the idea in itself is not good....but first check feasability and acceptance of all parites including mister Ochoa and then start making an organisation and make test runs !!!!! AND THEN FINALLY BRING IT TO PUBLIC

[angiolo]

Can the kids get porn sex education on these tablets ?

[thesetat2013]

Social media is blocked in many workplaces nowadays, can be blocked in schools as well.

Giving the kids tablets is one thing is the whole learning experience going to be updated as well, Teachers qualifications and all.

You can not block the social media when the kids are inserting their own internet accessible sim cards into the tablets and going online via true online or another phone/internet service

[Shiver]

There's a problem in that about 80% of all information on the net is in English. The computer languages are also based on English (and there's that small matter of ASEAN official language).

Back in the day when I was a kid computer hobbyist, I was a fast 2 finger typer. When I went on my first IT course, they wouldn't let us near a computer, but instead insisted that we learn on a full throw typewriter how to touch type properly to minimise typos and get higher speed, after which we were set free on the computers (I presume they didn't want tippex on the screens). It has served me well, even though I objected at the time as it seemed irrelevant.

What anyone is going to learn about technology on a tablet that they can't learn on a classroom computer leaves me a bit puzzled. I can also imagine the kids being embarassed to be seen with a school tablet after it's no longer current generation, and they might start mysteriously disappearing or getting smashed.

Getting even just the basics of some kind of Microsoft certification, or learning how to build a database, a server, a network or something would be useful overview info, even if it is not their chosen field to specialise in.

[Edit]: A couple of 3D printers and learning CAD/CAM might not be a bad idea either. That could be fun for the kids.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Shiver

[wow64]

The best learning tool my daughter has is her IPad.

Trying to implement giving every student a tablet will just open up someone's pockets to get lined.

Need to increase the skill level of the teachers before spending money on happiness policies.

What's this country really needs is a submarine.

[Thian]

Well my friends Thai son from 8 or 9 years speaks fluent technical IT english. He learned that from youtube while watching walkthrough video's for his favorit games.

His english skills are very good now but the problem is he can only talk about computers....allll day long......

[Nbarch]

Thailand should look at the ‘Raspberry Pi’ project, which has been such a massive success in UK schools; it gets children interested in programming and the technical side of computers.

It is also cheap, $35!