A board with a touch screen being used at a primary school in Binh Duong Province. (Source: VNA) HCM City (VNA) - The Ho Chi Minh City Department ofEducation and Training has sought approval from the People’s Committee forpiloting a “smart schools” programme based extensively on IT use in managementand communication between schools and students’ families.
Nguyen Van Hieu, the department’s deputy director,told the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the programme is one of the steps inpreparing for a smart city by 2020.
Districts 1, 2 and 12 have been chosen for thetrialling, he said.
The smart schools would have teachers trained tofluently use touch-screen boards and design e-learning lessons, and they woulduse and contribute to creating open databases for teaching, he said.
They would be encouraged to use software to helptheir students do virtual experiments, he said.
Contests for students would be designed to be doneon computers and individual touchscreen tablets, he said.
Students would be provided with touchscreentablets, he said.
There would be studies into what smart devicesprimary school students could use and the results would be announced, he said.
In some special cases, students would not come toschool but learn and do exercises online, he said.
The department is working with several partners toset up an open source database for learning and a website, and create softwarefor interactive lessons based on the Ministry of Education and Training’sstandard training programme, he said.
The department is drafting a plan for trainingteachers in the skills required to establish “smart schools”, he said.
Moreover, an operating centre for the programmewill be set up to carry out scientifically and effectively.
If the programme is approved by the People’sCommittee, it would start in the 2018-19 academic year at two high schools forgifted students – Le Hong Phong and Tran Dai Nghia - and several primary andsecondary schools in districts 1 and 12.
At these schools, some classrooms will be chosenfor the trial, he said.
The department would work with local educationalauthorities to identify more schools, he said. - VNA
VNA
