SSI 3013 INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCES

SEMESTER II

2016/2017

Tittle: Challenges of Smart School in Malaysia

Students name & Nur Afifah binti Khalid AT 16 (D20151070954)

Matric number Ong Suu Wan AT16 (D20151070971)
Nurul Syafiqah binti Arifin AT16 (D20151070981)

Lecture En Azmi bin Ibrahim

Group A

1.0 Introduction
 Since independence, our country has undergoes rapid changes in the educational
system. The education policies are constantly reviewed to improve the quality of education
and to ensure the effectiveness of the curriculum implementation. The changing of education
system requires a change in practice and culture in primary and secondary schools. The
education system has to be change to the thinking and creativity learning, taking into account
the range of abilities and learning styles of students and to ensure that all students have the
opportunity to build self-concept. So the establishment of the Smart School is one of the
seven flagship Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Malaysia.

Smart School Smart School is not just about Information and Communications
Technologies (ICT) intervention in teaching and learning., it is a education system which
learning institution that reconstruct systematically teaching-learning and school management
in order to prepared children for Information Age. Early in 1996, the Ministry of Education
was created laws of Smart School concept. There was teaching and learning based on creative
thinking. Technology as an important component in Smart School concept when Smart
School project exist as one of application that are part of Malaysian Multimedia Super
Corridor (MSC).

Teaching and learning process were included the process of curriculum, pedagogy,
assessment and teaching-learning materials in a mutually reinforcing, coherent manner. The
curriculum process will help student achieve overall balanced development and integrate
knowledge, skills, values, and correct use of language. Then, Smart School pedagogy will
seek to make learning more interesting, motivating, stimulating and meaningful. It is also
involve the children mind, spirit and bodies in the learning process.

Amongst the success of the Smart School flagship were;

Around 90% of students has sufficient ICT literacy to use the ICT facilities for
learning

Around 90% of teachers were using the computer lab for lessons and preparation of
materials

Around 90% of information technology coordinators (ITCs) were technically

competent

The strategies in Smart School pedagogy were use an appropriate mix of learning
strategies to ensure mastery of basic competencies and promote holistic development,
accommodate individual different learning styles, so as to boost performance and foster a
classroom atmosphere that is compatible with different teaching-learning strategies.
2.0 The Advantages of Smart school in Malaysia

2.1 Students can independent in learning although outside in class session

As we know, internet nowadays are the most useful technology in education that can
increase the potential of students to achieve successful results in their studies. Nowadays,
students are easily access the internet everywhere using their smart phone or tablets out of
school. In times, our education policies are trying to improve the efficiency in education to
ensure the effective curriculum implementation to develop work force which prepared to
meet the challenges of the21 and the Vision 2020. By using the smart school concept,
students can make their revision using online book. They also can learn more through videos
in Youtube, tutorial in web online. Actually, after learning new words, brain sees them as
pictures. So, when students access the online books, they see more pictures that can ease
them to memorize. If they have question regarding the topic that they hard to understand,
they can send email to their teacher.

2.2 Can attract students attention in learning process

Students now are more likely to do something that they never do before. In the
another words, Students are interested to do something new than another. Actually, the
methods of the teachers use to teach students need to improve time by time. It is because,
students are hardly to accept the old style like teaching in a class, copying notes from the
whiteboard and so on. From the smart school concept, we can increase the students spirit to
learn more with interesting learning likes video, audio, graphic, animation and simulation.

2.3 Expose students for creative thinking skills

Creative and innovative aspects are the important new things in policy of education.
Being a smart school allows the educators to reach out to students all over the world and
develop thriving online learning communities. So, school needs to build the best formulas to
encourage students participate in making decision and are responsible for the decision.
Learning cession are based on student-cantered. In addition, our world nowadays exposed to
many adventure cases that causes students to think more serious in solving the problems.
Students not only can access the source of information in local, but also in national and
global information. They can gain a lot of information and knowledge about some issues. If
teachers are giving them the high order thinking skills question, students can access the
information regarding it in the internet. Students that constantly exposed with this situation
will not have trouble fitting in, competing and finding jobs for the future.

2.4 Schools has potential to save cost in tuition price and text book

Using smart schools technology, students are no longer to buy a lot of text book or
revision books because it is converted into digital format. Tuition price also can decrease
because student will use online class tuition rather than in classroom cession. It is
because, it can save the cost of transportation, stationery, hands out and so on because
they are slowly being replaced by tablets and computers.

3.0 Challenging of Smart School in Malaysia

From the introduction, we learned that smart school is technology based teaching
school which encourage student for self-direct and self-driven study in this informative age.
Smart school is one of the seven flagship application of the MSC developed upon 1996 for
nations achievement of the Vision 2020. As 2020 is approaching, smart school need to be
establish in Malaysia to create better thinking and learning environment for the young
generation. However, there are challenges that hinder the development of smart school in
Malaysia.

3.1 Costly Investment for Facility in Smart School Compare to Traditional Nation
School.

In smart schools, teachers use a wide array of multimedia tools for instance, movies,
photos, audio, and Power point slide to enhance students understanding towards certain
subjects for more effective and efficient teaching and learning process.
 Therefore, electronic facility and gadget such as
Picture credit to: www.iu.qs.com
computer, projector, electronic whiteboard, video
players, speakers, webcams and other multimedia
infrastructure need to be install in smart school.
However, this electronic devices and gadget are
expensive. As there are so many electronic device,
electricity consumes in smart school will be higher than
traditional nation school and electricity bill of smart
school will be higher than traditional nation school.
Furthermore, government need to spend more money in building a smart school
structure than ordinary national school. This is due to security concern, indoor quality and
aging building. For example, electronic device need to be located far away from sun exposure
and wet environment, therefore the building structure of smart school is different ordinary
school structure.
Despite of hardware, government need to purchases software license for legal use.
Not forget to mention about, maintenance fee for pre-existing facility and upgrade of new
technology program.

3.2 Maintenance Problem That Arose In Smart School

Poor maintenance is due to financial and lack of

manpower to handle technical problem. Most of the time,
teachers need to take in charge when the electronic devices
break down with no extra pay. However, teachers may have no
knowledge in maintaining, fixing and repairing. When the
electronic device break down, the teaching and learning
process may be disturbed. The teaching material prepared in
Shutterstock
multimedia form will be wasted. The broken down devices
may laid unrepaired and the utility lost it value. Slow
processor of computers is another source of frustration among teachers as it is time
consuming to run the software or computer. While traditional nation school which educate
children using chalk and talk method did not depend on digital whiteboards.

What if smart school system been hacked? As smart school systems record the
students examination result, co-curriculum performances, homework and many others
information. When smart schools internet and database systems get hacked, daily routine of
the teaching and learning process may be disturbed and personal information of students and
teachers have the risk of leakage.

3.3 Professional Training for Teachers and Staff is Necessary.

In smart school, teacher need to conduct the teaching and learning process with the
help of multimedia tools. Training and workshops regarding of information and technology
are necessary for teachers so that teacher can organise the teaching and learning process using
computer and teach the learner about ICT. Training about Information and Technology given
to teachers is also to avoid under-unlisted of the electronic device provided. However, ICT
workshop is time and money consuming. The Ministry of Education subsequently set aside
RM288 million for the training of teachers specifically for the achievement of the In
cultured schools with Smart Technology agenda. In line with this development, the
responsibility to train teachers has been assigned to the Teachers Education Division in order
to ensure that the teachers who undergo this training will become main contributor to the
coordination of efforts and success of the national education.

Training and demonstration to use electronic device and facility safely and correctly is
necessary because lack of knowledge of handling digital device can cause damage and
defection to the device.

3.4 Teachers capability and attitude

It is not an easy task for a teacher who had teach in a traditional method for years to
adapt with the modern teaching mode in the informative age. There is some teachers who are
able to master the skill to handle and control the class well with electronic gadget in the same
time there teachers who feels not handy and comfortable use technologies such as computer,
tablets and any other gadgets in teaching. Teachers can become stressful and anxiety when
they have problem using the new technology and electronic and lose their passion in
teaching.
 There are old era teachers who not interested and feels resistant to teach using
multimedia tools. They have the opinion that learn with paper and pen is the most useful and
the best way for children to remember and understand the knowledge they are teaching. Some
of they even think that too much multimedia exposure in learning process may spoil the
children interest toward natural.

In other words, smart school is a challenges to the old teachers and they
experiences difficulty to survive in this new policy because they may not be susceptible to
the changes being applied. This problem will influence the efficiency of the teachers to
teach students.

3.5 Support of parents and community

To establish smart school at all district in Malaysia, support from parents and
community are significantly important. However, technology and smart school is a double-
edged sword which have the sides of negative and positive. This caused worry among the
parents and community especially in rural area as they are more familiar with using textbook
for learning. Teaching and learning process with the help of technology such as digital books,
online tutorial, online forum may cause early exposed of children toward social media. No
mature, irresponsible speech, sexy porn post, and content that is unsuitable for children in
social media can easily influences the student. This may cause more social issues in
Malaysia. Another concern is students loss their interest in book as they obsesses toward
technology and computer games. So, teachers or parents need to supervise and control their
access in internet for online to obtain knowledge only.

3.6 Different students capability and need

As we know, one of purpose to establish smart school purpose are want to develop
creative, innovative and critical thinking among the students. However, due to differences
in learning capability some students may fall out of the track as they are not visual
learner. Some students prefer hand on exercise and face to face interaction in the class.
While some students cannot focus on the teaching content because being distracted by the
graphic and audio effect of the multimedia displayed.
 Another problem is students lack of time to study and understand the lesson. This
may due to students spend hourly to complete their computer assignment in smart school.
Moreover, smart school required students to be self-paced, self-assessment and self-
direct. Therefore teachers stop spoon feeding the knowledge to the students by
recommended books to students and give students opportunity to discover the knowledge
themselves. However, every students are unique and they do not have the same ability to
analyse and solve problem. This can cause student to fail in his examination.

3.7 Lacks of technological infrastructure in rural area

For the rural area, students are commonly not too exposed to online education like
smart schools. They do not have any chance and skill on technology. They are only
exposed on the traditional learning that more to teacher-cantered. It is means that only
teachers give them knowledge and they only put the effort on teachers. Besides, in rural
area, the internet connectivity are too limited and shortage of computers to access. It also
gives problem on the limitation of infrastructure, such as computer labs lead to
ineffectiveness of technology supported teaching and learning. So, it is hard for them to
surf internet.

4.0 Conclusion

As we know, there are many issues and challenges in implying Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) in learning and teaching. In order to support of the
nations drive to fulfil Vision 2020, Malaysia need to improve its educational system. This
Vision calls for sustained, productivity-driven growth, which will be achievable only with a
technologically literate, critically thinking work force prepared to participate fully in the
global economy of the 21st century. The smart schools initiative is one of the seven flagship
applications that are part of Malaysias Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project. The
Government of Malaysia aims to capitalise on the presence of leading-edge technologies and
the rapid development of the MSCs infrastructure to jumpstart deployment of enabling
technology to schools. Implementing smart schools successfully in Malaysia will be a
complex task, requiring changes to existing policies, procedures, and practices, both written
and unwritten but changes need for a better future. The best solution need to be taken to make
smart schools succeed to enhance the Malaysia education. Technology has pro and contra, it
has brought about a revolution in the modern world and it has made our lives easy and fast
but technology is a double edged weapon. So, in order to implying ICT in school, we need to
take a risks for the disadvantages and challenges that we will face in the future. We need to
take an oath that we will use technology wisely as a means to progress and lead a healthy
lifestyle.

References

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https://buildingsolutions.honeywell.com/en-US/industries/educationK12/Pages/default.aspx
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Omidinia, S. (n.d.). Smart School System Issues and Challenges. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/3158453/SMART_SCHOOL_SYSTEM_ISSUES_AND_CHALL
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Ramey, K. (2012, November 6). Modern Teachnology Advantages and Disadvantages.
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