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Education IT
Singapore primary school skypes America
Students from Singapore and California overcame physical boundaries and engaged in real-time cultural exchange. Troy Tenhet and Rose Manuel, Directors of Global Learning Exchange (GLE) programme told FutureGov how internet video calls closed the 14,000 kilometres gap.
Students from Bill L Williams Elementary School (BLW) and Jurong West Primary School (JWPS) used Skype to make free video calls once a month. The students, age 10 to 12 years, exchanged views about their respective country, arts and culture.
“In our first call with BLW, our students recited the Singapore pledge. We then heard BLW recite theirs,” said Manuel. “Parents were invited to observe the first session. While some were initially sceptical of having their children interact with foreign students, all parents were on board after seeing how engaged every child was in that first Skype call.”
According to Tenhet, the video conferencing software was easy to use, allowing rich video communication, sharing of large files and instant messaging. “Making frequent international calls was expensive. At the same time, we did not want to compromise on a real-time face-to-face interaction. After downloading and testing Skype, we found it to be functional and cost-effective,” explained Tenhet.
Both Manuel and Tenhet made sure the programme fitted closely to the curriculum, so parents could be assured that their children were still well-prepared for the year-end assessment. In 2009, in conjunction with the module on ‘Space’, Manuel invited Karla Warner, Outreach Coordinator for Deep Space Network, from NASA to speak to the class over video conference.
“We want to bring content experts into the classroom, which really adds to the learning experience. When Warner spoke about NASA’s current missions, the students were overwhelmed and excited with questions,” Manuel commented.
While the school teachers have not done a study on the impact of the programme on the students’ grades, Manuel has noticed significant improvement in the children’s learning attitudes and communication skills.
“When we launched the programme, we were not sure if it would affect the students’ assessment scores. We were more focused on the experiential learning. Incidentally, we do see ‘results’. Students made extra effort to research before class and wrote in proper English. The fact that there was a real audience – and not just their teacher – gave them tremendous motivation,” she added.
Tenhet is working on expanding the programme with a school in Iceland and Norway. He has also reached out to a research team in the Antarctica, where students will get to hear about penguin adaptations and the effects of global warming directly from the experts through video calls.
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