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Education IT

Singapore tertiary launches new learning lab

By Xinghui Guo | 9 September 2011

The Singapore Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and Cisco have launched a jointly developed ‘connected learning environment’ on 4 August 2011. Called the ITE-Cisco Collaboration Technologies Centre, the facility boasts of new technologies like a three-way conference system, pressure mat censors, camera tracking and a classroom management system.

With the three-way conference system, students have been able to attend interact with lecturers overseas. ITE had recently conducted a discussion session with their Global Education Network (GEN) partners, Kirkwood Community College in Iowa, US where students and staff from both schools shared their experience in an eco-car competition.

“We envisage other project collaboration opportunities with Kirkwood Community College as it is cost-effective,” said Eric Cheung, Director, School of Electronics and Infocomm Technology, ITE College.

Cheung added that picking a convenient time to meet is the only challenge thus far.

When asked about the integration of physical and virtual learning environments, Cheung told FutureGov Asia Pacific that this collaboration us seen as tapping on “available technology to bring in external expertise (both local and overseas) into the physical environment”.

“If the remote side has a good quality video conferencing system, the presence of the remote presenter is life-like with the automatic camera tracking feature installed, our staff and students can interact with them very well. Thus, this setup allows us to have seamless real-time communications and ‘face-to-face’ discussions with anyone, anywhere that has compatible systems,” explained Cheung.


As for future plans, Cheung is hoping to make this style of learning labs available to all schools registered under the Singapore Ministry of Education so that everyone will be able to “conduct collaborative sessions with their foreign partners as well”.

Some other features of the lab includes:

Pressure Mat Sensors that allows presenters to move freely while cameras automatically tracks his movements

Integrated Camera Tracking and Microphone System that zooms in on remote site’s participants when a button is pressed

Cisco Collaboration Tool (WebEx) lets participants and the presenter collaborate live and virtually with the passing of control and sharing of applications or a remote desktop

Cisco Content Server allows for high definition video, audio and data recording that is made available to students for both revision and live streaming

Classroom Management System comes with an interactive wireless tablet so students and use standard software applications from anywhere within the classroom

According to Cheung, each lab can also hold up to 40 students and is used for lectures and tutorials as well as sessions for the Cisco Networking Academy.

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