Practical lesson in smart school of some Asian countries, and application to Vietnam

Smart school is an advanced school model for training smart citizens in order to meet requirements of smart nation development and of information age in the contex[r]

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Nguyen Chi Thanh, Assoc Prof PhD Nguyen Thi Thuy Quynh, PhD1

Abstract: Industrial society of the twentieth century has given its place to the

information society of the 21th century Therefore, the use of new technologies, including information and communication technology (ICT) in different fields of the life such as education is inevitable Entering information era and increasing the use of IT, toward a new smart school becomes a crucial issue for educational leaders Smart school is an advanced school model for training smart citizens in order to meet requirements of smart nation development and of information age in the context of the fourth industrial revolution After giving some theoretical concepts about smart school, this article analyzes examples of developing smart school in several Asian countries, thereby points out the lessons learned from these models for Vietnam

Keywords: Asian, ICT, Smart school, Vietnam. 1 Introduction

1.1 Concepts of the Smart-School

The smart school (SS) is defined as a school that is designed to create teaching-learning environment, improve management system and training inquiring students [5] SS is a concept around transformation of traditional teaching-learning way to contemporary methods using information and communication technologies SS that is controlled and management based on computer and network technology, the content of its electronic courses and assessment monitoring system are smart

A SS is also defined as an educational establishment that adopts instructional processes and educational management practices that foster systemic changes that are intended to enable learners to surmount the challenges posed by the information technology era [4]

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Kỷ yếu Hội tHảo quốc tế

CáC vấn đề khoa họC giáo dụC: tiếp Cận liên ngành xuyên ngành

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SS also means that student-based, and the role of teacher is navigator and mentor Teachers in SS should know where of the resources in school or in internet and support to students who have advanced questions [3] The control and management in SS are based on computer and network technology and the content of its courses is electronic and its monitoring and evaluation system is intelligent Especially, SS database should be compatible with world standards, and SS library is an electronic library and student can use it online Students in SS can access the online resources (online library) for improving practical skills and knowledge Parent’s relationship in SS is “online” through a central computer, they have the possibility contact to teachers and be aware of your child’s education status at school

Generally, the core of the SS concept is based on four main issues (Fig 1):

Smart technique The ability to produce all kinds of services via cloud-based

system and mobile networks anywhere in theworld, and advanced software in education

Smart devices Smart devices that like as PC, tablet, or smartphone are emerged

to cloud-based system and raising the preference for study and developing creativity of learner

Smart classroom: equipped with modern technologies and the infrastructure for

education such as online library, digital textbooks replacing paper books Students can automatically belogged a smart classroom, and joining remotely using any available device

Smart evaluation: Teachers can test and evaluate of their students in class

with a smart assessment technology and system

Other researchers [7] in the field prefer to add some pedagogical characteristics like:

Smart adaptation: SS will evolve over time continuously developing its

professional staff, educational resources and its administrative capabilities to adapt to changing condition, while continuing to prepare student for his/her future life

Smart pedagogy: SS pedagogy will seek to make learning more interesting,

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Fig The key concepts of smart school

At USA, in the Report of the New York Commission for upper-secondary schools in 2014, the characteristics given to SS are: 1) Providing and expanding online learning; 2) Use transformation technology to provide guidance tailored to each student’s specific abilities and needs; 3) Connect all schools with high-speed, broadband using technology advances and applications; 4) Expanding classroom connection with open source outside the school; 5) Ensuring the members of the pedagogical community successfully integrate technology into teaching and learning for continuous professional development; 6) Focus on STEM skills in teaching and education; 7) Effective leadership and management based on technology and technological capabilities [8]

1.2 Goals of the SS

The important goals of the SS are development of students like as knowledge, physical, mental, emotional and psychological The seven principle keys of SS are listed: creative knowledge; talent to learn; according to the understanding; learning with control and transfer goal; overcome difficulties; evaluation learned and educational organization [3]

1.3 Strategy and policy of the smart school

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classroom atmosphere that is compatible with different teaching-learning strategies The SS development strategy is an important basis to orient the education system and the community to positively care for this model That is the basis for financial investment, preparation of necessary pedagogical conditions for SS Since then, unifying the will, belief, orientation and promoting behavior for managers, teachers, and learner students, students’ parents and communities for the model of upper secondary education The study of SS in Malaysia shows that the development of SS is a national level strategy that has mobilized the total strength to succeed in implementing the model of SS in practice; At USA, the New York state’s education strategy has since had public financial policies and a division of responsibilities between the government and state management agencies on education with very clear schools Therefore, in order to develop the model of SS in Vietnam, it is necessary to have consensus and participation of all levels and sectors from the central to local levels to work together with the education sector to realize this advanced school model

1.4 Technology for SS

The smart school’s teaching-learning environment management and external communications will require technology-based solutions Requirements of SS have been determined in sectors: infrastructure (LAN, Internet connection and hardware), software (Web, learning management systems, electronic content, other e-learning softwares, school automation systems), training for four groups of learners including: staff management, teaching group, students and parents and staffing The SS major activities relate to the needed infrastructure that include hardware equipment and make network facilities, providing software and training The SS is equipped with an internal network system, content production room, a computer site, and some classrooms equipped with computer systems and video projectors for education requirements

2 Practical lesson in smart school of some Asian countries 2.1 In Korea

According to International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Korea is ranked 29th in education competitiveness globally Also follow to investigate from

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2009 Digital Reading Assessment for students’ problem solving capacity using the Internet It proved that advanced ICT development in Korea, and that is opportune to transform to smart education

To attain the vision of SMART school, the Korean government has initiated five projects which are listed below [1]:

- Digital Textbook development and application - Promoting online classes and assessments

- Creating an environment to use educational content safely - Building teacher’s competency

- Establishing a cloud-based education system

Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Korea released “A Pathway to a great country with talents: Promoting the smart education strategy programme” in October, 2011, with implement smart education strategy from 2011 to 2015 The successful implementation of the smart education strategy, Korea plans to invest 23.7 billion won during 2011-2015 (Table 1) Besides the development of modern and intelligent technology in smart schools, Korean government has placed great emphasis on training teacher resources who have the capacity to meet the smart school

Table Promoting the strategic budget for SS in Korea from 2011 to 2015

(Unit: 100 million won)

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

1 Development and application of ICT 10 10 2.860 2.860

2 Online teaching and evaluation system 83 119 227 221 241 Freedom of education resources

used with security environment 10 10 10 10

4 Training the teacher’s competition 1 153 415 815 1.200

5 Cloud -based computing 2.092 3.280 3.621 2.866

2.2 In Japan

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according to PISA’s evaluation (Program for International Student Assessment) in the years 2000, 2003, 2006 and recent years In preparation for entering the 21st century, from 1984, Japan conducted education reform with the main idea of forming life-long learning system, preparing a young generation who meet the new requirements of modern society in the knowledge economy with the process of globalization At the moment, Japan is one of countries that increasing importance of the smart education concept as a global standard In 2013, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) proposed the “21st century competencies”, and to perform

this task, MEXT budgeted for building a smarter school, 131 billion yen during period from 2014 to 2017 All of environment for active learning inc l uding ICT-driven equipment, e-Learning and teaching materials, and promoting educational funded by MEXT for these years To implement this strategy, educators have shown that two main things need to be considered: (1) How to use e-Learning system and ICT equipment control; (2) e-learning and positive educational methods Besides, in Japan, the first digital textbook was developed in 2005 In late 2010, MEXT also proposed deployment of digital textbooks to all elementary and junior high school students until 2015 [5]

2.3 In Malaysia

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and processing their products with others will be needed to allow them to express themselves A higher level of communication requires analyzing topics, audience, task and messages in a variety of social settings Moreover, communication is important to cooperate, to understand, and to negotiate with each other, especially when group work is required The concepts of technology education in the SS provide a good example of preserving Malaysian traditional values in modern technology On the other hand, instilling scientific and humanistic values into technology curriculum balances these two extremes - technology and human beings

3 Application of smart school project in Vietnam

Vietnam has many opportunities to implement the model of SS Currently, many provinces have developed projects or are piloting this model such as: Thanh Hoa, Ho Chi Minh city, Thai Binh, Hai Phong One of the localities that have successfully implemented the transition towards high school education is Dong Trieu town, Quang Ninh province with the model of a smart classroom This model was first piloted at Vinh Khe Primary School from the school year 2003-2004 Up to now, Dong Trieu district has 79/79 schools (from kindergartens to high schools) with smart classrooms, each school has at least smart classroom Difficulties in the transition to a new school model with challenges in the application of modern technology are inevitable in the current reality of Vietnam [2] Lately, some high schools in Hanoi have received investment for smart classroom, including interactive teaching and learning management; allow teachers to bring the curriculum or requests student from the interactive white board via tablet, and support students to send questions to teachers Teachers can manage each student’s progress as well as run the class through the learning management feature The investment project of SS system is one of the steps to prepare for project “Building Ho Chi Minh City to become a smart city in the period of 2017-2020, vision to 2025 “ The first SS model was built on the basis of electronic classes, electronic schools to pilot test in high schools: Le Hong Phong; Tran Dai Nghia; Le Quy Don; Nguyen Hien; Nguyen Du Besides, building a project order to improve IT application capacity for students and teachers in accordance with international standards of information technology

4 Disscusion and conclusion

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socio-economic situation Some lessons learnt from several countries in Asia allow to point out necessary aspect which should be considered when developing SS in Vietnam:

Building and designing smart programs

In order to create a smart interactive environment for learners, the school curriculum requires smart, highly flexible and open-minded curriculum The content of the program meets the requirements of providing fundamental knowledge, developing learners’ ability to meet the requirements of workers in modern society with the context of extensive application of modern technology The program must be built in the direction of increasing learning interest, increasing learning ability for learners, increasing the effectiveness of the program On that basis, SS creates a positive learning environment, learners can learn in diverse, rich forms, suitable to their needs and personal speed

Thoughtful preparation of teachers to meet the requirements of SS

Smart teachers are a key determinant of the success of SS The issue of training and development of teachers to meet the requirements of upper secondary education is inevitable Many Asian countries such as Malaysia, Korea… that have conducted training, retraining and development of teacher’s competencies in many successive stages taking into account the characteristics of teacher’s qualifications, cultures, etc Vietnam has to assessing the status of teachers in terms of quantity and quality according to teacher’s standards and criteria; determine the needs and methods of training and retraining the team in accordance with the current situation In order to teach effectively in smart class, teachers need to: have strong expertise, modern pedagogical capacity, technological capability to use and coordinate smart devices in teaching and support students in learning In addition, teachers must develop appropriate teaching and learning support strategies for each student so that they can learn at a pace and need consistent with open forms of learning Teachers need a variety of teaching methods, giving priority to teaching methods to increase experience and discovery for students Besides, teachers need to have creative ideas and always encourage students to be creative, dare to think, dare to do, have good collaboration and communication skills

Investment in facilities and smart technology equipment

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researched, planned investment activities, identified and selected investment items to ensure synchronous, quality, effective and sustainable factors Computer system with Internet connection, interactive board, intelligent lectern, personal tablet for students, high quality broadband system, system of software for teaching and learning, software system management, camera system to monitor and control the activities of the school, are items to be considered for investment in the SS

Formulating policies to support the development of smart schools

Policies to support the development of commercial schools are useful for the process of transforming, maintaining and developing sustainable elements of the market The transition to SS is the process of preparing human resources, materials, and resources to meet new requirements Therefore, it is necessary to have policies to support legal and policies to encourage the development of SS; policies to support the development of SS technology, policies to support professional development for school teachers; policies to mobilize community support and supervision of SS; policies to develop smart management of schools

SS is a model of schools adapting to the strong development of all aspects of social life and meeting the requirements of training smart citizens to build a smart country and start-up a business Converting to SS is a thorough preparation process and goes through many stages corresponding to the investment in infrastructure, the level of managerial staff, the level of teacher awareness of society and the local socio-economic situation The lessons learned through studying the transition process of some countries are the suggestions and references for developing the SS in Vietnam today

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Tóm tắt: Xã hội thông tin kỷ 21 dần thay xã hội công nghiệp

của kỷ 20 Việc sử dụng công nghệ mới, bao gồm công nghệ thông tin truyền thông (ICT) lĩnh vực khác sống giáo dục điều tất yếu Nền giáo dục bước vào kỷ nguyên thông tin tăng cường sử dụng CNTT, hướng tới trường học thông minh trở thành vấn đề quan trọng nhà lãnh đạo giáo dục Trường học thơng minh mơ hình trường học tiên tiến để đào tạo hệ công dân thông minh nhằm đáp ứng yêu cầu phát triển quốc gia thời đại thông tin bối cảnh cách mạng công nghiệp lần thứ tư (Cuộc cách mạng 4.0) Bài viết đưa số khái niệm lý thuyết trường học thông minh, phân tích số ví dụ phát triển trường học thông minh số nước châu Á, từ rút học ứng dụng mơ hình trường học thông minh cho Việt Nam