Future school

Hwa Chong Institution has implemented the "Future school" system to promote collaborative learning. "Future school" is a programme where pupils are required to bring their laptops to school and certain lessons will be conducted online. The school set up this programme so as to broaden the scope of learning for pupils and enable them to use the Internet as a tool to learn. There are pros and cons for this system.

The advantage is that pupils who find "classroom lessons" boring can experience a new way of learning, which might interest them. The future school system also makes it easier for pupils to search for information, as they have the access to the internet. Moreover, this programme help students to be more resourceful and more IT-savvy.

However, there are also major cons to this system. Often, technical difficulties, like not being able to connect to the internet, can be very time-consuming as students will have to try connecting to different proxy servers. If the proxy server is down and the computer totally cannot access the internet, the lesson plans of the teacher will be disrupted as the teacher has to find a way to conduct the "online lesson" without the use of the internet.

Another challenge that is faced is students, having easy access to the internet, playing computer games in school. For example, some pupils stay back after school to play games positioning their computers at angles such that a person standing outside cannot see the screen. This is for the fear that a teacher walks by and notices them, or a technician, doing his ad-hoc inspection of the classes, catches them. Some of the more daring pupils play the games during lesson time, at a point in time when the teacher is unable to see the screen of the person's laptop.

Overall, I feel that the Future School programme is a rather new pedagogy, which is helpful to a certain extent. However, students should use the internet as a tool for learning, and not abuse the autonomy given to them.