Last update at http://inet.nttam.com : Thu May 4 12:36:17 1995 Internet for Schools - the Singapore Experience Eng Pheng Tan Abstract This paper traces the development of the Internet project for the Singapore Ministry of Education HQ, junior colleges and secondary schools. Adopting a project management view point, the paper outlines the planning and implementation of the project from a pilot stage involving only 6 schools with less than 30 users, to its present status of having more than 600 users spread all over the island. It highlights the current thrusts and challenges facing the project and concludes by looking ahead towards expanding Internet to all schools. 1 Introduction Up until late 1993, Internet was only available to the tertiary educational institutions and the R&D community in Singapore. However, the situation has now changed drastically, with more than 600 educationists and teachers in the Ministry of Education headquarters, secondary schools (equivalent to grade 7-10) and junior colleges (grade 11-12) plugged into the global network and having Internet accounts. This paper traces the development stages of the project - from a modest pilot involving only 6 schools to today's implementation with most users having direct access via an island-wide network. It outlines the various lessons learnt from the pilot and strategies adopted for the mass implementation. Other aspects such as promotion, technical development of the system, user training and implementation support will also be discussed. Teachers' and students' experience in using Internet for their teaching-related research or learning activities respectively will be elaborated. The paper will attempt to link such experience to the emerging trend of employing information technology (IT) to support an 'access-oriented-learning' model, and highlight a project in development which will integrate Internet with other on-line multimedia resources to enhance learning. 2 Internet Pilot A pilot involving three Junior Colleges (JC) and three secondary schools was conducted from Aug 93 to Mar 94 as part of an effort to assess the feasibility of introducing Internet to schools in Singapore. The pilot was jointly undertaken by the National Computer Board, the Computer Services Branch of Ministry of Education and the Technet Unit - Singapore's only Internet access provider then. The objectives of the pilot were as follows: (a) To identify suitable services and projects for mass implementation; (b) To identify user interface requirements for teachers and students; and (c) To explore means of restricting students' access to undesirable material. To foster close interaction, only about 5 teachers from each participating school or junior college were involved in the pilot. These teachers were given Internet access via telephone dial up to the Technet computer for text data only. Selection of pilot teachers was based solely on level of interest but not computer literacy. All pilot participants were given a half-day training to introduce them to the basic concepts of the various Internet facilities like electronic mail, newsgroups, gopher etc. In order to better guide pilot teachers and support them effectively, members of technical staff from the project team took on the role of mentors, with each staff mentoring either 1 or 2 schools. Pilot teachers therefore had a single point of contact to sort out problems ranging from modem dialing failure to lack of knowledge on how to use certain Internet facilities. The personal contact not only help to build up the rapport, but also allowed the project team to assess the situation from very close range. At least two group sessions were held, during and towards the end of the pilot, for teachers to share their experience with each other. Instead of hearing from the project team which constantly preached the goodness of Internet, it was thought that perhaps positive experience on the part of their fellow teachers would be more convincing. Indeed this turned out to be the case as pilot teachers had made use of Internet in their teaching activities in a variety of ways. This ranged from browsing lesson plans and project ideas, downloading educational software, sourcing for subject-related information, to introducing Internet as part of the class curriculum for students. Under teachers' guidance and supervision, students had also used Internet to participate in current affairs simulation game with overseas partners, conversed with scientist on exploration, exchanged literacy works through the international poetry guild etc. On the whole, the following main lessons were learnt from the pilot: (a) Importance of a friendly user-interface As end users, many teachers did not have the time nor the patience to learn cryptic Unix commands, even though this may be the best way to fully exploit all the power of Internet. Instead, they highlighted the need to have a friendly interface which shield them from such commands and yet sufficient to perform most operations. (b) The need to minimise effort required to search for educational resources Surfing the Internet for required resources takes a lot of time, particularly for new users who need to grapple with the tool itself in addition to navigating on the Net. It was therefore decided right from the beginning of the pilot that participating teachers shall each select topics or areas of interest to focus their search effort, with the aim of collating their searches into a reference directory for sharing by all at the end. Topics and areas chosen ranged from current affairs, general paper, science, literature, mathematics to career counseling. Activities undertaken by teachers include special effort to perform searches in these areas as well as guiding students to participate in collaborative projects which revolved around these themes. While the pilot confirmed the belief that surfing for a specific aim is a more productive and meaningful way to learn about Internet than aimless wondering, it remains difficult to identify relevant resources for the targeted levels of students. It turned out that much information was either published by tertiary institutions for tertiary students, or was irrelevant to Singapore's context. Nonetheless, there was still relevant resources in the various categories for secondary and junior college teaching, except that getting to them took effort and could potentially dampen the interest and enthusiasm of new users who did not have much time aside from their teaching duties in schools. To alleviate the situation, a first-cut "Guide to Education Resources and Student Projects on Internet" indexed by subject areas was given to pilot teachers for their reference. They were encouraged to critique or add on to the resources listed since they were more qualified than the project team that compiled the guide in assessing the merit and relevance of resources. (c) Sufficiency of access points in schools As the pilot was run on a very limited budget with resources on loan, each school was only equipped with 1 dial up modem using existing telephone line which means it had to be shared with voice communication. Although some schools/ JCs have installed additional PCs and modems, limited availability of additional phone lines was still an obstacle. This prompted the pilot schools to suggest that for effective usage, at least 3 to 6 PCs connected to Internet should be available in staff room, computer labs, the library or the media resource room for all to use. The text-only access was also deemed to be unexciting. (d) Adequacy of training and technical assistance Most teachers felt that a half-day training session was too short for them to grasp all the concepts and facilities about Internet. Except the few who have had experience setting up school electronic bulletin boards or were already subscribers to some BBSs, most found the learning curve fairly steep. The mentor scheme was therefore a great help, especially when they could readily get assistance when they encountered any technical problem. Mentors also tended to be more qualified and comprehensive in dispensing solutions, compared with the lesser trained Help Desk staff. Of course, in a full implementation, the mentor scheme could not be staffed by the technical professionals any more due to the sheer number of users. Other than training of teachers, it was also suggested that school librarians should be included, as they would be effective information researchers given their skill and experience in library science. They could assist teachers or students who had problem researching on particular topics, much like their present function as librarians. (e) Model for student access During the pilot, students could only access Internet under supervision. Since it was difficult to impose any fool-proof mechanism to ensure that students would not be able to get access to undesirable or pornographic material, the team deliberated on various possibilities of restricting access. One suggestion was for the team to download selected resources every day and let students access only this pool rather than having direct access to the entire Internet. However, this was not only tedious to achieve, but also ran contrary to the model of encouraging free access for learning. It would also be difficult to keep up with the fast development of information resources all over the world, not to mention the amount of hardware resources required to achieve this duplication. Another suggestion was for a coordinator to vet all outgoing and incoming student correspondence for any misuse of Internet for pornography. This was too deemed to be unpractical. At the end, it was decided that since Singapore teachers would also be new to Internet, it would be best for them to be acquainted with it before we open up to students. This would also indirectly allow more time for parents, schools, and the Ministry of Education to decide the best model for student access. 3 Mass Implementation At the end of the pilot, it was most satisfying to hear one pilot school reported that it had identified three roles for its Internet usage: as resource seekers, resource suppliers as well as project-based participants. This clearly demonstrated that they not only intended to benefit from the rich resources available on Internet, but was also prepared to contribute to the Net. Based on lessons learned from the pilot, the Computer Services Branch adopted the following strategies in its mass implementation of Internet to Ministry HQ and all 14 JCs in Singapore in mid 1994: (a) A hypertext interface was developed using Lynx This was in response to the expressed need for a friendly user interface. As not all users were able to enjoy direct connection right from the start, a hypertext tool like Lynx catered to both text-only users as well as those who had full connectivity. The tool allowed the former to access content from the World Wide Web except that they would not be able to view images. (b) Compilation of resource meta-information by subjects Since Internet was new to education users in Singapore, to help teachers access relevant resources quickly, a compilation of resources including some identified by pilot participants was indexed by subject and distributed to new users. In addition, gopher and WWW home pages were also set up to provide on-line links to these resources. While the printed guide was only updated periodically, the project team tried to maintain the currency of the on-line links to the best of their ability. As the work load for teachers are heavy, they want to spend minimum time surfing and are most interested in getting quickly to their resources. The meta-information pages, broken down by subjects, was therefore most useful for new users. After they have gained experience, the users are likely to make use of the browser and search engines for WWW content or Veronica for gopher resources themselves. (c) Training of Users All account holders were given direct training on a suit of Internet facilities including Telnet, FTP, email, newsgroup, gopher, WWW. Base on experience from the pilot, the training session was lengthened to 1 full day. However, depending on the level of computer literacy of the teachers, some still found the course too compact and demanding. While direct training of all Internet applicants impose significant resource demand on the instructors, it is found to be more effective in the long run compared with a 'cascading approach' of training only limited number of coordinator teachers per school and hope that they would in turn form the next level of instructors for their colleagues. Users constructing WWW pages were given extra training on HTML to enable them to perform their roles effectively. This will be touched on later. (d) Maximise number of access points for Internet Prior to the introduction of Internet, all the JC in Singapore have already installed a local area network (LAN), each with about 14 client PCs and running IBM Lan Manager to meet their computing needs. These LANs are linked to the Ministry HQ where the Internet server is kept via a wide area network through 64 kbps leased line. Leveraging on the LAN infrastructure in the JC, teachers can now access Internet with full connectivity almost anywhere within the College. This is a far cry compared with the pilot days when there was only 1 modem link for text data. The secondary school users, however, are less fortunate at the moment and have to still depend on dial up access as no LANs have been installed though they are already in the pipeline. Nevertheless, they enjoy a SLIP connection which still allows them to enjoy the rich multimedia WWW content. (e) Active promotion of Internet to Schools While the pilot participants were chosen base on their level of enthusiasm, the project's success cannot hinge entirely on just a small group of users. At a time when teachers' awareness of Internet was not high, it was necessary to get on the road to promote it. The team therefore took the initiative of promoting it in JC and schools via talks and demonstrations, participating in educational technology or multimedia fairs by putting up exhibition booths, making presentations to school administrators and senior education officials etc. The effort has not been wasted as there are now more than 40 schools and Junior Colleges which have opted in. Instead of the technical professionals promoting Internet, we are increasingly shifting towards playing a supporting role to educationists within the Ministry that can help promote Internet by sharing their professional experience in how Internet has helped in their work. This way, teachers feel more convinced. (f) Support for users Other than WWW browser which employs essentially only mouse clicks to navigate, some other client software may not be that friendly. Users can also run into genuine technical problems due to either hardware or software. While ease of use of software will reduce need for support in the long run, prompt and thorough query handling and problem resolution by support staff are also important in keeping users' interest alive. The Computer Services Branch has a central Help Desk that handles users' queries or problem reports. While its scope of work is not confined to supporting Internet, its existence does help in overcoming simple problems encountered by users by helping to resolve them over the phone. Unresolved problems are escalated to a team of technical professionals for their attention and follow-up. As alternate means to the telephone, users can also communicate with the Help Desk via email or fax. There is also a suggestion column on the WWW home page for users/ visitors to give comment and suggestions. Genuine requests for information are normally routed to the correct department within the Ministry for their reply. 4 Current Thrusts Phase 1 of the Ministry's Internet project which planned to connect HQ, all junior colleges and a number of secondary schools had been completed by end 1994. Currently, more secondary schools are being added each month depending on requests. In addition to continuing promotion to increase the number of users over time, the project is now emphasizing several other key aspects: (a) Information arbitrage While currently it is the technical team that helps to collate the list of resources for the various subjects and put them on-line, their expertise and professional knowledge obviously do not reside in those subject areas. Their judgment and ability to appraise the relevance of content for the local context and targeted levels is therefore limited. While pilot teachers had helped in the beginning, it is not possible to expect them to continue to perform that role continuously. It is therefore important to involve curriculum specialists who are domain experts in their respective areas to perform the information arbitrage role. With their participation, the resource lists for the various subjects can be more relevant and applicable to local readers. It is encouraging that after some persuasion, some specialists are already coming forward to help host the WWW pages and even form local news groups and mailing lists to link up teachers and tertiary academics who are interested in a common subject domain. It is hoped that this can eventually grow to all subject areas. (b) Content contribution to the Net In order to be a resource contributor as well, the project team has worked closely with various departments in the Ministry HQ and schools to provide suitable local content. Under an 'International Information Dissemination' strategy, the Ministry has published information on Singapore' Education System on the WWW, provided the school directory and a list of textbooks used for the interest of overseas Singaporean parents, and put up recruitment advertisement for teaching staff etc. Many schools have also introduced themselves and reached out to their alumnus by publishing School Bulletins on the WWW. Training is provided for keen school users to author their own WWW pages and update them on the system without the intervention of the project team. In this way, it is hope that the school users will not only benefit from the Net, but will continuously contribute their ideas and writings back to the Net. (c) Internet as part of a technology-enhanced learning environment While there is wide spread enthusiasm about the potential of Internet as a learning resource, in an environment where students' examination grades are given much attention by teachers and parents, some skeptics have questioned the relevance of Internet in contributing to students' performance. However, this situation should improve when the benefits of Internet as an information source is better understood, and its pivotal role in supporting an 'access-oriented-learning' vs the 'teacher-as-knowledge-purveyor' model becomes clear. Not only is information skill being taught in secondary schools now, there is also increasing emphasis on imparting life skills to students to prepare them for the working live. In a future informatised society, skills in handling on-line information will gain increasing importance. As for the better students, getting good grades only form part of the learning challenge. Their yearning for more knowledge necessitates tools that allow them the flexibility to explore and learn on their own. Internet is one such learning tool that can be used to develop students' information skills as well as provide the access path to knowledge bases. To this end, the planned integration of Internet access into the STUDENTS' AND TEACHERS' WORKBENCH, a strategic project which uses IT to support students' learning, is one example of how Internet is being used to integrate with other learning environments. (d) Student access The project has so far only granted teachers Internet accounts. Usage by students are under teachers' direct supervision. For the full benefits of Internet as a learning tool to be realised across a wider student population, such close supervision by teachers are impossible for practical reasons. As long as students are given direct access to Internet, it is impossible to depend on technical solutions alone to restrict any potential misuse. Instead, a combination of both technical solutions and procedural ones may need to be adopted for student access. We will be piloting student access by adopting a student Acceptable Use Policy that allows for inspection by teachers or school administrators, with disciplinary action and termination of account imposed if violation of use is detected. Schools will also be advised to make available student access points at "public places" where content retrieved can be readily seen by anybody nearby. Some of these measures act as deterrent and are definitely not water-tight. Ultimately, it is education of the student users that can stem any misuse. 5 Conclusion Partly helped by a small geographical area, Singapore has managed to connect all its 14 junior colleges and more than 25 secondary schools to Internet within a year. Over the next few years, all 350 schools in Singapore will be plugged into Internet when a plan to install local area networks in schools with leased line connections to HQ is realised. While the Internet project has made progress since its pilot days, there is still some distance to go before the entire education sector can proclaim that it has embraced the use of Internet to support learning and teaching. With the same passion, commitment and enthusiasm that has seen the project germinate, the attainment of this goal is only a matter of time. Author Information Tan Eng Pheng is currently an Assistant Director at the Singapore National Computer Board. He contributed this article in his previous capacity as Head, Project Group at the Computer Services Branch, Ministry of Education. Eng Pheng has more than 8 years of IT experience and has managed several software development projects employing 4GL, DBMSs on minicomputers and mainframe, as well as client server applications on LANs. He was also involved in the IT2000 Study aimed at developing Singapore into an Intelligent Island, and spear headed computerisation planning of schools while at the Ministry of Education. Acknowledgment The writer would like to express his appreciation to Mr. Wong Joon Tai, Information Systems Manager at the Computer Services Branch, Singapore Ministry of Education for his input to this paper. INET '95 Information for Authors Proc. INET '95 E.P. Tan