In a bid to move to the next level in the 21st century where learning has seen a significant shift in expectations from teachers and students, Olashore International School has launched a new technology driven curriculum to its school system. It has also launched a "One iPad per Teacher & Student" Program. Thus, becoming the first school in Nigeria to do so.
This was reiterated upon during an Executive Briefing Session recently in Lagos, with the theme: 'Blending Technology and Education for World Class learning'.
Speaking at the unveil of the iPad initiative, the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Olashore International, Prince Bimbo Olashore, stated "Nigeria can no longer wait and be playing catch up with technology or keep waiting for technology transfer. We have to leap frog to catch up and get our young Nigerians prepared for the new technology driven world. We are pleased to be making substantial investment in this direction".
He spoke further on the challenges inherent. His words: "The Challenge is how to produce children to think out of the box and make them clearly different. Communication is the key. If a child has all the A's in the world and cannot communicate, it's a waste of time. The result is the only benchmark to show how well the school is doing on the students. The world has gone far beyond, and how the kids can compete favourably with the world especially in an information technology age, aside from classwork is necessary, so an iPad project was introduced to use technology in education. We went round the world to see how this will be achieved. With this, things will change".
On his part, the principal of the school, Mr Derek Smith pointed out specifically that the school focused more on learning, and that so much can now be done with technology because people can now interact in various ways. However, he shed more light on what the school has put in place to make the project work.
He pointed out the support system, guaranteed electricity, Power-point lessons, interactive whiteboards, projectors in classrooms, one to one roll out of iPads , and mobile devices, amongst others, as some things put in place to ensure education and technology.
He added that some educational apps will be made available on the iPad which ranges from "Ever-green apps" which will be used across all subjects on the curriculum, "iMovie" which will allow students make educational movies, "Presentation Software" which will allow for voice over of educational materials, and shobe apps which will allow the photographs of their written work to be sent to the teacher for feedback, amongst others.
He also announced that the inter-connectivity band width of the school had increased in the last few years by 10, and hopes to keep increasing, and that the fibre optics has been rolled out for coverage and density. He emphasized that the school has a Mobile Management System to control and track all that is done with iPads provided by the school in order to ensure that no student deviates from the actual reason for issuance.
According to the Principal during his lecture on "Blending Technology and Education: The Olashore Experience" four keys essential for learning and competence in the 21st century are : Critical Thinking , Communication, Collaboration and Creativity. He reiterated thus: "Olashore has been developing these skills in their students for a number of years and now feels that the development of these competencies are integrated into our culture. Hence we are looking to move to the next level where we can further develop our use of technology to transform learning".
Elucidating on the 21st century learning, he highlighted six(6) levels in the cognitive dormain of the Taxanomy , to include: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. His words: "As knowledge becomes freely and easily available through mobile internet access, the value of knowledge retention has decreased. The Challenge for 21st Century schools is to ensure that learners move to the higher levels of Bloom 's Taxanomy of learning, beyond knowledge and comprehension to the levels where they are comfortable analysing , synthsosing and evaluating information.
Summarising key factors that Olashore believes will ensure most effective transformation of learning , the principal pointed them out to include, Effective Research before implementation, investing time and resources, training of all staff ,planning Ahead and pacing one's self.
This was reiterated upon during an Executive Briefing Session recently in Lagos, with the theme: 'Blending Technology and Education for World Class learning'.
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| The Principal, Olashore International School, Mr Derek Smith, during an Executive Briefing on Blending Technology and Education recently in Lagos. |
He spoke further on the challenges inherent. His words: "The Challenge is how to produce children to think out of the box and make them clearly different. Communication is the key. If a child has all the A's in the world and cannot communicate, it's a waste of time. The result is the only benchmark to show how well the school is doing on the students. The world has gone far beyond, and how the kids can compete favourably with the world especially in an information technology age, aside from classwork is necessary, so an iPad project was introduced to use technology in education. We went round the world to see how this will be achieved. With this, things will change".
On his part, the principal of the school, Mr Derek Smith pointed out specifically that the school focused more on learning, and that so much can now be done with technology because people can now interact in various ways. However, he shed more light on what the school has put in place to make the project work.
He pointed out the support system, guaranteed electricity, Power-point lessons, interactive whiteboards, projectors in classrooms, one to one roll out of iPads , and mobile devices, amongst others, as some things put in place to ensure education and technology.
He added that some educational apps will be made available on the iPad which ranges from "Ever-green apps" which will be used across all subjects on the curriculum, "iMovie" which will allow students make educational movies, "Presentation Software" which will allow for voice over of educational materials, and shobe apps which will allow the photographs of their written work to be sent to the teacher for feedback, amongst others.
He also announced that the inter-connectivity band width of the school had increased in the last few years by 10, and hopes to keep increasing, and that the fibre optics has been rolled out for coverage and density. He emphasized that the school has a Mobile Management System to control and track all that is done with iPads provided by the school in order to ensure that no student deviates from the actual reason for issuance.
According to the Principal during his lecture on "Blending Technology and Education: The Olashore Experience" four keys essential for learning and competence in the 21st century are : Critical Thinking , Communication, Collaboration and Creativity. He reiterated thus: "Olashore has been developing these skills in their students for a number of years and now feels that the development of these competencies are integrated into our culture. Hence we are looking to move to the next level where we can further develop our use of technology to transform learning".
Elucidating on the 21st century learning, he highlighted six(6) levels in the cognitive dormain of the Taxanomy , to include: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. His words: "As knowledge becomes freely and easily available through mobile internet access, the value of knowledge retention has decreased. The Challenge for 21st Century schools is to ensure that learners move to the higher levels of Bloom 's Taxanomy of learning, beyond knowledge and comprehension to the levels where they are comfortable analysing , synthsosing and evaluating information.
Summarising key factors that Olashore believes will ensure most effective transformation of learning , the principal pointed them out to include, Effective Research before implementation, investing time and resources, training of all staff ,planning Ahead and pacing one's self.
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