Lim, Kenneth Yang Teck

This paper describes part of the results of a pilot study investigating how adolescents make, share and negotiate meaning with their peers about their local environments. Specifically, the results presented in this paper focus on how adolescents perceive and interpret spatial and three-dimensional data presented in various formats, such as in terms of virtually-rendered objects, photo-realistic panoramas, and traditional maps. Participants were required to undertake both a pre- and a post-test, which were identical in task. These tests involved having the participants match a series of computer-rendered three-dimensional objects with similar objects rendered from the same perspective, as well as to deduce the axis of rotation and viewing perspective of a QuickTime VR cylindrical panorama when presented with a map of the same area (the preand post-tests were separated by an intervention activity which will be described but not analysed in depth in this paper, as the activity itself has been documented in other publications by the author). Performance data obtained from the pre- and post-test results will be presented and analysed, to establish the extent to which classroom practice in geography lessons might be improved to enhance students’ performance in map reading and interpretation.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the reform initiatives that began with a focus towards change in the teaching and learning in Singapore classrooms with technology integration. Design/methodology/approach The methodology used in this study is review and descriptive narrative of educational technology polices, initiatives and projects. Findings The Ministry of Education, Singapore, has ensured that schools had infrastructure, leadership and necessary teacher training to successfully implement the initiatives. Originality/value The descriptions of the implementations are valuable lessons for other national systems in the region and beyond, seeking to integrate information and communications technology (ICT) in their education systems.

This paper describes an intervention piloted in secondary schools in Singapore in the second half of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention aims to afford learners more authentic understandings of the need to invest effort and self-discipline in nurturing the new habit of practicing safe-distancing, beyond just doing so because of public exhortation. It seeks to achieve this objective through two complementary halves, the first being an activity within a virtual environment during which a (virtual) virus is diffusing, and the second being dialogue and discussion around students’ decision-making and behaviours, as informed from an analysis of data of interaction from the first half, via a web-based interface. In this way, the Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project represents not only an intervention designed to meet the challenges to learning imposed by COVID-19, but also one of the current few which attempt to do so by leveraging students’ evolving conceptions about the diffusion of a virus amongst a population. Understood thusly, the intervention has potential curricular applications in a number of disciplinary domains, such as in mathematics, geography, biology and citizenship education.

This article considers some of the unique affordances that Multi-User Virtual Environments-in particular, Second Life-present to the design of learning environments. Drawing upon some preliminary experiences of acquainting teachers in several schools in Singapore with Second Life, specific attention is paid to the inherent spatiality of the Second Life grid, and the implications the consequent sense of place imparts on traditional notions of the content of any given subject domain, as well as on how the understanding of learners can be facilitated and subsequently assessed.

Global warming is a threat to plants. A warming of 1.5 – 2 deg C in the tropics is predicted to cause crop yield reductions in Southeast Asia and increase the risks for both heat waves and flooding. It is predicted that by around the mid-century period (2040 - 2069), the mean temperature in Singapore can increase by 2 deg C to 29.6 deg C in a Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 scenario. This temperature change can impact food crops and heat-vulnerable plants, threatening our food supply and increasing the risk of extinction of vulnerable plant species. Ipomoea Aquatica, also known as the Kangkong, is a heat-tolerant tropical vegetable in Southeast Asia and used in local dishes. To study whether this plant can grow well in global warming temperatures, we exposed the Kangkong to the predicted increase of 2 deg C for three weeks. A range of climate variables was recorded through the use of Arduino sensors and physical changes to the Kangkong plants such as the heights of the Kangkong in each set-up were also measured. By the 17th day, the Kangkong in the control set-up overtook the one in the increased temperature set-up in height.

This chapter describes an intervention which was enacted from April 2018 to February 2019, in an orphanage in Singapore. The learning intervention comprised a coding curriculum conceptualised, designed and enacted by two high-school students, in their capacity as interns to the Lead Author. Written in the form of a narrative inquiry, the chapter describes the trajectory charted by the students as they sought to take their conceptual expertise in the Python coding language to design a scaffolded curriculum through the lens of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This curriculum was enacted on a weekly basis after formal curriculum hours, with one of the orphans who was their peer in terms of age (prior to the intervention, the students were not acquainted with the orphan). The chapter thus describes the reflections and learning points about their personal ontologies of coding, and about their struggles as they appropriated the epistemologies of curriculum designer and tutor—as the three peers met each week for the better part of a year. The chapter therefore has potential takeaways for those interested in peer-based learning, non-formal after-school contexts of learning, as well as the place of coding and computational thinking in the curriculum.

Recent developments in handheld telephony have given rise to the ‘mobile internet' - a range of technologies, from multimedia-messaging to access of the internet through handheld devices. These trends have been accompanied by the increasing consumerization of the mobile phone. Many students today have access to a tool, which allows them to connect to potentially anyone else, regardless of spatial co-location. This paper describes a study which was carried out in the early months of 2004, focusing on how the social software of the mobile internet, such as text- and picture-messaging, is used by adolescents in the process of constructing negotiated and shared understandings of unfamiliar environments in which they may find themselves. Students were presented with opportunities to collaboratively explore and navigate unfamiliar environments using the technologies of the mobile internet, as well as to engage in debate, and used multimedia evidence recorded in the field to defend their positions both to peers in the field and subsequently in the classroom.

ICT has been viewed as a tool to support curriculum re-design and teachers’ pedagogical beliefs shift from teacher-centred to student-centred. While schools are being equipped with varied array of ICT tools, ICT has not successfully brought the shift in pedagogies to student-centred models in many countries. As the use of ICT in education gains traction within formal education, teaching and learning are framed as two overlapping and interconnecting sets of processes— transfer and deepening. The two sets of processes are not operating independently, for they are mutually reinforcing and iteratively enhancing learning. To conclude, the paradigms of ‘craft’ and ‘industrial’ educator are introduced as a suggested means of lensing the role of teachers in ICT-mediated learning environments.