Official: Netbook will not replace ‘Chalk, Talk’

The netbooks presently being deployed to primary school pupils across the nation will not replace “chalk and talk” in the classroom.{{more}}

Rather, the devices are to viewed as just another educational tool, and will be used in collaboration with textbooks, workbooks, LCD projectors, other computers and teaching aids.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Nicole Bonadie Baker told SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday that the concept is not to have classes using only computers.

“It is just about using all the tools to incorporate into Teaching. So you are not going to have classes that just use computers,” Bonadie-Baker said.

The Permanent Secretary said the process of training teachers about how to integrate Information Communication Technology (ICT) into their classes began since last year, and is part of a 12.1 million Euro European Union (EU) funded project.

“So it’s not IT (Information Technology), like how you have IT programs. It is across the curriculum. Whether you are doing Social Studies, History, Mathematics; how you use the tools,” Bonadie-Baker said.

She said computers were in all secondary schools before, and under the last EU project, secondary schools were provided with LCD projectors and electronic smartboards.

In fact, Bonadie-Baker said, regular computers and laptops had just been placed all the primary and secondary schools as part of the general ICT in Education project.

Among the first persons who were trained in how to integrate ICT into their lessons were teachers who have been appointed as “point persons” at each school.

These teachers, Bonadie said, were identified by their principals and will deal with all the ICT initiatives in their school. They will also be the Ministry’s link at the educational institution, and will be the person at the school who will assist all the teachers with the use of ICT.

The first phase of the roll out of the netbooks involves pupils in grades 2 to 5 of all 68 primary schools in the country, including private primary schools.

As of Wednesday of this week, 3,400 netbooks had been distributed in the process which began on April 29.

Bonadie said the Ministry hopes to complete their distribution to pupils in these grades before the start of end of year exams.

“The last primary school should be done by June 10, with the exception of Mustique, which will be done the week after,” she shared.

To speed up the distribution process, as of Wednesday this week, three teams will visit five primary schools daily.

Bonadie said the staff of the Ministry of Education has been working “long, hard hours” to ensure

that the logging of information related to each netbook is done before the device is handed over to the child.

Each netbook is labelled with the name, class, grade and school of each child, and this information is linked with the netbook’s MAC address, which is an identifier unique to each netbook.

Bonadie-Baker said this process is completed prior to going to the school, so that on arrival at the school, no time is wasted.

“For if you are to be accountable, we have to make sure we know exactly which netbook each child gets, and can track it,” the Permanent Secretary said.

Parents of pupils receiving the laptops are required to sign a form agreeing to the payment of a fine of $300 for “wilful damage and destruction”.

Bonadie-Baker, however, stressed that there is no up front fee for receiving the netbooks.