Practical lesson in smart school of some Asian countries, and application to Vietnam

praCtiCal lESSon in Smart SChool oF SomE aSian CountriES, and appliCation to viEtnam Nguyen Chi Thanh, Assoc. Prof. PhD. Nguyen Thi Thuy Quynh, PhD1 Abstract: Industrial society of the twentieth century has given its place to the information society of the 21th century. Therefore, the use of new technologies, including information and communication technology (ICT) in different fields of the life such as education is inevitable. Entering information era and increasing the use of IT, toward a new smart school becomes a crucial issue for educational leaders. Smart school is an advanced school model for training smart citizens in order to meet requirements of smart nation development and of information age in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. After giving some theoretical concepts about smart school, this article analyzes examples of developing smart school in several Asian countries, thereby points out the lessons learned from these models for Vietnam. Keywords: Asian, ICT, Smart school, Vietnam. 1. Introduction 1.1. Concepts of the Smart-School The smart school (SS) is defined as a school that is designed to create teaching- learning environment, improve management system and training inquiring students [5]. SS is a concept around transformation of traditional teaching-learning way to contemporary methods using information and communication technologies. SS that is controlled and management based on computer and network technology, the content of its electronic courses and assessment monitoring system are smart. A SS is also defined as an educational establishment that adopts instructional processes and educational management practices that foster systemic changes that are intended to enable learners to surmount the challenges posed by the information technology era [4]. 1 Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Education, VNU. Kỷ yếu Hội tHảo quốc tế CáC vấn đề mới trong khoa họC giáo dụC: tiếp Cận liên ngành và xuyên ngành274 SS also means that student-based, and the role of teacher is navigator and mentor. Teachers in SS should know where of the resources in school or in internet and support to students who have advanced questions [3]. The control and management in SS are based on computer and network technology and the content of its courses is electronic and its monitoring and evaluation system is intelligent. Especially, SS database should be compatible with world standards, and SS library is an electronic library and student can use it online. Students in SS can access the online resources (online library) for improving practical skills and knowledge. Parent’s relationship in SS is “online” through a central computer, they have the possibility contact to teachers and be aware of your child’s education status at school. Generally, the core of the SS concept is based on four main issues (Fig 1): Smart technique. The ability to produce all kinds of services via cloud-based system and mobile networks anywhere in theworld, and advanced software in education. Smart devices. Smart devices that like as PC, tablet, or smartphone are emerged to cloud-based system and raising the preference for study and developing creativity of learner. Smart classroom: equipped with modern technologies and the infrastructure for education such as online library, digital textbooks replacing paper books. Students can automatically belogged a smart classroom, and joining remotely using any available device. Smart evaluation: Teachers can test and evaluate of their students in class with a smart assessment technology and system. Other researchers [7] in the field prefer to add some pedagogical characteristics like: Smart adaptation: SS will evolve over time continuously developing its professional staff, educational resources and its administrative capabilities to adapt to changing condition, while continuing to prepare student for his/her future life. Smart pedagogy: SS pedagogy will seek to make learning more interesting, motivating, stimulating and meaningful for students. It is also involved students mind, spirit and bodies in the learning process. Phần 2. cÔNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO Dục 275 Fig 1. The key concepts of smart school At USA, in the Report of the New York Commission for upper-secondary schools in 2014, the characteristics given to SS are: 1) Providing and expanding online learning; 2) Use transformation technology to provide guidance tailored to each student’s specific abilities and needs; 3) Connect all schools with high-speed, broadband using technology advances and applications; 4) Expanding classroom connection with open source outside the school; 5) Ensuring the members of the pedagogical community successfully integrate technology into teaching and learning for continuous professional development; 6) Focus on STEM skills in teaching and education; 7) Effective leadership and management based on technology and technological capabilities [8]. 1.2. Goals of the SS The important goals of the SS are development of students like as knowledge, physical, mental, emotional and psychological. The seven principle keys of SS are listed: creative knowledge; talent to learn; according to the understanding; learning with control and transfer goal; overcome difficulties; evaluation learned and educational organization [3]. 1.3. Strategy and policy of the smart school Smart schools will seek to make learning more interesting, motivating, stimulating and meaningful. Smart schools are using an appropriate mix of learning strategies to ensure mastery of basic competencies and promote holistic development, accommodate individual different learning styles, to boost performance and foster a Kỷ yếu Hội tHảo quốc tế CáC vấn đề mới trong khoa họC giáo dụC: tiếp Cận liên ngành và xuyên ngành276 classroom atmosphere that is compatible with different teaching-learning strategies. The SS development strategy is an important basis to orient the education system and the community to positively care for this model. That is the basis for financial investment, preparation of necessary pedagogical conditions for SS. Since then, unifying the will, belief, orientation and promoting behavior for managers, teachers, and learner students, students’ parents and communities for the model of upper secondary education. The study of SS in Malaysia shows that the development of SS is a national level strategy that has mobilized the total strength to succeed in implementing the model of SS in practice; At USA, the New York state’s education strategy has since had public financial policies and a division of responsibilities between the government and state management agencies on education with very clear schools. Therefore, in order to develop the model of SS in Vietnam, it is necessary to have consensus and participation of all levels and sectors from the central to local levels to work together with the education sector to realize this advanced school model. 1.4. Technology for SS The smart school’s teaching-learning environment management and external communications will require technology-based solutions. Requirements of SS have been determined in 4 sectors: infrastructure (LAN, Internet connection and hardware), software (Web, learning management systems, electronic content, other e-learning softwares, school automation systems), training for four groups of learners including: staff management, teaching group, students and parents and staffing. The SS major activities relate to the needed infrastructure that include hardware equipment and make network facilities, providing software and training. The SS is equipped with an internal network system, content production room, a computer site, and some classrooms equipped with computer systems and video projectors for education requirements. 2. Practical lesson in smart school of some Asian countries 2.1. In Korea According to International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Korea is ranked 29th in education competitiveness globally. Also follow to investigate from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), Korean students are performing at the highest level of achievement. This achievement is due to replace the current educational system in an industrial society, proposing SMART education is a global trend and policy. Besides, Korea ranked first among 19 countries in the Phần 2. cÔNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO Dục 277 2009 Digital Reading Assessment for students’ problem solving capacity using the Internet. It proved that advanced ICT development in Korea, and that is opportune to transform to smart education. To attain the vision of SMART school, the Korean government has initiated five projects which are listed below [1]: - Digital Textbook development and application. - Promoting online classes and assessments. - Creating an environment to use educational content safely - Building teacher’s competency - Establishing a cloud-based education system. Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Korea released “A Pathway to a great country with talents: Promoting the smart education strategy programme” in October, 2011, with implement smart education strategy from 2011 to 2015. The successful implementation of the smart education strategy, Korea plans to invest 23.7 billion won during 2011-2015 (Table 1). Besides the development of modern and intelligent technology in smart schools, Korean government has placed great emphasis on training teacher resources who have the capacity to meet the smart school. Table 1. Promoting the strategic budget for SS in Korea from 2011 to 2015 (Unit: 100 million won) 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 1. Development and application of ICT 8 10 10 2.860 2.860 2. Online teaching and evaluation system 83 119 227 221 241 3. Freedom of education resources used with security environment 8 10 10 10 10 4. Training the teacher’s competition 1 153 415 815 1.200 5. Cloud -based computing 1 2.092 3.280 3.621 2.866 2.2. In Japan Japan is known not only as a leading economic power in the world, but also as a country with a very diverse and quality education system. The Japanese education system is ranked 3rd in the world, that with high quality of international education Kỷ yếu Hội tHảo quốc tế CáC vấn đề mới trong khoa họC giáo dụC: tiếp Cận liên ngành và xuyên ngành278 according to PISA’s evaluation (Program for International Student Assessment) in the years 2000, 2003, 2006 and recent years. In preparation for entering the 21st century, from 1984, Japan conducted education reform with the main idea of forming life-long learning system, preparing a young generation who meet the new requirements of modern society in the knowledge economy with the process of globalization. At the moment, Japan is one of countries that increasing importance of the smart education concept as a global standard. In 2013, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) proposed the “21st century competencies”, and to perform this task, MEXT budgeted for building a smarter school, 131 billion yen during period from 2014 to 2017 All of environment for active learning inc l uding ICT- driven equipment, e-Learning and teaching materials, and promoting educational funded by MEXT for these years. To implement this strategy, educators have shown that two main things need to be considered: (1) How to use e-Learning system and ICT equipment control; (2) e-learning and positive educational methods. Besides, in Japan, the first digital textbook was developed in 2005. In late 2010, MEXT also proposed deployment of digital textbooks to all elementary and junior high school students until 2015 [5]. 2.3. In Malaysia The schools in Malaysia have gone through many steps to meet the goals of SS. Currently, the SS here are not limited to learning ICT and using ICT as a utility in teaching. SS here is implementing the overall solution: intelligent learning program, intelligent instruction and teaching, managing high school education, establishing and maintaining smart external relations. Technology is the connecting factor, creating the advanced nature of such content. In Malaysia the innovation in education, the SS, was initiated in 1996 and tried out on 90 pilot schools in 1999. The goal is to complete the implementation in all Malaysian schools by the year 2010 [6]. The idea of SS is dedicated to the task of regaining excellence in Malaysia education. It restructures Malaysian education as evidenced by changing the teaching and learning environments in schools. Thus, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and teaching-learning materials are the components that the Smart Schools are focused on. In order to implement the innovation successfully, the Smart Schools address some relevant issues such as (1) management and administration; (2) people, skills and responsibilities; (3) technology; (4) processes; and (5) policies. The conceptual framework of the Malaysian SS provides a comprehensive model in developing its curriculum of technology education. For example, the concepts, such as reading, writing, and communicating are necessary in constructing meaning from text and expressing ideas. A time for children to share their own experiences in designing Phần 2. cÔNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO Dục 279 and processing their products with others will be needed to allow them to express themselves. A higher level of communication requires analyzing topics, audience, task and messages in a variety of social settings. Moreover, communication is important to cooperate, to understand, and to negotiate with each other, especially when group work is required. The concepts of technology education in the SS provide a good example of preserving Malaysian traditional values in modern technology. On the other hand, instilling scientific and humanistic values into technology curriculum balances these two extremes - technology and human beings. 3. Application of smart school project in Vietnam Vietnam has many opportunities to implement the model of SS. Currently, many provinces have developed projects or are piloting this model such as: Thanh Hoa, Ho Chi Minh city, Thai Binh, Hai Phong ... One of the localities that have successfully implemented the transition towards high school education is Dong Trieu town, Quang Ninh province with the model of a smart classroom. This model was first piloted at Vinh Khe Primary School from the school year 2003-2004. Up to now, Dong Trieu district has 79/79 schools (from kindergartens to high schools) with smart classrooms, each school has at least 1 smart classroom. Difficulties in the transition to a new school model with challenges in the application of modern technology are inevitable in the current reality of Vietnam [2]. Lately, some high schools in Hanoi have received investment for smart classroom, including interactive teaching and learning management; allow teachers to bring the curriculum or requests student from the interactive white board via tablet, and support students to send questions to teachers. Teachers can manage each student’s progress as well as run the class through the learning management feature. The investment project of SS system is one of the steps to prepare for project “Building Ho Chi Minh City to become a smart city in the period of 2017-2020, vision to 2025 “. The first SS model was built on the basis of electronic classes, electronic schools to pilot test in 5 high schools: Le Hong Phong; Tran Dai Nghia; Le Quy Don; Nguyen Hien; Nguyen Du. Besides, building a project order to improve IT application capacity for students and teachers in accordance with international standards of information technology. 4. Disscusion and conclusion SS is a model of schools adapting to the strong development of all aspects of social life and meeting the requirements of training smart citizens to build a smart country and start-up a business. Converting to SS is a thorough preparation process and goes through many stages corresponding to the investment in infrastructure, the level of managerial staff, the level of teacher awareness of society and the local Kỷ yếu Hội tHảo quốc tế CáC vấn đề mới trong khoa họC giáo dụC: tiếp Cận liên ngành và xuyên ngành280 socio-economic situation. Some lessons learnt from several countries in Asia allow to point out necessary aspect which should be considered when developing SS in Vietnam: Building and designing smart programs In order to create a smart interactive environment for learners, the school curriculum requires smart, highly flexible and open-minded curriculum. The content of the program meets the requirements of providing fundamental knowledge, developing learners’ ability to meet the requirements of workers in modern society with the context of extensive application of modern technology. The program must be built in the direction of increasing learning interest, increasing learning ability for learners, increasing the effectiveness of the program. On that basis, SS creates a positive learning environment, learners can learn in diverse, rich forms, suitable to their needs and personal speed. Thoughtful preparation of teachers to meet the requirements of SS Smart teachers are a key determinant of the success of SS. The issue of training and development of teachers to meet the requirements of upper secondary education is inevitable. Many Asian countries such as Malaysia, Korea that have conducted training, retraining and development of teacher’s competencies in many successive stages taking into account the characteristics of teacher’s qualifications, cultures, etc. Vietnam has to assessing the status of teachers in terms of quantity and quality according to teacher’s standards and criteria; determine the needs and methods of training and retraining the team in accordance with the current situation. In order to teach effectively in smart class, teachers need to: have strong expertise, modern pedagogical capacity, technological capability to use and coordinate smart devices in teaching and support students in learning. In addition, teachers must develop appropriate teaching and learning support strategies for each student so that they can learn at a pace and need consistent with open forms of learning. Teachers need a variety of teaching methods, giving priority to teaching methods to increase experience and discovery for students. Besides, teachers need to have creative ideas and always encourage students to be creative, dare to think, dare to do, have good collaboration and communication skills. Investment in facilities and smart technology equipment These are important conditions, affecting the implementation of smart pedagogical activities, affecting the quality and effectiveness of teaching of teachers, students as well as management of schools. Investment in facilities and smart technology equipment for smart pedagogical activities of the school needs to be Phần 2. cÔNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO Dục 281 researched, planned investment activities, identified and selected investment items to ensure synchronous, quality, effective and sustainable factors. Computer system with Internet connection, interactive board, intelligent lectern, personal tablet for students, high quality broadband system, system of software for teaching and learning, software system management, camera system to monitor and control the activities of the school, ... are items to be considered for investment in the SS. Formulating policies to support the development of smart schools Policies to support the development of commercial schools are useful for the process of transforming, maintaining and developing sustainable elements of the market. The transition to SS is the process of preparing human resources, materials, and resources to meet new requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to have policies to support legal and policies to encourage the development of SS; policies to support the development of SS technology, policies to support professional development for school teachers; policies to mobilize community support and supervision of SS; policies to develop smart management of schools. SS is a model of schools adapting to the strong development of all aspects of social life and meeting the requirements of training smart citizens to build a smart country and start-up a business. Converting to SS is a thorough preparation process and goes through many stages corresponding to the investment in infrastructure, the level of managerial staff, the level of teacher awareness of society and the local socio-economic situation. The lessons learned through studying the transition process of some countries are the suggestions and references for developing the SS in Vietnam today. REFERENCES 1. Choi, J. & Lee, Y. 2012. The Status of SMART Education in KOREA. Proceedings of EdMedia World Conference on Educational Media and Technology, pp. 175-178. 2. Hang V.T, 2018. “Trường học thông minh: nguồn gốc, định nghĩa và bài học kinh nghiệm cho Việt Nam”, Tạp chí Giáo dục (Vietnam Journal of Education), No 432, Vol 2, 6/2018, pp. 6-10 3. Mohammed Sani Ibrahima, Ahmad Zabidi Abdul Razak, Husaina Banu Kenayathullaa. 2013. Smart Principals and Smart Schools, 13th International Educational Technology Conference. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 103, pp. 826-836, Published by Elsevier Ltd. 4. Olga A. Shvetsova. 2017. Smart education in high school: New Perspectives in global world. International Conference “Quality Management, Transport and Information Security, Information Technologies” (IT&QM&IS), pp. 688-691. Kỷ yếu Hội tHảo quốc tế CáC vấn đề mới trong khoa họC giáo dụC: tiếp Cận liên ngành và xuyên ngành282 5. Sanghyun Jang. 2014. 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Nền giáo dục bước vào kỷ nguyên thông tin và tăng cường sử dụng CNTT, hướng tới một trường học thông minh trở thành một vấn đề quan trọng đối với các nhà lãnh đạo giáo dục. Trường học thông minh là một mô hình trường học tiên tiến để đào tạo thế hệ công dân thông minh nhằm đáp ứng yêu cầu phát triển quốc gia trong thời đại thông tin trong bối cảnh cuộc cách mạng công nghiệp lần thứ tư (Cuộc cách mạng 4.0). Bài viết này đưa ra một số khái niệm lý thuyết về trường học thông minh, cũng như phân tích một số ví dụ về sự phát triển trường học thông minh tại một số nước châu Á, từ đó rút ra bài học ứng dụng mô hình trường học thông minh cho Việt Nam. Từ khóa: Châu Á, Công nghệ, Trường học thông minh, Việt Nam.