NEWS: A possible future

The technology and resources are already available for electronic readers to transform our education landscape.

Picture this — Malaysian students walking into school compounds with light bags that require just one finger to carry. As they walk in, the day’s and week’s lessons, complete with lesson plans, notes, web links, assignments and problems for collaborative actions, are instantly downloaded into a gadget that looks suspiciously like an old-fashioned slate, but with an LED screen.

Is this a plausible scene, or is it a ridiculous notion?

An electronic reader is a computer in the form of a book, and has the potential to be immensely beneficial in the classroom. — AP File photo

Let me pose the following questions:

· Why destroy the earth and the environment with the unsustainable action of destroying trees to print books, all to create books that will be outdated the day they are sent for printing and obsolete when published?

· Why pay more to have books that can only be used in one way, when ER (Electronic Readers) could cheaply replace books, provide means for innovative classroom pedagogies, and could be updated continuously for almost forever?

· Why have books when ERs could be the catalyst for the development of broadband access for every school — hence transforming Malaysian education?

· Why force our children to carry heavy bags that damage their bodies when all they need is a lightweight ER?

The ER, a simple technological innovation, has the potential to completely transform Malaysian education, and only requires professional and political will to happen – with perhaps a dash of forward thinking and real concern for learners and educators.

It requires the Education Ministry to completely change their approach, and for our printing and publishing companies to retool themselves to offer a new service.

It also requires perhaps the Engineering and Computer Science experts at our universities and industries to build Malaysian-made ERs that are cheap, adaptable and most of all, completely sustainable.

An ER is simply a computer in the form of a book, with minimal capabilities except to read and write on and with web browsing capabilities. It has a local area connection, has plug and play upgradable components and best of all, it could easily be manufactured locally.

So, why does this amazing device not exist in Malaysian schools?

Long-term gain

In terms of purely financial commitments, the ER is much cheaper than textbooks. We believe that local technology could, albeit with some difficulty, create an ER for RM500 or so.

Keep in mind that the device is usable for at least five to 10 years, and updates to content and syllabus could be done hourly if necessary.

For comparison’s sake, what is the financial cost of 15 years worth of obsolete, un-updatable textbooks, from primary school right up to university?

Sure, it will involve a huge expenditure of capital to start-up, but we have the talent and the resources.

With the billions we are spending on weapons, food subsidies and textbooks, this would be an easy buy if we were to just divert funds from “needless” programmes to this crucial one!

With the ER, even exercise books could be done away with, as assignments could be completed on the device and sent directly to the teacher when logged on to the school network.

Realise that the important event that we want to transpire is to get everyone to have access to learning.

Reading from a textbook is just a different experience than reading from an ER. The important thing is the text, not the medium.

The introduction of ERs into every school in Malaysia, rural schools included, will spur the growth of broadband and access to truly cater to all Malaysians, especially to those who need it the most in rural schools.

We know that there will be detractors who will say that staring at a computer screen for long periods will cause eye-strain and related problems — but that is expected with any new technology.

Before ERs, everyone said that the textbooks strained students’ eyes because the texts were too small and students were reading for too long with bad lighting.

ERs are backlit, have almost zero glare due to the latest LED technology, text size can be customised and can feature animated movies to demonstrate dangerous experiments and create new learning experiences.

We also must point out that the application of this technology is not completely new — we are all already using ERs in one form or another in the likes of PDAs, mobile phones, paging devices and so on.

Why not evolve to the next stage where it can be used to enhance not just our social lives and comfort levels, but our education systems as well?

In spite of the proven track record of the role of technology and its capability to greatly enhance teaching practices, many traditional educators are not convinced simply because it really is difficult to access technology in our schools – and this certainly is a case of seeing is believing.

With easy access, implementation and operationalising of ERs in classrooms, learners, teachers, parents and stakeholders will start thinking and incorporating technology into teaching and learning in a whole new way.

We are confident that authors, publishing companies and other parties with financial interests and political clout will raise a huge stink should this materialise.

As such, we need the support of someone with the highest levels of power and with focused attention to our nation and our national interests.

Conducted properly, this would aid tremendously in the development of the New Economic Model and achieve buy-in by Malaysians for the eight Strategic Reform Initiatives.

Stakeholders would clearly see that our future talent is being placed on the right track and that the powers that be are in touch with global educational developments, objectives and expected outcomes.

Dr Theva is a senior lecturer at The School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Through this fortnightly column and through the ENGAGE Programme – Education for Sustainable Global Futures – USM has started, he and his colleagues hope to help transform the Malaysian schooling and higher education systems. He can be contacted through
theva@usm.my.