By Teng Yifan (26S06H)

As you stroll along the corridors of Block A, have you ever noticed that some classrooms do not boast your typical whiteboard and visualiser, but interactive panels instead? These classrooms are part of a pilot programme that was launched this year, aligned with the vision of transforming the school campus to prepare for the future. 

Just 4 years ago, students in secondary schools were each given a Personal Learning Device (PLD) as part of the Ministry of Education’s National Digital Literacy Programme. While things were seemingly smooth sailing at first, a cyber-security breach of the Mobile Guardian application in August 2024 led to many students losing their notes on their devices, costing them a tremendous amount of time and effort. This begs the question: is it really worth the money to make the switch to digital classrooms? 

Key features 

There are currently 3 smart classrooms in the Y5 and 6 campus, namely A48, A58, and A34. A48 and A58 each have 2 smart boards at the front, while A34 is a hybrid room with 2 boards at the front and 4 more at the sides. 

The interactive panels are from Huawei and they each have a digital pen that can be used to write on the board. There are also microphones installed on the ceilings as well as an AI tracking camera that moves along with any movement detected in the classroom. The classrooms are also WiFi-7 enabled which is able to support high bandwidth so that high-quality videos and applications can be used without any lag. 

Pros 

Starting with the advantages that are a bit more obvious, students and teachers will never run out of markers (and colour options). I’m sure every teacher has experienced trying to write things down on the board, only for it to look like the sentence is fading away as the ink slowly diminishes. This is accompanied by frustration as they pick up another marker laying around, only to realise that that one doesn’t have any ink left as well. Eventually, they give up and make a mental note to replace every single marker in the classroom. This situation, obviously, would not happen with the interactive panel. You can’t run out of ink if there isn’t ink in the first place. 

Secondly, the interactive panel is a device in and of itself. One no longer needs to snap pictures of the high level calculus written on the board, as it can be stored as a file on the board itself. This saves precious storage in your photos app, and allows you to refer back to the notes if needed during lessons. 

While these advantages are great, one can’t help but wonder how it is any different from simply connecting your iPad or laptop to the projector. 

Hence, here are the intended and most beneficial advantages of these interactive panels, courtesy of Mr Chan Jia Le, the main staff member behind the pilot programme. To start, these interactive panels can be used to broadcast important announcements during morning assembly and breaks. Information can be pumped centrally from the control station to all the different boards in the classroom. These interactive panels can also be used during breaks to provide information on key events that are coming up, to ensure that such information is able to reach more people. 

They are applicable even for emergencies, so that important messages can be pushed out immediately. Additionally, this is to help “future-proof” our classrooms. Having such technology means that the school will better be able to support new teaching pedagogies so as to keep up with the ever-changing times. 

Cons 

As we move towards digitalising our learning, the age-old problem of being unfamiliar with such technology still remains. It is no surprise that some of the teachers still struggle to operate the board at times, given that it has only been a few months. Although this does cost them quite a bit of lesson time trying to set up the board, as the year progresses and they become more comfortable, this disadvantage will probably cease to exist. 

However, there are more technical concerns regarding this pilot programme. Decentralising the equipment in these smart classrooms means that coordination among different departments is challenging, as they have to work together to brainstorm how they can set up such classrooms.Multiple factors such as the structural support of the panels and remote support in terms of network and bandwidth also have to be considered. Given how so many departments are involved, it would prove to be a problem if there was an issue with the smart classrooms. 

Behind the scenes of setting up these classrooms 

While everyone was enjoying their well-deserved break during the December holidays, the Education Technology department, IT department and Estate were working extremely hard and coordinating with various vendors to ensure that the classrooms were ready in time for the new school year. The school is also working closely with MOE to make sure that as we scale up, existing infrastructure can still be utilised. Everyone is learning along the way and trying their best to further improve our learning experience.

Given how high-tech these classrooms are, you might think that they must have been costly. Actually, the price of these boards have come down quite a fair bit and people tend to underestimate how expensive projectors are in comparison. Even then, classrooms have changed over the years. From humble beginnings such as chalkboards, the market is changing and the possibilities are endless. 

Final thoughts

Although this might seem like a logistical nightmare at the current stage, it is hard to deny that the features of these digital classrooms have the potential to enhance one’s learning experience. In the future, there might be even more cool and innovative features, such as virtual reality, which could allow students to understand what exactly is going on in vectors through visualisation. The possibilities of such interactive panels are endless, and will undoubtedly aid in the education of future batches. While we are still not sure when we will see such equipment being installed in all classrooms, we should be expecting to see classes in each block being converted in batches from next year onwards if everything goes smoothly. We can all look forward to having new devices to play around with soon!