Malaysian Smart School

The Malaysian Smart School is a learning institution that has been systematically reinvented in terms of teaching-learning practices and school management in order to prepare children for the Information Age.

There are several components in the Malaysian Smart School. The teaching learning component can be divided into four other components which are curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and teaching-learning materials. Every school have their own curriculum objectives include The Smart School curriculum. The main objective is to promote holistic learning. Students are allow to progress at their own pace, varying their own capabilities, interests and needs. Besides that, it is to ensure that students are educated with critical and creative thinking skills, inculcated with appropriate values and encouraged to improve their language skills. Due to these objectives, the curriculum will be designed to integrate knowledge, skills, values, and correct use of language. Furthermore, it will state explicitly intended learning outcomes for different ability levels and also to help students achieve overall balanced development.

Pedagogy is also the component of learning in The Smart School which make the learning more interesting, motivating, stimulating and meaningful. It is because pedagogy involves the student's minds, spirit and bodies in the learning process to prepare them for greater challenges in future. Thus, pedagogy has its own learning strategies by mix of learning to ensure basic competencies and promote holistic development. It also accommodates individual different learning style to develop great performance. Besides, pedagogy shall foster a classroom atmosphere that is compatible with different teaching-learning strategies. The other component is assessment which is distinctly different from other schools. Teachers, students and parents will be able to access on-line assessment items. This assessment will be flexible and learner-friendly, while assuring the quality of the assessment information by using multiple approaches and instruments. This assessment also can be open to continued improvement on a lifetime. The last component is the teaching-learning material that is designed for the new teaching strategies. All these four components in teaching may enhance the development of The Smart School.

At the Smart school, the information technology implications of the teaching-learning process consist of 8 components which are, distance learning for communication with outside constituencies using technology like video conferencing, e-mail, video on demand, broadcast, where every computer shall have access to the latest educational materials available locally, collaborative learning which is the tools that facilitate group work within the class and across classes, experiential learning such as simulation software and virtual reality to stimulate learning research, reference and data collection which is tools to search, collect and collate information, electronic assessment for on-line assessment via a standard database and built-in assessment courseware and also drill and practice software or courseware that allows students to practice on their own or with peers inclusive education tools to help students with disabilities cope with learning more effectively.

There are also requirement that need to be implemented at smart school which are varied and easy access to teaching-learning resources such as physical facilities for example classroom or lab, teaching and learning equipment including hardware and software. Smart school also needs conferencing facilities for distance learning meetings and in-service training and also variety of materials such as conventional materials, multimedia materials and network-based materials.
For the national level, the requirement that needed for the smart school are the access to resources over an open platform, open communication channels with constituencies controlled distribution of sensitive information and external telecommunications backbone to support widely distributed points of access. The telecommunications backbone can be current telecommunications infrastructure or the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) infrastructure. The Schools can get into the secure network through the open network via encryption means or directly via remote access the (MSC) designated multimedia centre located at Putrajaya, the new federal administration office. MSC will have the best and guaranteed telecommunications and infrastructure facilities that will support the network connection and preference for all smart school in Malaysia.

Malaysian needs to make the critical transition from an industrial economy to a leader in the Information Age. The progress of Smart School made so far is the schooling culture has been changed from one that is memory-based to one that is informed, thinking, creative and caring through leading-edge technology. As we know, Smart School has been made one of the flagship applications in the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). Smart School is therefore no longer a fashionable luxury but the only way forward.

Now, the curriculum will therefore recognise that students have different learning needs. Technology is spreading and students and teacher also need to be advanced about this modification. Smart School will prepare students to make successful transition to the modern and more global environment. Government wants students become active learners and will be able to go on information around the world to search and collect data.

Smart School going to be leap a way because of school management computerised and on-line. Networking will facilitate the involvement of parents and the community in school programmes, making them effective partners in their children education. Multimedia Infrastructure also contributes in making Smart School being more efficient and excellence in education. The infrastructure is successful in planning because we have good facilities.

Furthermore, teachers should also have training to help adapt in new environment. Materials also supply courseware that need to be developed for all subjects in the curriculum. Ministry of Education implement innovation to achieve highest standard. Ministry also help teacher by giving expensive notebook and multimedia projectors for classroom. Their only implementation so far is by providing laptops to educationist to assist virtual learning and smart board also make students interesting in study. Ministry of Education also making improvement in progressing Smart School become more successful.

There are some problems and challenges faced since the inception of Smart School Concept in Malaysia. First of all, teachers are now faced with the challenge of dealing with a learning environment, which is borderless, offers multi-modal learning pathways, and is resource rich. This implies that the teacher needs to understand how an ICT-based learning environment as intended by the Smart School education concept affects the student's training and learning.

Students nowadays are passive is also one of the challenges that we faced today. They hope everything materials provide by their teacher. Although the teacher is mainly responsible for what takes place in the learning environment and in relation to technology applications, the students should also play an active role in determining the direction of their learning by virtue of their participation and activities. Software that is designed to facilitate students’ active, creative and critical engagement with the content can help enhance the active construction and reconstruction of ideas and experiences of their understanding of the content presented.
Apart from that, most of the parents are not involved in this project. Most of them busy with their work so that can upgrade their life and provide the better environment to their children. In their opinion, the smart school education programme is the work for government as well as teacher. Therefore, they do not care about it.

In addition, limitation of infrastructure, such as computer labs and continuous limitations to access the network hamper the effectiveness of technology supported teaching and learning. Besides that, the findings indicate that both teachers and students are ready to teach and learn English the Smart-way, although some teachers expressed their non-readiness to teach English the Smart-way.

As a conclusion, in ensuring that the concept of Smart education can successfully breed and nurture lifelong education at the school level we need to overcome the challenges that we faced.