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Monday, July 15, 2013

The Bangkok Tablet Project, One Year On

Bangkok Post writes, "While the government's tablet computers for schools scheme moves forward on a larger scale, the policy's continued success will depend on lessons being learned from its first year.

One academic year has passed since the Pheu Thai-led government distributed free tablet computers to Prathom 1 (Grade 1) students."

Photo: Bangkok Post

Those students are now second-graders and have been allowed to take the tablets with them, while the government is procuring more than 800,000 new tablets for the next first-graders. Still, several problems were identified during the first year of the scheme's implementation and the government must now solve them.

STUDIES INTO USAGE 
According to a survey conducted by the National Statistical Office from Jan 16 to March 31 this year, 97.7% of schools nationwide had been offered tablets and 0.5% had not yet received  the devices.

The survey also found 8.9% of all delivered tablets had problems, such as broken screens, programming errors and charging flaws. Of the schools which had received the tablets, 98.8% of them used the  the devices in teaching, while only 0.8% did not use them despite having received them. Most schools allowed students to use tablets for one hour a day. School executives and teachers interviewed in the study identified three main advantages of the tablet policy. 


These are: Encouraging students to pay more attention during lessons; providing students with opportunities to learn basic computer  skills; and allowing students to learn anytime and anywhere. They also identified three main disadvantages. These were: A reduction in physical exercise; deteriorating handwriting; and and a reduction in human interaction and playing time with friends. However, most executives and teachers said they were satisfied with the policy overall. 
The survey was conducted among 2,854 respondents.
Read more...

Source: Bangkok Post