ICT in Malay Language Learning: Lessons Learned from Two Case Studies

Background

Planning for ICT in education in Singapore provides a blueprint for the use of ICT in schools and access to an ICT-enriched school environment for teaching and learning for every student. The first ICT Masterplan (1997-2002) or MP1 laid the foundation for integrating ICT into education. The mission of MP1 was to harness ICT for instructional purposes and to provide directions to schools for integrating up-to-date technologies into the educational process. The following actions were carried out to achieve the MP1 objectives:

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  Training school teachers in the use of technology for classroom teaching that could enhance learning;

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  Providing hardware and software to schools;

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  Supporting schools in the ICT implementation;

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  Initiating special projects to engage teachers and students in the continual and active exploitation of ICT use; and

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  Collaborating with the ICT industry.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) launched the second Masterplan (MP2) for ICT in Education in 2002. This was to ensure that schools continued to integrate ICT into their curriculum so as to develop a culture of thinking, lifelong learning and social responsibility (MOE, 2002). To meet these goals, four key dimensions of the ICT Masterplan were identified: curriculum and assessment; learning resources; teacher development; and physical and technological infrastructure. The Masterplans clearly spelt out how ICT was to be used and integrated into the curriculum as a strategy to meet the challenges of the future and envisaged that by 2002 students would spend 30% of curriculum time using ICT (MOE, 2002).