Embracing 21st century education
MORE than 1,000 educators, parents, students and members from the education sector gathered at the JW Marriott Hotel here on April 7 for The Leaps of Knowledge Conference 2018.
It was organised by FrogAsia Sdn Bhd with the support of YTL Foundation, and aimed to upgrade Malaysian education for the 21st century.
FrogAsia Sdn Bhd executive director Lou Yeoh said the conference themed “Level Up!”, was focused on the commitment of the community of educators, parents, and individuals to continue leveraging on the foundations built over the last six years to level the playing field across all schools through technology.
“At this year’s conference, we explored how the community can work together to raise the bar of celebrating each other’s successes, learning from each other and collaborating on new ideas to increase outcomes for the 21st century students,” she said.
She said FrogAsia believes in a world where everyone loves learning and where technology can eliminate boundaries.
“With technology, there is equal access to quality education regardless of location or background.
“By bridging the digital divide, the education divide is also bridged at the same time,” she said.
She said in the six years since the Frog virtual learning environment (VLE) was implemented at schools, the education landscape has seen a huge difference in the education system.
“Schools from across the country can collaborate and support one another, and student progress can be monitored and tracked to help them improve,” she said.
YTL Foundation Programme Director, Datin Kathleen Chew said the collaboration between YTL Foundation, FrogAsia and the Education Ministry had impacted students and there has been many success stories.
“It is evident that change has taken place and that technology has made a huge impact on the country’s education system,” she said.
YTL Foundation aimed to expand its Frog Classroom Programme to 1,000 schools.
“So far, we have managed to set up Frog Classrooms in 180 schools, and another 50 more Tamil schools are still in progress. The foundation spent RM15,000 to set up an optimised 21st century classroom at each school to create an amazing learning environment,” she said.
She said the conference aimed at inspiring, equipping and empowering Malaysians to collaboratively and collectively raise the education bar.
Present was Teach for India chief executive officer Shaheen Mistri, who expressed confidence that educators and students should be partners in building education in a nation.
“The participants should evaluate the tools they already possess and use them effectively to raise the bar in the education system in Malaysia, which will set a standard and be a role model for the world,” she said.
At the conference, FrogAsia launched its inaugural FrogPlay World Championship, a competition that aims to encourage students around the world to collaborate and optimise the use of FrogPlay game learning and revision using the application on VLE.
Since its launch last year, students have clocked over 1.5 million revision hours on FrogPlay, and there has been an increase in results across all subjects for both primary and secondary schools. Students who used FrogPlay for physics revision on average increased their scores by 29 per cent points.
With over US$10,000 (RM38,900) up for grabs, this year’s FrogPlay World Championship will see the participation of schools from Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.