Year One Students Develop Skills Through TEL Project
vear One students from DeJ lainamasi Government School in Nasinu are part of the Technology Enhanced LearnJ ing (TEL) project organised by the Ministry of Education, Heritage and Art.
In line with the ministries project vision, the founder for Wordsmart Kids was invited from New ZeaJ land to run a pilot with 103 Year One students using the programme wordsmart.
Wordsmart Kids founder, Paul Blackman said they were working closely with manager E- Learning, Dharij Bhartu and Professor Som Naidu ex Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific.
“It’s early days, but so far my colJ league Blair Murray and I have been gob smacked by the students’ progress. There is ample evidence that bi-lingual students have a big advantage,” he said.
“Early reading skills tend to come more easily to bilingual children. They score higher on average on tests involving creative thinking or problem-solving and develop more flexible approaches to thinkJ ing through problems.
“And the ability to read and think in two (or more) different languagJ es promotes higher levels of abJ stract thought, which is important in learning.”
Mr Blackman’s experience as a teacher motivated him start Wordsmart Kids.
“This tool has worked for kids with dyslexia, who have advanced to the normal reading age, because their brain recovers,” he said.
“It’s really developing skills for the future with regards to how to properly use technology and they’ve been taught the right ways not too long so it doesn’t become addictive.
“15 to 20 minutes and then we have some other activities with them. This whole project is a good tool to assist their learning. It brings the kids at a young age into the digital world. So having them
on tablets is prepping them for the future.”
Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts, Manager E-Learning, Dhiraj Bhartu, said technology was progressively being integratJ ed into education delivery to comJ plement the face-to-face delivery, to provide a richer learning expeJ rience to our children who were more digital natives than ever beJ fore.
120 tablets were provided for three Year 1 classes and will only be used in school.
“Plans are in place to extend to
other schools.
Each school is allocated Free EdJ ucation Grants (FEG) and within the FEG there is an allocation for information technology (IT). The allocation stands at 15 per cent of the total FEG and schools can use this to sustain technological adJ vancements.
Background
Delainamasi Government School in Nasinu is the first school in Fiji selected by the Ministry of EducaJ tion, Heritage and Arts for a TechJ nology Enhanced Learning (TEL) project.
During the 2021-2022 Revised Budget, the Ministry of Economy had given money to the Education Ministry to set up a school which would symbolise how a future classroom should look like.
They will start from lower classes and then move to high schools.
Ministry of Education’s PermaJ nent Secretary Anjeela Jokhan said about $108,000 had been alloJ cated for the TEL project.