Looks like Minister of Finance, Audley Shaw should
also be called Santa Clause for the Tablet in School Program.
During the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament
on Tuesday May 3rd 2016 he made mention of more tablets coming for
more schools under the Government's Tablets in Schools Programme as reported in
the article “More
Tablets Coming For Schools”, published Friday May 6, 2016, The Jamaica Gleaner.
He was speaking on behalf of the Minister of
Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Dr. Andrew Wheatley. It was during this
same meeting that he let drop the news that a new Telecom Provider was coming
to Jamaica as detailed in my blog article
entitled “Why
New Telecom Provider coming to Jamaica may be using White Space Spectrum”.
Well it looks like he also let drop details of a
plan to give some eighty (80) tablets to some one hundred and fifty (150)
schools as noted in the article “150
More Primary And Early Childhood Schools To Get Tablets”, published
Thursday May 5, 2016, The Jamaica Gleaner.
Each school
is actually getting two (2) sets of forty (40) tablets starting in September
2016. Take a listen to this audio clip of Minister of Finance, Audley Shaw
speaking at the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament on Tuesday May 3rd
2016.
It’s set to come to an end in June 2016, exactly as
former minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Phillip Paulwell had
promised.
So how many Tablets are being given away this time
around?
Audit
of the TIS Pilot Project - Successful Deployment since December 2014
The Tablet in School Programme Pilot, which started
in September 2015, has been going well thus far, with teachers colleges getting
Tablets in a push towards a more interactive education system as noted in my blog article
entitled “How
Teachers' Colleges getting TIS Project Tablets heralds Projectors and
Interactive Whiteboards for Engaging Teaching”.
The distribution of the Tablets has been slow yet steady
since the start of the 2014-2015 School Term as seen from the stats below:
1. 17,000
TIS Tablets distributed up until December 2014
2. 18,000
TIS Tablets distributed by the end of December 2014
3. 7000
Tablets distributed in early weeks of the Easter term in 2015
Four (4) contractors are responsible for the
deployment of the Tablets:
1. Innovative
Corporate Solutions
2. Digicel
Jamaica
3. Productive
Business Solutions
4. GeoTech
Vision Enterprises Limited
The 25,000 Tablets as distributed in March 2015 by
the four (4) contractors, reads as thus:
1.
10,500 Tablets from
Innovative Corporate Solutions
2.
5,500 Tablets from
Digicel Jamaica
3.
5,500 Tablets from
Productive Business Solutions
4.
5,500 Tablets from
GeoTech Vision Enterprises Limited
So what has happened since March 2015?
Audit
of the TIS Pilot Project - Why High School will get no Tablet as Primary School
are priority
Up until September 2015 according to the Audit of
the TIS Project two thousand (2000) more tablet were distributed under the TIS
Project bringing the total up to 27,000.
Back in December 2015, some seven hundred (700) tablets
were distributed to Primary schools in East Kingston and Port Royal as noted in
my blog article
entitled “700
Tablets for East Kingston and Port Royal Primary Schools - Why Raspberry Pi
Zero Great for Jamaican Secondary Schools”.
The following primary schools in East Kingston and
Port Royal are earmarked for the seven hundred (700) more tablets as follows:
1. 225
for Windward Road Primary
2. 180
for Rollington Town Primary
3. 80
for Elletson Primary and Infant
4. 80
for Norman Gardens Primary
5. 80
for Junior High and Holy Rosary Primary
6. 27
for Port Royal Primary
That's because the High School student keep using
the tablets to go to pornography websites and Facebook based on the preliminary
review. So the focus has shifted away from High Schools to primary schools.
So what should be do about the High Schools?
Spanish
Town High School needs Tablet in School Project - Tablet at School in a
Homework and Testing Room
So now more tablet to more primary schools. But the
High School, especially schools like Spanish Town High, still deserve to have
Tablets, despite the pornography and hacking issue.
One option is to issue US$5 Raspberry Pi Zero
computers to students, especially those High School student doing CXC and CAPE
Computer Science programs. Hopefully, they'll teach the High Schoolers,
particularly the girls, programming using the Raspberry Pi as noted in my MICO Wars Blog article
entitled “Why the
US$5 Raspberry Pi Zero is perfect Programmer’s Gift for New Year’s 2016”.
Hopefully this time around they'll take their cues
from Samsung Smart School E-Learning Platform and have a special room created
to use the Tablets as noted in my Geezam blog
article entitled “Samsung’s
Smart School are Tablets for VARK Hexagons of Learning”.
Testing can also be done using the Tablets, with
tests being written using Google Forms as described in my blog article
entitled “How
Google Forms creates Online Questionnaires and Surveys - Questionnaires and
Surveys for your Blog”.
Student should not be allowed to take the tablet
home, as they can stay at school and do their homework in that special room.
Then the Tablet can be returned to the cubby to be recharged for the next
morning's class. TIS Project is a good idea; it just needs to be made more
useful for Testing and Learning by having a designated Homework and Testing
Room.
Spanish Town High School with specially designed
Tablet in School Homework Rooms equipped with high speed Wi-Fi for CAP
(Community Access Points) for the student and the wider community is the way
forward.
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