Article from Bangkok Post

A lesson in e-learning

Siam International School (SIS) has packaged its teaching and learning activities into a "full e-learning" system, which aims to equip students with a combination of academic excellence and IT skills.

Prasit Comewinit, SIS' vice-chief executive officer, claims that SIS is the first school in Thailand to adopt an integrated e-learning system, whereby all classroom activities and examinations are carried out electronically.

The school, located in the Rangsit area in the north of Bangkok, has about 250 students and 40 teachers. SIS follows the California Public School Curriculum.

Following the trial period deploying the e-learning system for some subjects, the school finally adopted the full e-learning system for Grades 6 to 12 (Prathom 6 to Mathayom 6) in Aug.

The system is used in four core subjects: social studies, science, mathematics and English.

According to Mr Prasit, all the teaching and learning elements of the four core subjects are practised and performed through electronic media.

Each student is provided with a netbook, which contains e-books - virtual textbooks that have the same content as paper copies. Each page of an e-book has an audio file recorded by native speakers, which students can listen to while they are reading.

Through the netbooks, the students can send their assignments to their folders created in the school's intranet. Then, the teachers can see the students' finished works and can give timely feedback to students.

Besides relying on netbooks, a full e-learning system also has teachers who teach using interactive whiteboards.

Examinations are administered electronically. Some aspects of the e-learning system are also used in the lower grades.

According to Raffy Manassian, the school's director and principal, the system provides immediate feedback to the students and teachers and high-quality learning materials, and it reduces costs in the long run.

"This [technology] has raised the students' attention span by around 80 to 90 percent, and we don't have to worry much about student discipline," says Mr Prasit, adding that teachers can also cover a wider range of courses.

For example, teachers can utilise lessons and video clips from the internet and the school's intranet as teaching tools.

"The e-books actually help the students with what they have to do every day," said Baldeep Singh, a science teacher at SIS.

He explains that at home, most students routinely use a laptop to play games or to surf the internet.

By putting e-books inside the netbooks, the students are motivated to learn.

Mr Singh adds that the system is environmentally friendly as the school can save paper, and more importantly, it improves students' attention span while teaching them to interact closely with new technology.

"The students are less distracted now," says Mr Singh.