Personal Reflections for a What if Interview for UNESCO website
email
Great News!
In 2015, Open Source Physics @ Singapore project of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Singapore won the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the use of ICT in Education for “Innovative Pedagogical use of ICT”, using series [1,2,3] of edulab projects stringed together as “Open Source Physics at Singapore”.
In 2018, UNESCO yearly would request updates on all prize winners, as a way to build relationship among countries and prize winning projects, towards an inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030.
Personal Reflections for a What if Interview for UNESCO website
Thank you for answering the questions below.
For classroom practices, teachers are now more willing to leverage simulations and plan learning experiences around them. This not only supports effective learning of Mathematics and Physics but also generates the joy of learning these subjects.
For research grants, it is now easily to work on related research projects in Singapore. For example, "Understanding Teacher Learning Community as Support for the Implementation of Open Source Physics for Conceptual Instruction" by Professor Victor Chen was funded to better understand how to support the teaching community in using simulations in Singapore classrooms. Another example is the Ministry of Education (MOE) Senior Specialist Track Research Fund (SSTRF) project on "Explore-Useful Learning Math Apps" was supported to spread use of simulations to the Primary Math education colleagues and this has been met with favourable response from them and their students.
Virtual Learning (such as our simulations can serve as virtual laboratory), Gamification, Cloud Computing & the Digital Libraries, LCD Touch Boards, Big Data & Analytics (simulations in Moodle extension Project will have preliminary students' interaction analytics by 2019) are likely play a bigger role in the future classrooms to encourage exploration, curiosity and creativity, and deepen learning.
Tips for the preparation of your interview
Kindly note that the length of your contribution (interview) should be 500 words. It should be submitted in English or in French.
Contributed by: Indicate full name(s), title/position of the contributor
Lawrence Loo Kang WEE, Senior Specialist
Photos: Thank you for providing at least one main high quality photo but not more than two to accompany your text. The main photo should be in landscape format and preferably illustrating the thematic issue or the beneficiary/ies. Indicate a brief caption and the copyright information. Please note: you must hold copyright of the photograph or have authorization to release use to UNESCO, or the photograph must be available in the public domain.
Links: Don’t hesitate to add in-text hyperlinks, if available, to increase the reader’s knowledge on a particular activity, project or event and to keep them on the page. Links to other relevant websites, resources or media can be placed underneath your interview.
Review process
Each interview will be reviewed by UNESCO and will undergo a validation process. The final version will be sent back to you for your information. Please note that it may take several weeks for interviews to go through proofreading, validation and translation before they are published online on the news page or social media platforms.
Great News!
In 2015, Open Source Physics @ Singapore project of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Singapore won the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the use of ICT in Education for “Innovative Pedagogical use of ICT”, using series [1,2,3] of edulab projects stringed together as “Open Source Physics at Singapore”.
In 2018, UNESCO yearly would request updates on all prize winners, as a way to build relationship among countries and prize winning projects, towards an inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030.
This request from UNESCO needs your kind clearance for their website update. Thank you very much.
I would also like to thank Mr Suraj, Sho Hor and Lily for their guidance and encouragement, to inspire more people to work towards an inclusive and equitable quality education system, best for the world, not just in the world.
[1] Java Simulation Design for Teaching and Learning
[2] Becoming Scientists through Video Analysis
[3] Modelling-Inquiry Enabled Interactive Textbook
[2] Becoming Scientists through Video Analysis
[3] Modelling-Inquiry Enabled Interactive Textbook
Thank you for answering the questions below.
- Almost three years after you have won the Prize, could you tell us how it has impacted you and your work/activities?
At a personal level, it has been very satisfying to know that this body of work has made a positive difference in Physics education around the world, especially in South East Asia. It is also heartening to see the project get stronger as time goes by. At a professional level, more simulations have been incorporated into the Syllabus teaching guides. There has also been an increase in sharing with other educators through workshops and Physics educators’ learning networks. |
| A paper presentation at the North 3 Cluster ICT Symposium 2018 24 July 2018 The Primary 2 and 3 Math App was on Comparing Fractions Photo by: Organizer of North 3 Cluster ICT Symposium 2018 |
- Could you give us an example how winning the Prize made a difference for a particular beneficiary of your programme and for your community?
For classroom practices, teachers are now more willing to leverage simulations and plan learning experiences around them. This not only supports effective learning of Mathematics and Physics but also generates the joy of learning these subjects.
For research grants, it is now easily to work on related research projects in Singapore. For example, "Understanding Teacher Learning Community as Support for the Implementation of Open Source Physics for Conceptual Instruction" by Professor Victor Chen was funded to better understand how to support the teaching community in using simulations in Singapore classrooms. Another example is the Ministry of Education (MOE) Senior Specialist Track Research Fund (SSTRF) project on "Explore-Useful Learning Math Apps" was supported to spread use of simulations to the Primary Math education colleagues and this has been met with favourable response from them and their students.
- Could you tell us about the recent developments/next steps of your work/activities?
Recent development
- Annually, in collaboration with Professor Francisco Esquembre and Félix J. García Clemente, the creators of the Easy Java/Javascript Simulation tool Professor Wolfgang Christian, creator of Open Source Physics, 4-days workshops had been held for 20 teachers to mentor them in creating brand new or remixed simulation (folders to the workshops materials and teacher's simulations are accessible here 2017FelixPaco and 2016WolfgangPacoFelix).
- Created fourteen simulations for the Normal Technical Stream Science topic of Direct Circuit as part of an exploration for designing interactive textbooks.
- Twenty-eight source codes in "Easy JavaScript Simulation" were prototyped and submitted to Partnership for Integrating Computation into Undergraduate Physics in USA through which educators can examine what computing languages (including Python, Glowscript, Spreadsheets) can be used in the implementation of computational thinking.
- Ten Easy Javascript Simulations were modernised from an European project called MOSEM² because the simulations are useful in Singapore A Level Physics classrooms.
- Fifteen Mathematics primary level interactives were prototyped and workshops were conducted in Singapore to encourage teachers to develop lessons leveraging the Student Learning Space.
- Forty-two University Mathematics Easy Java Simulations from the book Learning and Teaching Mathematics using Simulations – Plus 2000 Examples from Physics written by Dieter Röß were modernised into the JavaScript version as previous version could not be run on mobile platforms. This modernisation exercise provided strong evidences for the viability of creating HTML5 Mathematics simulation to support Singapore Mathematics teachers.
 |
| A teacher using the Primary 4 Math Race to Twenty Addition Game created based on her request. Link Digital Library Direct Link Photo by: Lawrence Wee |
Next Steps
- The project Virtual Lab Learning Analytics-Moodle extension aims log and present students' interactions (such as which mouse clicks and state and value of variables in the simulation) to teachers a dashboard in the Moodle Content Management System. The goal of this project is to help inform teachers how well students are using the simulations for learning and in the process make the necessary interventions.
Screenshot of a teacher dashboard showing students enrolled into the Moodle course and whether the students are online and what their last actions were on the simulation - The project Promoting joy of learning by turning phone into 3 scientific equipment aims to create four Android and iOS apps that harness the mobile phone's microphone and front and back camera to be used as data logger with external sensors.
 |
| An example App called "Spectrum Analyzer" on Android and iOS store. A diffraction grating is placed in front of the phone back camera, a light source or laser pointer is captured and the top panel shows the first order diffraction pattern and the bottom panel shows the intensity of the light pattern versus the wavelength of the light. |
- How do you think innovative technologies can be used to enhance learning and education?
Virtual Learning (such as our simulations can serve as virtual laboratory), Gamification, Cloud Computing & the Digital Libraries, LCD Touch Boards, Big Data & Analytics (simulations in Moodle extension Project will have preliminary students' interaction analytics by 2019) are likely play a bigger role in the future classrooms to encourage exploration, curiosity and creativity, and deepen learning.
Tips for the preparation of your interview
Kindly note that the length of your contribution (interview) should be 500 words. It should be submitted in English or in French.
Contributed by: Indicate full name(s), title/position of the contributor
Lawrence Loo Kang WEE, Senior Specialist
Photos: Thank you for providing at least one main high quality photo but not more than two to accompany your text. The main photo should be in landscape format and preferably illustrating the thematic issue or the beneficiary/ies. Indicate a brief caption and the copyright information. Please note: you must hold copyright of the photograph or have authorization to release use to UNESCO, or the photograph must be available in the public domain.
Links: Don’t hesitate to add in-text hyperlinks, if available, to increase the reader’s knowledge on a particular activity, project or event and to keep them on the page. Links to other relevant websites, resources or media can be placed underneath your interview.
Review process
Each interview will be reviewed by UNESCO and will undergo a validation process. The final version will be sent back to you for your information. Please note that it may take several weeks for interviews to go through proofreading, validation and translation before they are published online on the news page or social media platforms.
