Saturday 16 / November / 2024
Abu Dhabi: As Oman prepares to modernise its education system, experts say the country will benefit from having more students, who will graduate with better work skills.
“We cannot disregard the technology used by today’s youth,” said Eman Mousheir, education technology specialist for Microsoft Gulf. “Today, people can access and understand things so quickly, that they already know a lot of what has been taught in school even before it’s taught to them.”
“Today, employers don’t hire graduates because of their academic skills, but based on what skills they can provide to an economy,” added Inass Farouk, education marketing manager for the Middle East and Africa, for Microsoft. “There is currently a generation gap between the way children are taught in schools and what employers are looking for.”
The duo were speaking at the BETT Middle East Classroom of the Future conference, being held in Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Education Council and Microsoft, who are currently in talks with many Gulf Cooperation Council nations—Oman included—to introduce state-of-the-art technology for education.
A case study conducted by Microsoft in the United States saw them partner with the makers of Minecraft, the hugely popular video game, to provide children a better understanding of the way things worked.
“We worked with the people, who developed Minecraft, to add certain educational features to it,” explained Mousheir. “Students were already playing the game, so we realised that teachers could integrate this with education.”
Examples of in-game projects included a month-long collaboration project to design the human eyeball, and depict how it would react to light. Another project the students undertook was to construct a building that would be built on the surface of the water.
Students had to dig up the blocks in-game, and then figure out which ones floated on the water so that they could design the foundations of a building that would not sink.
“Through these experiments, students can learn more because they are engaged more,” added Mousheir. “These children will become the doctors and engineers of the future.”
Another case study was conducted at the Jumeirah English Speaking School in Dubai, where educators were given Office 365 and Microsoft One Note as teaching aids. Physics teacher Clive Gibson said the students have responded tremendously to the new technology.
“We began introducing this to students aged 11 and above in our school, and they were so happy to communicate with me via this,” he said.
“With this, I’m not making them learn, I am making them want to learn and there is a huge difference between the two.
“This is accessible from anywhere because all of it is based on the cloud, so although I am in Abu Dhabi now, I just gave feedback to my students an hour ago, and this instant reaction time is something the students can really relate to.”
In addition, the wide range of multimedia aspects and easy access to the syllabus meant students could choose to work in a way that best suited them.
“I remember having a disaffected student, who said she just couldn’t do science,” recalled Gibson. “But soon after this was introduced, she’s done amazing work, more so than any other student in the class.”
“It has helped unlock her potential and develop the character to see things through,” he added.
“The ones who have benefited the most by this are the disaffected students, who’ve completely turned things around, and it has also helped the high achievers push further, and that’s what you want to see as an educator.”
