Changing the School System by Using Digital Technology

1. Change the School System
by Using Digital Technology
It is already happening in the Netherlands in
22 (and counting!) government-funded Steve JobsSchools
Maurice de Hond
CEO sCoolSuite Concepts B.V.

2. At home, children live in an increasingly
visual, interactive, digital world.

3. At home, children live in an increasingly
visual, interactive, digital world.
But when they go to school, they can see how it
was in the past.

4. - Schools are preparing children for the past,
not for the future.
- Usually, they are not employing today’s technology.
- The approach is ‘one size fits all’ and is not
based on the children’s talents and potential.

5. “Schools see the children as trucks, and the school
as a silo to fill these trucks.
But a child is a rocket and school must find the
ignition.”

6. The wrong way of adding new technology
O.O. + N.T. = E.O.O.

7. O.O. + N.T. = E.O.O.
Old Organisation plus New Technology
= Expensive Old Organisation
The wrong way of adding new technology

8. - Prepare children for the future
- With the help of today’s technology
- Responding to the children’s
talents and potential

9. - Each child has one teacher as a coach
- Every 6 weeks coach, child and parent(s)
meet to discuss the
à Individual Development Plan

10. - An iPad for every child
- For at school and at home
- Virtual school available 24/7
à Tool for mass customization

11. Physical school organized differently:
- Each child has a teacher as coach
- Base group of children of different ages
- Base group together only 25% of the day

12. Classes becomes studios
Teachers becomes specialists
Workshops are organized
Children can select workshops based on
their individual development plan

13. Between workshops there is also time for
individual training activities with the
iPad (mainly language and arithmetic) in
the quiet area and for working on projects
with other children

20. Working with this adaptive system:
- Does not require a lot of the teacher’s time
- Each child can develop at its own pace
- Gives a perfect overview of the children’s
abilities on different subjects

21. Effects:
- Workshops have fewer children than in
traditional classes
- In a workshop, all children are on same level
- Teachers spend less time on administrative
tasks and more on helping individual children

22. - Mostly uses apps or content already
available on the market or made by
teachers themselves
- Not every child uses the same apps or
content

23. - We created infrastructural tools:
sCoolTool (the personalised agenda)
sCoolSpace (Virtual Schoolyard with
augmented reality)
sCoolProject (for doing projects together)
sCoolTracker (for collecting analytics from
apps)

24. Results of this school system:
- Children enjoy it more, because of the iPad
and for owning their own development
- Increased: independence, flexibility, creativity,
programming, working with technologies
- More parent involvement

25. Results of this school system:
- No child is an exception
- Fewer problems with ADHD or ADD
- Integration of children with disabilities

26. Currently:
- 22 government-funded schools working
with this approach
- Next year: at least 100 schools
- A lot of interest from other countries

27. So don’t add digital technology to the current
system, but use it to drastically change the
school system :
That is the real revolution in education