The document discusses smart school implementation in Malaysia. It begins with an introduction describing smart schools as technology-based institutions that prepare students for the digital age. ICT plays an important role in smart school classrooms and administration. The objectives of smart schools in Malaysia are to develop students holistically and provide opportunities for students to improve strengths and abilities through fun, interactive learning experiences. The document then discusses challenges of smart school implementation including poor ICT skills, disparities between urban and rural schools, and passive student attitudes. It also describes how teachers can handle home-based learning (PdPR) during the COVID-19 pandemic through educational applications, platforms, DidikTV, and social media.

1. SBI3013
Information and Communication Technology in Biology
Assignment:
Smart School in Malaysia
Name Matric No
Tiong Ming Ming D20181082879
Nur Zafirah Binti Abd Rahman D20181082896
Ivy Christie Anak Endah D20181082931
Murshida Adni Binti Muhd Ghazali D20181082940
Clearviana Frankie Yong D20181082942
Group : B
Lecturer: Encik Azmi bin Ibrahim

2. INTRODUCTION
The smart school is a technology-based educational institution that prepares students for
the Information Age. Information and communication technology (ICT) pillar of a smart school,
performs a variety of roles in the classroom. The smart school definition is described as a way to
revolutionise education by creating a holistic approach that focuses on making value-based
education a reality. Anyone can access it at any time and from any place. A smart school must
have, in addition to technology, teaching-learning strategies, management and administrative
processes, and well-trained people. As a result, a national smart school system would depend on
advanced IT at the national level. In a smart school, IT plays a role in promoting teaching and
learning practises as well as assisting school administration. The smart school prepares students to
succeed in a more modern and global setting. Smart schools foster innovative problem-solving
skills in new circumstances, and students are taught to be bold and courageous in their decision-
making and presumption of responsibility, as well as for ensuring professional support and facility
maintenance.
PdPR is home-based teaching and learning that improvised for the new norm to make sure
that there is no student left behind. There are three categories for PdPR, which are online, offline
and off-site. This learning method is more flexible allowing teachers to conduct PdP that are
suitable for their students. According to the ministry's findings, schools had one to four hours of
sessions a day, according to education deputy director-general Datin Seri Nor Zamani Abdol
Hamid. As a result, a standardised timetable was required to ensure curriculum completion and
preparation for the next stage. The PdPR timetable was meticulously designed based on subject
goals and criteria to ensure that students receive the expertise, skills, and values they need to
progress in their studies. The PdPR timetables take into account the current situation, available
equipment, and electronic devices available to teachers and students.

3. OBJECTIVES
1. To develop students physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually balanced.
2. To provide opportunities to improve individual strengths and abilities.
3. To provide fun and interactive learning experience.
The first goal of smart school implementation in Malaysia is to grow physically, mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually healthy students. With the cases happen in the world right now which
is pandemic of COVID 19, teachers are allowed to share their knowledge through digital learning
in a fun and interesting way. To keep the students’ mental health in a good condition, teachers of
smart schools will provide various learning materials in any digital platform. This is beneficial for
students as they can always go through the learning material anytime so that they will not left
behind and feel comfortable with this new type of learning.
The second goal is to provide opportunities for individuals to develop their talents and abilities.
Teachers could help students polished their skills with countless information and videos on the
internet especially for quiet students. This will really help them to be more engaged to the learning
process resulting in greater knowledge retention where they can communicate with their teachers
in comfort ways.
Finally, the last goal is to provide fun and interactive learning experience. Most schools in
Malaysia are facing an issue where they lacked of digital devices and having a very poor
connection to access internet. With this smart school implementation, using technology as main
for education is major beneficial for students because this will help reduce the textbook that they
need to bring to school. This smart school will replace the textbook with digital reading and writing
in their own school platform which is simple and more enjoyable for students.

4. QUESTION 1
What are the challenges of smart school implementation in Malaysia?
In the era of globalization, ‘becoming global’ has become a great challenge to each individual
nation especially developing countries, including Malaysia. In 2013, the allocation of the budget
for technology management of education involves an amount of RM449719200.00. As we know,
smart school implementation can give numerous benefits and so to inculcate excellent national
pillars. However, it is still undeniable that our country still facing some challenges although
Malaysia had always put a lot of effort into smart school implementation project.
First and foremost, one of the challenges of smart school implementation in Malaysia is the
ICT technique mastering. Although we are dealing with technology 24/7, but not all educators are
familiar with the operation of ICT, especially the senior educators. Not only senior educators but
some other stakeholders especially students have poor ICT skills too. The poor ICT technique will
affect the progress of teaching and learning sessions in the class. As educators, the software used
needs to be always updated to make our teaching and learning tools such as animations, graphics,
and multimedia design so that the students will involve actively during teaching and learning
sessions. However, lacking certain skills in advanced ICT levels will make this matter to become
harsh and difficult. Consequently, both teachers and students will lose their learning motivation
and interest due to limited ICT skills.
From another point of view, smart school implementation in Malaysia causes the disparity
between city and village students. As the schools located in the city will have more advanced
infrastructure compared with the schools in rural areas, the gap between city and village students
will increase. The students from rural areas will lack of opportunity to involve themselves in the
ICT field as the resources are limited such as electronic equipment and internet problems. The
limited electronic equipment and poor internet connection for teaching-learning activities in rural
areas caused the teachers and students have to use the most primitive teaching and learning method.
In addition, not all the families in the rural areas have stable financial support for all these smart
school education spending and costs. As a result, the village students lack of exposure to ICT in
education as compared to city students. The teachers and students are also carrying a heavy burden
in terms of academic achievement.

5. Not only that, the challenges of smart school implementation in Malaysia also include the
passive attitude of students. The students are becoming highly dependent on technology to
complete their daily tasks rather than depending on their own knowledge and effort. Besides, they
can get all the learning materials such as notes and exercises easily with just a click on the mouse.
This phenomenon is obviously a negative trend towards the growth of education in the modern
world. With the use of technology and advanced devices, the interaction and communication
between teachers and students are totally eliminated causing the students to become more and
more passive. From another point of view, the contents of some electronic books and reference are
still limited. As students always rely on the online resources, they will lack of motivation to search
and get more information they want by flipping the books. In the end, the problem-solving skill,
information evaluation skill, creative and critical thinking will become an issue in the future.
In conclusion, the challenges of smart school implementation in Malaysia include poor
standard ICT technique mastering among teachers and students, the disparity between city and
village students as well as passive attitude of students. All these challenges are the stumbling
blocks for Malaysia to achieve the smart school goals. To achieve the smart school goals, all
stakeholders should cooperate and work together to overcome all these challenges. It is an
undeniable truth that technology brings countless contributions to academic world. When both
teachers and students have the ability to teach and learn electronically and digitally, the standard
of education in Malaysia will definitely get outstanding towards the globe.

6. QUESTION 2
From the smart school knowledge, how do you handle PdPR while in the pandemic of
Covid-19?
The pandemic of Covid-19 has affect not only our daily life but also the life of a person
who is known as a student. Due to the pandemic, the Education Ministry from all around the world
has decided to hold the face to face session in the school, to minimize the contact among humans
in order to control the transmission of Covid-19. In order to replace the face to face class session,
The Education Ministry including the Malaysian Education Ministry has decided to implement the
home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) all around the country. However, it is not easy for all
the students nor teachers to cope with this new environment of teaching and learning. Like the
other situation, the home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) also have challenges which not only
for the students themselves but also for the teachers. In order to overcome these challenges, there
are several ways that the students and teachers can do to handle this.
From smart school knowledge we already have the idea on how to use the technology and
internet but in order to catch students' interest, teachers need to take a creative approach in teaching
and learning methods. Educators seem to be searching for a solution in the form of digital learning.
Students' academic nowadays is supported by education applications and platforms. It means that,
the applications and platforms help the students to deepen their knowledge about the topics that
they have learnt. The platforms has broken down barriers of space and time, allowing students,
teachers, and parents to keep in touch from anywhere in the world. However, although the
proliferation of digital resources tends to be inspiring, it can also be overwhelming. Nowadays
there are a variety of applications and platforms for online teaching and learning. In order to handle
PdPR effectively, applications that are simple yet fun are used by educators. Some applications
that are often used are the google classroom, Zoom and Kahoot!. For live interaction class, the
platforms that are usually used are Zoom, Google Meet and Webex. The live class also can be
recorded by the teachers using these platforms, then they will share the link to their students that
unable to join the live class. Meanwhile, for assignments and learning material, teachers prefer to
use Google classroom. By using Google classroom, the teachers able to track the progress of their
students’ homeworks. This platform also allow the teachers to send chat to their students
individually, for reinforcement and recovery sessions. As for university and college students, the

7. institution usually has their own platform, such as UPSI using Webex and Google Meet. The
services are accessible from anywhere and at any time due to their own leisure time and suitability.
The only downside is that, for some students they may not have the access to the internet. As for
these students, they can come to school to take the handouts and learning material that was
distributed by their teachers.
The use of Educational TV channel such as DidikTV KPM is also one of the way to
handle the home-based learning (PdPR) class session. DidikTV KPM was launched in February
17, 2021. DidikTV KPM is a Malaysian educational television network that are owned, produced
and launched by a joint-venture between the Ministry of Education and Media Prima Berhad. The
objective for the launching of DidikTV KPM is to help the students to face the problems regarding
the home-based learning (PdPR) class session as well as to increase access to quality education for
students nationwide. This channel has started broadcasting in the 8 am that can be view via channel
107 on MYTV, 147 on Astro, and ntv7 on TV unifi from 7 am until midnight everyday. The
programmes inside this channel are specially designed based on the MOE’s curriculum and co-
curriculum, aside from the news regarding education and edutainment programs. By using this
DidikTV, the students do not have to worry about their internet because this DidikTV is free in
which the students can just turn on their television then click on the available channels and watch
it. Other than that, this Educational TV channel also gives a great advantage to the students in
which they can watch the channel anytime they want, without being restricted to the fixed time.
From the point above, it is true that the use of DidikTV among students can help them to handle
the home-based learning (PdPR) session.
Another way that I could do to handle the PdPR as a future teacher is using the social media
platforms that are close to the students such as YouTube or TikTok. Both YouTube and TikTok
are a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. The videos also can be
saved as offline video as long as the creators allow it to be saved as offline video. As a result, the
students can watch the video anytime they want. These platforms are great multimedia tools for
the teachers as well as the students. This will give benefit to the students who easily feeling bored
or unable to flex their limbs while attending sessions through applications such as Google Meet,
Webex Meeting, Zoom Meeting and telegram, which require them to just sit down, listen and
occasionally interrupt when they have a question about the things that they do not understand

8. during the teaching and learning session. Other than that, if the teacher uploads the video on
YouTube or TikTok and sets the setting so that the video can be saved offline, it will give a great
advantage to the students who cannot attend the class session throughout the applications due to
some circumstances they faced. Moreover, the platforms has its own interface that attract students
to use it with easy way. Thus, using a platform such as YouTube or TikTok really can help the
students and teachers to cope with home-based learning (PdPR).
In conclusion, through smart school knowledge these are some ways that I use, to handle
PdPR while in the pandemic of COVID-19, which are through education focused applications and
platform, implementation of DidikTV and through trending social media applications. As a future
educator, we must stay up to date with the latest trend of information and communications
technology. We also need to always be a step ahead from students in terms of ICT, because of the
fact that students nowadays are more exposed to information that are just at their fingertips. We
also should learn how to use any technology first, before implement it in our class, so that the
teaching and learning session runs smoothly. Online learning during the pandemic is a challenge
for both students and teachers, despite of that fact, we have to hustle and enthusiastic to adapt to
this new norm. Thanks to the Malaysian Ministry of Education for implementing the home-based
learning and smart school knowledge. As a result, we are able to get through the pandemic for our
education. We should be grateful when we still could attend to class like usual through online
class, eventhough the pandemic still ongoing. We believe that the pandemic would never disrupt
our education system, instead we become more hardworking to get through this together. There
are always pros and cons in everything and online learning is not excluded. In contrast to that fact,
teachers must always strive, keep trying and exploring to make PdPR fun and effective to all
students, so that their academic performance will keep increasing day by day.

9. CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, smart school implementation in Malaysia is a good initiative for students and
teachers to develop their education system. The use of technologies in smart school project attracts
the students to keep focus in the face-to-face class and online class. As we know, most of the
schools in Malaysia right now, conduct teaching and learning session in online class due to the
pandemic. When online class being conducted, some of the students unable to join the class due
to some technical issues. On top of that, the teachers unable to see their student’s expression, and
the teachers do not know whether the students focus on their class or not. In order to avoid the
students from losing their interest and focus, the use of technologies could help in boosting their
spirit and mind. This can be done by using fun and interactive games that can be created and
accessed through any game application. In our point of view, the use of technologies in PdPR very
relevant and help in improving the quality of teaching and learning session. However, the parents
should monitor their children regularly, when they are surfing the webpage, gadget, and electronic
devices so that their children would not browse unbeneficial things. Nowadays students being
exposed early to gadget or electronic devices that consist a lot of beneficial and unbeneficial things.
It is important for parents to set up the internet for learning purposes only. As a result, their children
would be more focus to study, and they do not waste too much time with their gadget. Moreover,
not only the teachers, but parents should also cooperate in ensuring their childrens’ learning
process runs smoothly without any distraction from the technologies.

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