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1. DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY
FACULTY OF SCIENCE & MATHEMATICS
UNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS
ASSIGNMENT 1
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN BIOLOGY
SBI3013
GROUP A
STUDENT’S NAME AND
MATRIC NUMBERS
MOHAMAD AZRIN BIN MOHAMMAD KUDUS (D20152071983)
NUR HIDAYAH BINTI ABDUL HAMID (D20152071979)
NURULATIKAH BINTI ABDUL KHALID (D20152071971)
LECTURE’S NAME ENCIK AZMI BIN IBRAHIM
TITLE SMART SCHOOL

2. INTRODUCTION TO SMART SCHOOL
Malaysia intends to transform its educational system, in line with and in support of
the nation’s drive to fulfil Vision 2020. This Vision calls for sustained, productivity-driven
growth, which will be achievable only with a technologically literate, critically thinking work
force prepared to participate fully in the global economy of the 21st century. At the same
time, Malaysia’s National Philosophy of Education calls for “developing the potential of
individuals in a holistic and integrated manner, so as to produce individuals who are
intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and physically balanced and harmonious.” The
catalyst for this massive transformation will be technology supported Smart Schools, which
will improve how the educational system achieves the National Philosophy of Education,
while fostering the development of a work force prepared to meet the challenges of the next
century.
The Smart Schools initiative is one of the seven flagship applications that are part of
Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project. The Government of Malaysia aims to
capitalise on the presence of leading-edge technologies and the rapid development of the
MSC’s infrastructure to jump-start deployment of enabling technology to schools. This will
be done by creating a group of 90 pilot Smart Schools by 1999 that will serve as the nucleus
for the eventual nation-wide rollout of Smart School teaching concepts and materials, skills,
and technologies. By 2010, all 10,000 of Malaysia’s primary and secondary schools will be
Smart Schools. The most distinctive feature of the Smart School will be a teaching and
learning environment built on international best practices in primary and secondary
education. This entails aligning the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and teaching-learning
materials in a mutually reinforcing, coherent manner.
Transforming the educational system will entail changing the culture and practices of
Malaysia’s primary and secondary schools, moving away from memory-based learning
designed for the average student to an education that stimulates thinking, creativity, and
caring in all students, caters to individual abilities and learning styles, and is based on more
equitable access. It will require students to exercise greater responsibility for their own
education, while seeking more active participation by parents and the wider community.
The Smart School curriculum shall be meaningful, socially responsible, multicultural,
reflective, holistic, global, open-ended, goal-based and technological. It shall promote holistic
learning, allowing children to progress at their own pace, and catering for students’ varying

3. capabilities, interests and needs. It will seek to ensure that children are educated with critical
and creative thinking skills, inculcated with appropriate values, and encouraged to improve
their language proficiency. Thus, the curriculum will be designed to: help students achieve
overall balanced development integrate knowledge, skills, values, and correct use of language
state explicitly intended learning outcomes for different ability levels offer multidisciplinary,
thematic, and continuous learning foster the knowledge, skills, and many more. Smart Schools
also will provide a golden opportunity for the Ministry of Education to implement innovations to
achieve the highest standards in education and become a global leader in the field.
The Smart School pedagogy will seek to make learning more interesting, motivating,
stimulating, and meaningful; involve the children’s minds, spirit, and bodies in the learning
process; build basic skills to prepare children for greater challenges over time; and cater for a
range of needs and capabilities among the students. The pedagogy shall: use an appropriate
mix of learning strategies to ensure mastery of basic competencies and promote holistic
development accommodate individual different learning styles, so as to boost performance
foster a classroom atmosphere that is compatible with different teaching-learning strategies.
The Smart School’s assessment system will be distinctly different from current
systems to help realise the National Philosophy of Education It shall be element-based and
criterion-referenced to provide a more holistic and accurate picture of a student’s
performance. Teachers, students and parents will be able to access on-line assessment items.
Smart School assessment will be flexible and learner-friendly, while assuring the quality of
the assessment information by using multiple approaches and instruments. It will lead to
living certification, which will not only attest to a student’s cumulative accomplishments but
will also be open to continued improvement on a lifetime

4. ADVANTAGES OF SMART SCHOOL:
Smart school are the classrooms enhanced with technological equipment for the
purpose of better learning and teaching. With the numerous equipment that need to be
installed in a smart classroom such as computer or laptop, projector, microphones and
podiums, there also many advantages that can take from this technology either for the student
or for the teacher.
Firstly for the access to online resource. Today’s student are curious to know about
everything. They want to gain extra knowledge about the ongoing topic in the class. Maybe
some of the topic not know by the teacher, so with the smart classroom apply, the teacher can
use the resource available on the internet for the better understanding of the student. For
every subject, there are numerous resources available on the internet which can be accessed
by the teachers as well as the student at any time in a smart classroom. Different from book,
there are limitation in the book. The book only print the syllabus. For those who want to learn
beyond the syllabus, internet is very useful tool.
Next, in conventional way, the teacher writes on the board and the student note on
down on their notebooks. In this methodology of teaching, the student’s mind gets diverted in
two directions, which is one listening to the teacher and understanding and the other is
writing or making notes for future reference. In this way, the student do not understand the
topic properly or gets confused or even something, they do not listen anything and just make
notes. This is a very dull approach in teaching process. But different for the smart school,
which is there is a digital approach for the notes. Instead of using the whiteboard, the teacher
use PoerPoint presentation, word document, images, videos, and audios. These resource are
given to the students in pen drive, CDs, or being emailed to the student. In this way, the
students do not have to write for making notes. Notes are provided to them and they can
devote their full concentration to the lecture. This ways also can attract the student to love for
being in class and more interested to study.
Not every student can attend the school for everyday along the year. Some may be
sick, some may have emergency, and some may have a family problem. But if the student
who studies in regular classroom is absent for one day, it become difficult for him or her to
gather all the notes of the classes he or she missed. It also become a problem for the teacher
to explain again the previous topics to the student who were absent. Then, the student take the
shortcut method and get the notes photocopied from the other students. In this way, the

5. student do not understand anything from the classes he missed. And it also can effect for the
next class. If the student do not understand the previous chapter how he can go through for
the other chapter. In a smart classroom, the lectures are recorded. Whenever a student is
absent he can anytime see the recorded lecture. These recorded lectures are also uploaded on
the internet which can be accessed by the students anytime by a login id and password. The
notes are also in digital form, so they can be easily provided to the student.
There are many topics in the curriculum which are very difficult to understand. They
cannot be just taught by using a chalk and a blackboard. They require an interactive teaching
approach. With smart classes, the teacher can use multimedia to teach that topic to the
student. Example, for the science student, in order to understand more about the replication of
the DNA, maybe the teacher can use the animation about the process. It can make them more
understand about the process because they can see themselves how the process happened. If
the teacher just explain like always maybe the student can’t imagined that. With this way, the
student learn more from what they see rather than from what they listen. So the student
understand easily and effectively all the difficult topics in a smart classroom.
It being a teacher’s hope for the student to enjoy their class and make the learning
enjoyable because from this also can increase their academic. But if we go and look in a
regular classroom, the student are feeling very sleepy. It impossible to stay in focus from the
morning until afternoon. Some may be sleepy and not even listening to the teacher. Only the
teacher speak and the student just sit and listen. And some even busy talking with their friend.
In short, the class becomes very boring for them. But it different in a smart classroom. With
the use of technology in the class makes the classroom a fun room. The class becomes
interesting and enjoyable for the students. No student feels sleepy. It makes learning a fun
process. The student who do not like to go to schools also starts enjoying in the school.
With all the facilities, the school can demand to get the best academic performances.
It is often seen that the student studying in a smart school get a better result than the students
studying in the regular school. This is so because the understanding ability in the students
studying in a smart school is way more than other students. The use of technology in the
classroom for teaching increases the understanding of the students. The topic becomes clearer
and the base of the subject becomes stronger. Even now we can see the difference of
academic performances between the student in town with the student in countryside. Student
in town get many benefit and they more open to the world. Obviously, the students with

6. better hold of the subject and with strong basic knowledge of the subject will score more in
exams.
The technology used in a smart school makes video conferencing possible in the
classroom itself. In this way, the students can communicate with the person who is expert in
the subject. In various schools and college with the facility of smart school, guest lectures are
organized weekly in which the student can communicate with the experts such as professors
of IITs and IIMs or the people engaged in research work. This provides the students with
extra information about their subjects which can be beyond the scope of the text books. The
students get to know about the ongoing issues related to their subjects. They get acquainted
with the upcoming technology and theories. This proves very beneficial for them in the near
future.
Lastly, teachers also a human. There are some teachers that might be very sensitive
towards the use of chalk or markers. Some of them experience skin allergies when they write
with chalk and some are allergic to the chalk dust. Some teachers are not comfortable with
the smell of the ink used in the markers. For these teachers, smart school are advantageous.
There is no or very less use of markers or chalk in a smart school. The teaching is done by
using digital or e-resource. So, there is no chance of allergy
THE CHALLENGES IMPLEMENTATION OF ICT IN SMART SCHOOL:
The smart school is a learning institution that has been systemically reinvented in terms of
teaching-learning practices and school management in order to prepare children for the
Information Age (MalaysiaGov., 1997). There are 88 smart schools in Malaysia which
support by government and PIBG (PersatuanIbuBapadan Guru). The smart school is using
ICT as teaching and learning medium in classroom. For example, one primary smart school,
as one of the cases, with 12 years established, has facilities to use ICT classroom for students.
The teachers of those are trained for 14 weeks through the ministry of education. They should
have knowledge about how to implement and manage ICT class in order to achieve of
education goals.
The existence problems with IT classes are financial supports, experienced and skilled
teachers, and providing equipments based on needs and wants of smart schools. The ministry
of education of Malaysia should find alternatives solutions for the smart school problems by

7. considering of changing technologies and new learning methods. Also, IT skills help teachers
to convey right information to the students. The quality of service as an IT Class has an
important role in the success of smart school. The quality of service can produce many
capabilities towards improving students’ talents. For example, if a teacher using new tech and
new methods, so teaching and learning are very attracted by the students. Each attributes of
IT class have own advantages and disadvantages that should be controlled and managed by
the teachers. The efficiency of smart school is determined by analyzing feedback of
curriculum of students. Also, sharing new ideas between smart schools can get good results in
the future respect to the goals of schools. Communication is cornerstone of the smart school
for interacting students and parents towards managing those. As far as now the government
supports the smart schools and new ideas for alternative solutions for success of them.
The smart school has undoubtedly weaknesses versus of strengths. Actually, parents
should take part in their children schools activities and not only focused on their working
duty. But somehow, there are two kinds of parents where one of them comes from poor
family background and the other one is well educated and well known people. For rich
family, they are able to provide a computer or a laptop for their child nowadays but how
about the unfortunate one? They are unable to expose their child by providing a good
facilities and needs at home and totally get exposed through the school facilities provided.
Hence, the suggestion on providing an ICT to the students at smart school is one of the
relevant ones, but there are several challenges from the reviews and observation to be
overcome.
In order to build one multimedia room for a school, thousands or may up to million
cost are needed. Multimedia infrastructures actually need in a large fund to run. A proper
electrical wiring, ventilation, safety and so on are needed in a large cost. Besides, a large
budget also needed in order to prepare the student with new digital apparatus in laboratory
especially for science students. Moreover, costs are needed too in order to train the teacher
and exposed the veteran teachers with something news and many ICT tools in the classroom.
A large cost needed to buy hardware, software, maintenance and also training the skillful
staff. These new pedagogical skills are playing important role in conveying information and
attracting subjects to the students but the educational goals need balance with our country’s
economic realities.

8. Moreover, the situation become worse as small community of the experienced
teachers not agreed and interested to use the multimedia in their class. They more prefer
chalk and talk, the traditional method. The common that we can find in a classroom are
computer and a projector but for them, using ICT in class may consume their times and just
waste their times to run the multimedia program. The skill of teaching electronically through
teachers has important role of teaching. The skill of teachers on monitoring and conducting
class based on IT class also a very important factor to attain success of smart schools. Using
new technologies in smart schools need to have trained teachers. Therefore, the teachers
should have skills in IT and ICT, technical problems, and teaching plan. They should have
knowledge about how to implement and manage ICT class in order to achieve of education
goals. Moreover, there will be many software provided for the school by the government,
also the teachers can use developing one if they distinguish it needs on teaching and learning.
In order to make the learning and teaching session smoothly run, technical support
teams are needed if any technical problem happens. Usually, there are not many ICT teachers
in a school and it seem like not fair for the ICT teacher to handle the multimedia alone and
fix every single issues come out. Unfortunately, it may earn more cost for these technical
support teams in every smart schools.
A hotspot is a physical location where people may obtain Internet access, typically
using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local area network (WLAN) using a router connected
to an internet service provider. Basically, a smart school need this as the main medium to
keep in connecting. But how about the smart school in a rural area? For sure, there will be a
server problem and inconsistent internet service to access into the internet. Internet access is
one of the medium for helping teachers to convey right information to their students.
Teachers may show their students with many interactive videos from the youtube and this can
be one of the medium to attract their students to be in the class.
CONCLUSION:
Each attributes of IT class have own advantage and disadvantage that should be
controlled and managed by teachers. The efficiency of smart schools is determined by
analyzing feedback of curriculum of students. Also, sharing new ideas between smart schools
can get good results in the future respect to the goals of schools. Communication is
cornerstone of the smart school for interacting students and parents towards managing those.

9. As far as now the government supports the smart schools and new ideas for alternative
solutions for success of them.
Smart Schools will prepare students to make a successful transition to the modern and
more global environment. The schools will nurture skills of creative problem-solving in the
face of novel situations, and students will learn to exercise courage in making decisions and
assuming responsibility for them. Students will learn to process and manipulate information.
They will be trained to think critically and to reflect on what they have learned, as well as to
transfer and apply knowledge from one discipline to another and to daily life.
Teachers will now play the role of ‘a guide on the side’, thus doing away with their
traditional role of ‘the sage on the stage’. Teachers will identify goals, define direction for
their students, pilot their progress towards these goals and then step back to allow the
students to learn at their own pace. They will give psychological support and encouragement.
They will periodically step in to check progress, applaud strengths and efforts, identify
weaknesses, and decide what kind of practice their students will need. In short, teachers will
be instrumental in creating conditions that will promote self-directed learning which is
creative and independent.

10. REFERENCES:
1) Retrieved and edited from
Malaysia Gov. (1997). The Malaysian Smart School Implementation Plan, Kuala
Lumpur, Government of Malaysia
2) Retrieved and edited from
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/sites/default/files/pdf/publications_references/Smart_Sc
hool_Blueprint.pdf
3) Retrieved and edited from
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/sites/default/files/pdf/publications_references/Smart_Sc
hool_Blueprint.pdf
4) Retrieved and edited from
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/mdecthrowbackthursday/2015-03-26