Stephen Coyle, an IELTS instructor for the Reliable English School (RES), didn’t just see the dawn of technology in the classroom—he heard it. “When I first started teaching [in Vietnam] 14 years ago, the noise level in the classroom was incredible; people were shouting, talking, laughing. Now, during the break, it’s completely silent. Everyone is just looking at their phones.”
The heavy reliance on digital devices in Vietnam has come swiftly: in 2018 over 35 million people used Facebook regularly and an estimated 32.43 million had a smartphone. In just 3 years, these numbers have rocketed to around 75 million Facebook users in 2021, and over 61 million people have smartphones.
It is clear that the use of technology has irreversibly changed the way we look at the world and how we socialise, but in Ho Chi Minh City’s schools, has it changed the way our kids learn as well?
In 2018, Thomas Galvez, Saigon South International School’s Technology Learning Coach, acknowledged that technology can have detrimental effects on a child’s socialisation, but averred that it’s all about balance. “It’s not about weaning them off [of smartphones],” he said. “It’s about teaching them the appropriate times to use it, and to understand the effects.”
At that time, with separate technology coaches for the elementary, middle and high schools and an overall ICT Director in the administration department, it was safe to say that SSIS took the role of technology in the classroom seriously. In recognition of this, SSIS became the first Apple Distinguished School in Vietnam, a distinction both prestigious and rather nebulous.
To hold this coveted title, Galvez explained it wasn’t so much about having Apple products (although SSIS is a completely Mac-driven institution and requires all parents to purchase a personal MacBook for their child when they enter the 4th grade), but rather, it was about promoting an innovative approach to learning.
Now, there are over 500 schools spread across 32 countries, which are Apple Distinguished Schools. However, SSIS remains the only one in Vietnam.
In trying to achieve an ‘innovative approach to learning, Galvez acknowledged that it was impossible to keep up with all the technological trends, something that can only have become harder in the last 18 months as educators across the world scrambled to embrace online teaching.
However, Galvez pointed out how social media apps like Twitter are great for creating an active, world-wide professional learning network. By harnessing the power of social media, teachers can discover tools that can make learning more efficient, or connect kids in a deeper way. After discussing with other teachers about how programs can be integrated into their lesson, teachers and students alike can benefit from the latest tech.
For example, SoundCloud, an app which allows teachers to comment in different places on a student’s audio file, can be useful in a language class. For multimedia collaborations, Explain Everything, an interactive whiteboard app which lets students create visual presentations in the cloud, increases interaction between student and the teacher.
“That’s the great thing about these cloud-based tools,” Galvez said. “They provide asynchronous capacities that students and teachers can access to provide feedback and learn anytime, anywhere.”
The emphasis on creativity and multimedia, that is still emphasised by Mac products, is widely believed to help prepare students for future careers, many of which will require teamwork, collaboration and thinking outside of the box. However, as Rob van Driesum, a parent of an SSIS child (and, full disclosure, the freelance copy-editor of #iAMHCMC) points out, “Not all kids will end up working in multimedia. They’ll need skills in Windows-based Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and so on.”
The debate about technology’s role in the classroom has been raging since the concept of One-to-One learning was first suggested in the late 1990s. At that time it was argued that having the ability to provide students with personal learning devices, from which they could read digital textbooks and complete assignments, would make the learning process more streamlined and efficient.
However, studies have since suggested that digital learning isn’t the silver bullet some first believed it would be and some many schools have tempered their expectations. In addition, with many students having their own devices as well as those provided by their school, many people are now concerned that technology, in particular smartphones, are a negative presence in the classroom.
However, perhaps it is just the way in which this ‘problem’ is approached that causes the issues. As Thomas Galvez said, “Learning is always going to be at the centre of schools. The whole focus of this job is really not technology.” “A good teacher is a good teacher. And to be a good teacher, you don’t necessarily need technology. Really, it’s about relationships.”
It seems then that balance remains the key to bringing technology into the classroom. If teachers and students spent less time working behind screens, real relationships could be forged. Then, when technology is needed in the classroom, the distractions may not be so distracting.
This article has been adapted from an original article published in #iAMHCMC Gazette in December 2017.