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On 9 January 2001, CDTL held a one-day conference entitled ‘e-Education:
Environments; Effectiveness; Economics; Expectations’ at the NUSS
Kent Ridge Guild House. It was attended by 66 NUS staff members and 183
educators and IT professionals from various institutes of higher learning,
junior colleges, secondary schools, Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology, Ministry of Education, Info-Communications Development Authority
of Singapore, SAFTI Military Institute, various private organisations,
and members of the press. The conference was declared open by the guest
of honour, RADM Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Education and Second Minister
for Defence.
The day’s programme was divided into 4 consecutive sessions dealing
with different aspects of e-Education: Environments, Effectiveness, Econo-mics,
and Expectations. There were three speakers for each session, with a Q
& A segment at the end of each session. The 12 speakers, consisting
of educators and IT professionals, were from Ngee Ann Polytechnic; Singapore
Polytechnic; Temasek Polytechnic; NIE; SAFTI Military Institute; Ministry
of Manpower; and NUS’ School of Computing, Computer Centre, Centre
for Instructional Technology, Institute of Systems Science, Kent Ridge
Digital Labs, and CDTL.
The participants have generally found the conference “informative”
and appreciated the “wide coverage of different aspects”.
Other comments include:
“Excellent speakers overall. Logical organisation of
presentations and break schedules. Good representation from the
various institutes. Excellent coverage of realistic practical issues
like bandwidth, learning culture change, etc.”
“The real case studies, statistics, experiences. Attempts
(all brave) to define e-learning—on this, I think the consensus
is that ‘e-learning’ is a much broader concept than
we thought initially.”
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Judging from the participants’ feedback, the conference has indeed
provided a unique and timely forum for information sharing, collaborative
planning, and discussion of how institutions might work together to maximise
their efforts in e-Education.
In the closing address, Prof Lee Soo-Ying, Director of Research, NUS,
challenged: “We face an exciting and uncertain future in e-Education...
There are risks to be taken, and many twists to be expected on the road
ahead. But the refusal to look ahead, to take calculated risks and to
move forward may be the greatest risk of all. This is reason enough for
us to want to host another similar conference.”
Echoing the words of RADM Teo Chee Hean in the opening address: “I
am glad that educators and industrial experts are gathered at today’s
conference to learn from each others’ experiences in e-Education,”
we are indeed glad to have hosted this very first conference on e-Education
in Singapore.
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