So, the Ministry of Education Singapore is going big on its National Digital Literacy Programme (NDLP) for secondary schools and Institutes of Higher Learning to help students strengthen their digital literacy. One of the components of the NDLP is the introduction of the Personalised Digital Learning Programme (PDLP) for all secondary school students, whereby every secondary school student will own a school-prescribed Personal Learning Device (PLD) by end-2021.
Here’s a video of students from PDLP Pilot schools sharing their experiences learning with a personal learning device.
But wow, such crappy propaganda! And cringeworthy to watch.
For example, “a new device that we have never used before”. Seriously? What new device? A Star Trek tricorder? Come on! We’re not living in the 80s. Wait, they also referred to a game called Battleship, like it’s some kind of novelty that can only be played on a PLD.
And accordingly, they can now “refer to so many educational websites” – as if they can’t previously without the PLD. As far as I know, many secondary school students have their own mobile phone (in fact, quite a number of primary school students already possess one), which allows them to access practically anything on the interwebs. Heck, you could have accessed Pormhub if you wanted to, in the name of sex education.
Oh right, maybe that’s the crux of the matter: control.
Casting aside all those highfalutin “learning vision”, before you teach the kids digital literacy, they have to learn to think critically so that they won’t turn out to be gullible individuals.
Check out this petition started by a Singapore student on 23 January 2021 against the implementation of Device Management Application (DMA) on students laptops.
