SINGAPORE - When music student Nuri Faiqah Mohamed Faizal, 15, had to play a National Day song for a project at Pasir Ris Secondary School, she and her friends headed to the wellness corner in the school library to practise on the kalimba, a type of African thumb piano.
With her Chromebook personal learning device, she searched for sheet music for the song, then recorded her performance and mixed it using software on her computer.
The wellness corner, aside from being somewhere students can play musical instruments, is also a place where students can visit during breaks to listen to music on iPads that come with a premium subscription to Spotify, a music streaming platform. Some students also seek out music tutorials on YouTube.
This is part of Pasir Ris Secondary School's efforts in cultivating self-directed learning for music, as part of its technology initiatives under the National Digital Literacy Programme (NDLP).
NDLP was launched for all secondary schools by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in March 2020 to help students strengthen their digital literacy.
Prior to this, Pasir Ris Secondary was one of eight pilot schools in 2019 that participated in MOE's 1:1 Learning Pilot Project, where students learnt in a 1:1 computing environment.
On Tuesday (Jan 25), President Halimah Yacob visited the school and was given a tour of different stations in the library as teachers and students shared more on the school's NDLP initiatives and cyber-wellness programmes.
Speaking to the media, Madam Halimah acknowledged the efforts of Pasir Ris Secondary in helping its students to develop by largely leveraging on digital platforms, and in other ways such as peer support.
She added: "I'm happy with the existence of good policies to support students in their digital literacy journey, and implemented by really very passionate, dedicated principals and teachers. We see that it makes a difference to the education of our young people."
As one of its NDLP initiatives, Pasir Ris Secondary also implemented fortnightly home-based learning where students attend lessons for four hours in the early part of the day and are given a one-hour slot in the afternoon to pursue other areas of interest such as learning another language or playing music instruments.
The students search for their own resources online on websites like YouTube or Google, or work with adults knowledgeable in the area, then fill in a reflection log that allows teachers to monitor their progress.
While the wellness corner in the school library encourages self-directed learning, Secondary Four student Teng Jiamin, 15, said that it is also a good place to chill out.
"It provides me with a space where I can just unwind and it's quite accessible," she added.
