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BCG joins forces with Riyadh Schools for digital classroom

RIYADH, October 27, 2014

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm and leading advisor in business strategy, has worked with Riyadh Schools, a private K-12 school in Saudi Arabia, to support them their efforts to adopt an e-learning educational model.

The journey towards a digital classroom began with access to laptops, tablets, interactive white boards, collaborative software and multimedia technologies, said a statement.

The school’s leadership went on to provide intensive training to help teachers understand how new technologies could be used to expand and enhance their teaching and learning vision – a critical step in an environment where entrenched practises are sometimes difficult to change, it said.

A robust infrastructure was also put in place to support these new technologies so that students and teachers alike could trust their connectivity to the Internet.

Ronald Lake, director general of Riyadh Schools, said: “Although the programme is still very new, it has already produced remarkable results in its first year: more than 30 per cent of teachers have already begun using the technology in highly advanced ways.

“In the first round of assessment, 95 per cent of all teachers met the minimum standards for integration of technology into the classroom, and early adopters served as mentors for other teachers, thus functioning as catalysts for change.”

BCG has released its report ‘The Evolution of a Twenty-First-Century Digital Classroom,’ which outlines the programme’s accomplishments .

Classrooms around the world are rapidly evolving to keep pace with the technology revolution. Several educational initiatives have demonstrated extremely encouraging results in primary and secondary education, including Rocketship Education, School of One, and the Pearson-Knewton partnership, it said.

While technology has enormous potential to transform the classroom experience, challenges do exist when instituting effective e-learning models, said the report.

Jeers Hildebrandt, a senior partner and managing director at BCG, who co-authored the report, said: “The fact is, the mere presence of computers and state-of-the-art learning-management systems will not improve student achievement.

“To create meaningful advances in educational outcomes, schools need to introduce end-to-end technology solutions strategically across the entire educational system.”

To achieve success in education, the technology revolution must be accompanied by a revolution of ideas on how to transform classrooms for teachers and students, it said.

It requires a holistic approach to change management in schools, composed of four building blocks - creating a shared vision for teaching and learning, building leadership and teacher capacity, establishing a robust technology infrastructure and developing supportive policies and partnerships.

“Is ICT a big enough lever to change education? By itself, no. It must be combined with bigger, systemwide changes in teaching and learning,” Lake added. - TradeArabia News Service




Tags: E-learning | Schools | Riyadh | Model | BCG |

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