The Fourth Strategy of IT in Education –
Enhancing Schools’ WiFi Infrastructure
Explanatory Notes for Expression of Interest(EOI) Form
1. This document attempts to provide general information for schools
(except those joining the Support Scheme for e-Learning in Schools)
to submit the EOI Form for the Fourth Strategy of IT in Education –
Enhancing Schools’ WiFi Infrastructure. Making reference to this
will save time and effort to provide succinct information for the
submission.
2. Schools are required to submit the completed EOI Form together
with the soft copy. The information submitted will be served as an
internal reference by EDB in enhancing schools’ WiFi infrastructure.
General
3. Our intention is not to overload schools in preparing the EOI form.
As such, schools may consider using point form in the relevant parts
of the EOI form.
4. At places where evidences are needed, e.g. Parts 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 5.3,
please simply extract from relevant readily available documents,
such as notes of meeting, summary of survey findings, teaching
schedule, etc.
WiFi infrastructure enhancement plan
5. Schools are required to indicate on the form the preferred school year,
from 2015/16 to 2017/18 the latest, for enhancing their WiFi
infrastructure. Schools should take into consideration of their
contexts and schedule of e-learning implementation. If accepted by
EDB, schools should complete their enhancement work and will start
receiving enhanced Composite IT Grant (CITG) in the chosen school
year.
6. For schools choosing to upgrade their WiFi infrastructure in 2015/16
school year and accepted by EDB, they are advised to have early
1
planning on their construction work. A checklist and sample user
requirement specifications will be provided in the website for schools’
reference in conducting the procurement exercises for WiFi services.
7. For schools choosing to upgrade their WiFi infrastructure in 2016/17
school year or beyond, they are also required to provide the required
information as far as possible. Schools intending to change their
schedules after submitting the EOI form should seek agreement from
the EDB in writing with explanations. We will handle the request in
view of school contexts.
Three-year School Development Plan
8. If there are any major concerns in your current Three year School
Development Plan that are related to e-learning, please list them out
and also provide the URL of the School Development Plan as
uploaded on school’s website.
Schedule for using e-textbooks / e-learning resources
9. One of the objectives of the WiFi infrastructure enhancement is to
support schools that will use one or more than one e-textbooks or set
of curriculum-based e-learning resources in classroom learning and
teaching.
10. Schools should provide a coherent and progressive schedule of using
e-textbooks (for specific subject(s)/Key Learning Area (s)) and
e-learning resources.
11. Schools should also provide, if any, specific strategies of integrating
IT in the subjects and levels, e.g. some curriculum alignment with the
use of IT / e-pedagogy.
Teachers’ readiness and professional development
12. Teachers’ readiness and professional development are considered
essential to the successful and sustainable implementation of
e-learning through the use of e-textbooks and e-learning resources.
2
13. In assessing teachers’ readiness to deploy e-learning, schools may
consider making reference to the proportion of learning and teaching
materials in electronic forms deployed by a teacher in his/her
teaching practice and/or interest of the teacher in professional
development in e-learning in recent years. To illustrate, schools
may perceive a teacher to be ready in e-learning if his/her students
would normally use say, at least 50% learning and teaching materials
in electronic form or he/she has spent significant CPD hours on
e-learning.
14. Schools are required to briefly outline teachers’ readiness in terms
of their practices and experiences in adopting e-learning.
15. Schools have to commit their participation in the professional
development programmes by specifying the respective numbers of
principal / vice-principals, middle managers and teachers who are
going to enroll in the programmes.
16. Schools shall keep track on the progress of professional development
of principal / vice-principals, middle managers and teachers to ensure
their readiness to deploy e-learning.
Engagement of stakeholders
17. The support from major stakeholders including the school
management, teachers and parents is a critical success factor for
whole-school adoption of e-learning.
To capture schools’
engagement of various stakeholders during 2012/13 – 2014/15 school
years, we are looking forward to illustrations of the process of
engagement and the outcome (e.g. survey data) of such engagement.
All these have to be supported with evidence.
18. With regard to engagement of school management, schools may
provide extract of the minutes of meeting(s) of School Management
Committee / Incorporated Management Committee (the process) and
the endorsement, plans or actions made (the outcome).
3
19. For teachers, schools may provide a description on whether and how
teachers have been engaged or consulted on the use of IT in learning
and teaching (the process) and what consensus has been made (the
outcome).
20. As to parents, schools may provide a description on whether and how
parents of the school’s have been engaged or consulted on the
school’s IT in Education development (the process) and how the
issues of concern have been addressed (the outcome).
Plan for buildup of mobile learning environment
21. Schools are required to provide information on the existing
infrastructure in the school, namely (i) the number of registered
classrooms with WiFi connectivity supporting concurrent use by at
least half of the class size at any one point of time; and (ii) the
number of mobile computing devices, including notebook computers,
tablets, etc. that can be connected to the Internet via WiFi, owned by
the school for use by students.
22. Schools should indicate whether subscription mode in enhancing the
WiFi infrastructure will be adopted.
23. Schools have to provide a description and evidence of the school
policy / plan in managing the increasing number of mobile
computing devices in the school.
4