Customer Solution Case Study
Providing Children New Opportunities for Learning through Access to Technology
Overview
Country or Region:Thailand
Industry:Education
Customer Profile
Thailand’s Ministry of Education, the government’s largest agency, oversees education in the country. The Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC) works within the Ministry of Education.
Business Situation
The Ministry of Education was looking for ways to improve the PC to student ratio so as to make technology more accessible to children within the country.
Solution
OBEC agreed to become involved in a pilot program that used Mouse Mischief technology in the classroom.
Benefits
Improved access to technology
in the classroom.
Increased student engagement
in the classroom.
Enabled teamwork, cooperation, collaboration, and cognitive skill development.
Helped teachers assess student comprehension instantly. / “Children are more eager to learn and they’re having fun. Plus, they can take advantage of collaborative learning in the classroom which is very difficult in the normal class setup.”
Dr.Chinnapat Bhumirat, Secretary General, Office of the Basic Education Commission forthe Ministry of Education
Thailand’s Ministry of Education needed to find a meaningful way to take a limited budget and give students more access to technology. Simply purchasing sufficient equipment proved unrealistic. The Ministry needed another solution to help improve the low PC-to-student ratio. Looking into a myriad of solutions, the Ministry of Education chose Microsoft®Mouse Mischief™ (built on the Microsoft Windows®MultiPoint® Mouse), a solution that enables many children to each use an individual mouse to interactively and simultaneously work on the same computer. As a result of the solution, Thailand’s students are discovering new and exciting ways to work together and claim ownership of vital skills needed to survive in a global economy.
Situation
Similar to many other countries around the world, Thailand found itself struggling with finding effective ways to engage its 14 million students and help prepare them for a global economy. “In Thailand, education at every level is still unsatisfactory—improving quality is our highest priority,” says Dr. Wajit Srisa-arn, Thailand’s former Minister of Education. “Since learning ultimately takes place in the schools, we must strengthen our schools if we want to provide a better education for our children.”
The Ministry of Education (MOE), Thailand’s largest government agency, works to find ways to incorporate 21st century learning skills into the classrooms of its 39,500 schools. An important aspect of this endeavor means making technology more readily available to students. But access alone does not improve education. Research has shown that active involvement with technology remains as important to effective learning as access.
To this end, Thailand unveiled the National Education Act of 1999. Part of the plan called for students to have “the right to develop their capabilities for utilization of educational technologies as soon as feasible so that they shall have sufficient knowledge and skills in using these technologies for acquiring knowledge themselves on a continuous lifelong basis.” In the following year, Thailand created the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Master plan for Thailand to support ICT in the classroom. A second plan, IT-2010, initiated in 2010, focused on helping MOE sustain the achievements of the first plan. MOE has now developed programs to support and increase ICT integration by thirty percent above current levels.
To counteract the country’s economic downturn and the global recession in 2009, Thailand introduced a stimulus package to invest in its infrastructure. A major aspect of this package was an investment in IT-2010, improving the quality of education at all levels and encouraging children and other citizens to make constructive use of information technology. MOE then set a goal of reducing PC-to-student ratios from 1:40 to 1:20. The obvious and more expensive means to accomplishing this goal was to purchase more PCs. Indeed, funds from the stimulus package enabled MOE to purchase 140,394 PCs. The Office of Basic Education Commission (OBEC) is currently distributing hardware to more than 9,000 schools nationwide with the focus on schools that have the most problematic PC-to-student ratios, public primary schools (K–6).
Another more innovative, cost-effective approach to lowering the ratio of PCs to students is to make existing technology more accessible. As early as 2007, OBEC started to investigate this possibility. Some of the options explored included video conferencing, e-learning, and TV. While intriguing, none of these options provided a perfect fit. OBEC also considered the classroom use of an interactive whiteboard (the Smart Board) but found the solution too expensive.
During the same period in 2007, Microsoft Research began reaching out to developing nations faced with similar dilemmas. Microsoft had a solution that it wanted countries to try: Mouse Mischief technology. Microsoft Thailand worked with OBEC to deploy the program in its country.
Solution
Studies conducted by Microsoft Research in India show that giving each student a mouse increases student engagement in a shared computing scenario. Mouse Mischief is a Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2010 and Office PowerPoint 2007 add-in that extends the reach of a PC by enabling multiple mice to be used simultaneously on a single display. The result creates a realistically independent experience for the child within a shared environment.
Each student connects a wired USB or wireless 2.4 GHz mouse to a computer running Mouse Mischief technology by using USB hubs and USB cables. A group of students can work together using a single computer and monitor. The software automatically recognizes the additional mice. Teachers use the technology to create PowerPoint slides with questions that students can interact with. This allows teachers to see which students respond first and how many they answer correctly.
Initially the program started with first graders. This was in part due to the use of a cartoon character and an interactive game for the class to play. Currently, Mouse Mischief is being used through the twelfth grade, in addition to colleges. To create content, teachers use a tab within PowerPoint to include slides that students can interact with. For example, a first grade teacher at the Chitralada School in downtown Bangkok used Mouse Mischief to create a lesson plan to help her students study English. Showing an image of a tiger and four letters, she asks her students to choose the correct first letter of the word “tiger.” Each child then uses his or her mouse to simultaneously point to the answer. Other Mouse Mischief activities can include drawing lines for matching questions and answers, shading pictures, and circling right answers. Because the PCs used in the schools are a mixture of both old and new, Mouse Mischief is used on a variety of Microsoft Windows® operating systems. The newest computers run Windows 7 and Windows Vista®, while the older PCs run Windows XP.
Benefits
Limited budgets can fundamentally challenge education, force educators to cope with the contrived incorporation of modern technology into lessons, and create poor student motivation. Mouse Mischief deals with these issues and more. Teachers reported that by offering affordable methods that teach teamwork, collaboration, and computer familiarity, students can learn to use and enjoy technology, helping them to be competitive in a global market.
Mouse Mischief technology supports shared educational experiences where students work together and learn from one another. In many ways Mouse Mischief helps shift the emphasis in student learning from passive to active. “Children are more eager to learn and are having fun,” says Dr.Chinnapat Bhumirat, Secretary General, Office of the Basic Education Commission for the Ministry of Education. “Plus, they can take advantage of collaborative learning in the classroom which is very difficult in the normal class setup.”
In the past, Thailand schools primarily used PCs in computer labs for computer literacy skills. Because of the poor PC-to-student ratios, they rarely used them for teaching general lessons. Teachers now use Mouse Mischief for class lessons in a variety of subjects and for work on the Internet. “Students in the class can practice teamwork, discussion, idea exchange, and problem solving together,” says Wichai Srisud, a teacher at Bangkok Christian College.
As a result of Mouse Mischief, over the course of two years Thailand has seen a decrease in the PC-to-student ratio from 1:40 to 1:30. Over the next three years, OBEC will purchase 150,000 PCs to reduce the ratio further. “MultiPoint Mouse technology [Mouse Mischief] offers an effective way to provide more teachers and students with access to technology while delivering more engaging lessons containing fun interactive activities,” says Bhumirat.
Teachers who have used Mouse Mischief in their classrooms come away impressed both with the technology and the impact it has on their students. “The program isn’t just the technical media … but also a binding media that fosters interaction and relationships between teachers and students,” says Ronnachit Naraphan, a teacher at Watdongmullek School in Bangkok.
To many teachers, significant computer access increases educational quality. “Using a specific type of technology doesn’t matter as much as teachers giving students access to technology,” says Naraphan. At the same time, computer access means more than mere availability. “Accessing technology is not only knowing what it is but utilizing it and understanding its benefits,” says Watcharaphong Aphinyanurungsi a teacher at Bangkok Christian College.
To date, more than 387,000 students at 2,000 schools have used Mouse Mischief. More than 3,000 teachers and 4,000 administrators have received training to learn how to successfully incorporate the technology into classrooms. Future plans for OBEC include continued expansion of Mouse Mischief technology into more schools including more schools for the disabled. Although this technology requires an adjustment for some teachers, it’s one that they are enthusiastically willing to make for their students. “On the one hand teachers have to change their mindset on how they use technology in teaching and learning for students,” says Bhumirat. “But from the reaction of their students, i.e. their smiling faces and excitement, teachers are more than willing to adjust.”
Microsoft Education
For more information on how Microsoft and its partners are helping to support higher education institutions worldwide, please visit: