WITH 3D glasses perched on their noses, about 20 pupils Crescent Girls’ School sat in front of a screen which showed images of a riverbed being eroded.

Minutes later, when raindrops appeared on the screen, the girls said they could almost feel the downpour.

But the lesson does not end there.

Principal of Crescent Girls' School Mrs Eugenia Lim (left) sat with her students and guests during a demostration of i-Connect@Crescent, an hi-tech initiative which allow pupils to see 3-D visualisations of riverbed erosions in Geography lessons.
ST Photo: Terence Tan

Crescent Girls' School student Khoo Li Yan, 15, communicating with her peers from both her school and fellow Geography students from China during a video-conferencing session.
ST Photo: Terence Tan

Huddled around a web cam, they started a video conferencing session with pupils from China.

This is a regular day at Crescent Girls’ School, which has been designated by the Education Ministry as a “future school”, or place that will be a testing ground for new gadgets.

Technology is rapidly transforming learning and teaching in classrooms here and students are jumping onboard.
Secondary two pupil Toh Yan Ting said: “Sometime it is quite hard to understand the concepts because we have to visualise them in our minds. Now we can can actually see what the concepts mean.”

Secondary three pupil Ann Nivedha agreed.

“We used to only be able to find out about other countries by reading books and going onto the Internet. Now, we have the chance to talk to other people living in other countries and find out for ourselves what we learnt in books means to them.”

The girls tell me they cannot do without their trusty tablet computers, which store everything they need from timetables to course outlines to homework.

Using instant messaging and file sharing technology on their computer, they can communicate with their classmates and teachers to get feedback on assignments.

Isn’t it exciting to be a student now?