Senior government officials in Samoa recently undertook a training by the Office of the Regulator and the Ministry of Communications Information Technology to encourage the use of technology especially with education.
The training was conducted by Ronda Zelezny-Green, the Senior Digital Learning and Content Development Manager of a group called GSMA, based in London.
Zelezny-Green’s role was to help local public servants understand and explore the use of mobile phones as a socio-economic development. Her focus was mostly with what happens in the classroom once people become more open to having technology play a part in the learning process for students.
“Samoa is very serious with exploring ways at how they might use ICT to further lift the nation and make it a leader in the South Pacific and I think with what we’re seeing this week, the people in the training are really engaged, and they are senior level people,” she said.
Part of the training was breaking the barrier of ideas that technology may be becoming a threat to society, with the many new changes that come with. Zelezny-Green says for education, nothing can replace a teacher inside a classroom.
“I disagree with that, no matter what you do, technology will never be able to replace a teacher. The teacher’s role may change so they may not be controlling the entire class, but they play that key role where they are a guide to the students,” she added.
“In that respect, teachers should have no worry. The thing that technology does is make things more exciting, other than just the boring text books we use, which are barely even read,” she added.
The GSMA is the global trade association for the mobile industry. The goal is to help members contribute to socio-economic development in different markets
The training in Samoa is just one of their goals in helping education.