The Internet as an alternative learning sphere

Mr. Razin has posted something interesting about nation-building at his website, Le Spectateur. To summarize: he says that, in addition to educating its citizens through the school system, Malaysia must also stimulate the minds of those citizens through alternative learning spheres, such as museums—historical museums, arts museums, science museums, space museums and military museums.

Another alternative learning sphere is the Web. While I was in Malaysia from June 2004 to February 2005, I tried, unsuccessfully, to get four companies interested in starting science-learning through the Internet. My idea was to set something up similar to the Stevens Institute of Technology's "Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education", where science teachers at Sekolah Rendahs all over Malaysia can run collaborative science projects, despite being from different schools. Under such projects, students in Penang, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur, Johor, etc. would run simultaneous experiments and swap the resulting data with each other over the Internet. The idea was to teach young people about the process of data collection as well as show them that the Internet eases the exchange of information between people seperated by distance [and to show that the Internet can be a place for serious exchange as well, in addition to being a conduit for chatting or writing a humourous personal diary]. Also, the teachers would get to know other teachers in the country who share the same interest in the Web as a pedagogical tool.

I began writing a proposal for a RM1 million grant from DAGS to do such a thing and I reached out to four potential partners: a computer/ISP company based in Damansara Utama, through an introduction from my sister; a Malaysian science software company that is founded and owned by my father's friend; a company in Subang Jaya that provides computer support to Chinese schools that I found randomly by doing a Google search; and the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

When my skeleton proposal was ready, I met with all the parties to get them to sign on to the idea. Unfortunately, my time in Malaysia ended before we could get anywhere. But one day I would like to pick up where I left off.