The Digital Readiness Academy is a new programme led by the British Council and sponsored by HSBC to empower local teachers and students with digital literacy, financial literacy and core skills for their future planning and resilience in a post-Covid-19 and tech-focused world. In its pilot year, the programme will take place in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. We are now sincerely inviting 5 teachers from your school to take part in the training programme this coming academic year (Nov 2020 – May 2021). Upon completion of the programme, teachers will receive a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) certificate issued by the British Council and endorsed by the Micro:bit Educational Foundation. The programme consist of a two-days online training and 35 sets of micro:bit starter kits will be gifted to each participating school.
The programme aims to:
- equip teachers with digital literacy skills to support learning in the classroom
- provide students with the skills to plan, budget, and enhance their future
- support students to develop online learning capabilities
- develop a suite of micro:bit teaching and learning resources for future readiness
The programme includes:
1. Teacher/Student Training
Teachers will receive a two-day online training that focuses on integrating micro:bit-enabled digital activities across the curriculum to support the following three pillars of student development:
- Core/Soft skills, particularly around creativity, communication and collaboration and critical thinking
- Financial literacy and planning
- Links to the workplace via exposure to industry context/networks and prototyping industry solutions
Throughout the training, teachers will be introduced to the processes and resources for developing integrated curricula, learning materials and student activities.
2. Student Hackathon
Towards the end of the pilot year, the academy will host a student hackathon involving all participating schools to celebrate how the world could be improved through creativity, design thinking and innovation using the micro:bit as a tool to respond to real-world challenges.
Core Values:
- Playful: play nurtures and develops the breadth of skills that enable us to fulfil our potential.
- Interdisciplinary: these events bring multiple subject disciplines together. For example, technology could fuse with engineering and the arts could blend with computer science.
- Skills development: activities will enable participants to learn new tangible (e.g. coding) and non-tangible (e.g. problem solving) skills.
- For social good: the events, by their very nature, are designed to have positive social impact and it is important to demonstrate how and why.
3. School-based Code Clubs: Student Service Learning
A British Council-branded Code Club will be set up at each participating school. It will be led by teachers as facilitators and run by student volunteers who act as peer tutors. These students will have the title ‘Digital Readiness Academy Ambassadors’. With the Code Club activities that are developed available online as an open resource, each Code Club will run sessions on how to code simple micro:bit tasks aimed to develop soft skills and focused on different themes.
Who can participate in the programme?
Priority will be given to schools that are:
- Public, government-funded
- Support students from low to medium income bracket families
- Have teacher training needs in core skills and financial literacy
- Have teacher training needs in digital literacy, ICT or STEM
- Can commit to the entirety of the pilot activity scope
Who can participate in the programme?
Priority will be given to schools that:
- Are public, government-funded
- Support students from low to medium income bracket families
- Have teacher training needs in core skills and financial literacy
- Have teacher training needs in digital literacy, ICT or STEM
- Can commit to the entirety of the pilot activity scope
How will students, teachers and schools benefit from the programme?
- Teachers develop proficiency and confidence in digital literary
- Students gain access to digital learning and demonstrate skills
- Teachers and students are motivated to use online learning within and beyond the classroom
- Schools adopt digital transformation of their curricula
- Communities of practice are established for sustainable development on digital learning and capacity building through collaborative relationships.
DRA Student Hackathon 2021
DRA Hackathon is a micro:bit challenge led by British Council, co-created by Micro:bit Educational Foundation and sponsored by HSBC. The aim is to deliver immersive and engaging events to inspire students to get creative and experience the power of learning with micro:bit. Students with the winning ideas will be awarded a gift voucher prize. There will be four regional winners from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
Students from our project schools are welcome to enter our challenge with their ideas to achieve the Global Goals Good Health & Well-being & Climate Action. Participating schools can send up to 2 teams of 3-5 students (F1-F3) to compete. The hackathons will be hosted online if the situation of Covid-19 continues to evolve.
Malaysia organised a two-day Hackathon event. On the 21st of August, 8 HSBC volunteers joined the pre-event mentoring session whereby they assisted 14 teams from all 10 pilot schools. The volunteers assisted on three aspects (project ideas, presentation skills and microbit coding skills). From that event, 10 teams were shortlisted for the 28 August Hackathon day whereby the judges selected the top 3 winning teams.
Congratulations to the winning teams!
- The Champion of the hackathon was Beans from SMK Tinggi Port Dickson
- a 3in1 device to combat COVID-19 which includes: washing hand timer, distance detector and measures temperature and heartbeat.
- The 1st runner up was Cherry bomb from SMK Klebang Besar, Melaka
- An Easy Sit Tracker (eSIT) to alert educators and students to do physical exercise/stretch due to sedentary lifestyle
- The 2nd runner up was Infiniousmekg from SMK Kampung Gelam, Melaka
- S-DAT – Social Distance Alert to help practice social distancing in school