In the year 2006, the computer lab underwent a major restructuring. The DELL Asia Pacific Foundation donated 20 high end desktop computers inclusive of 3 units of touch screen monitors.
The foundation had also sponsored the purchase of some special education software and computer adaptive devices. This unit known as DELL Learning Center was launched by Mr. Simon Wong, the then Vice-President, Asia Operations on the 11 August 2006. It’s motto is ‘Bridging the digital divide’. The idea behind the setting up of this learning center is to promote IT knowledge among the students and also to bridge the digital divide between the persons with cerebral palsy and also the world around them.
The skills acquired give them a sense of independence and ability to communicate with one another without having to leave their homes. The wider use of social medias and application software have empowered many individuals with cerebral palsy to perform many things which were not possible in the past. With the use of computer assistive devices many students were able to access computers and internet. Most of our students are able to use application software to create relevant documents such as flyers, slide presentations, creating tables, name cards, greeting cards etc. Students’ participation and interest in computer assisted lessons have increased tremendously.
During the last quarter of 2015 Dell Global Bayan Lepas Penang donated towards the makeover of our computer lab. Thus, we procures 13 personal computers with system 8.1, subsequently upgrade to Windows 10. And, with the donation we too purchased some assistive devices to provide effective computer accessibility for our students.
Computer education at the Association was introduced in the early 90s with the donation of RM10,000.00 by Forever Living Products Company on March 1990. With that donation we purchased our first computer worth RM8,500.00 , an IBM Machine and some of our students were motivated to learn typewriting through the computer. Then things began to change gradually with the establishment of a separate computer lab for computer assisted lessons. In the mid 90’s we purchased two apple computers Apple Macintosh Classic and Macintosh LC575. The computer class moved to the new wing in the early 90s with an addition of an IBM PC and another Apple E-Mac.