Sarah Ewans, Regional Director NENA, British Council, began by welcoming delegates, and a briefing of ICT in Education project. She also spoke about regionalising resources and projects and involving all skills in the region and other countries.
His Excellency Dr Khaled Toukan, Minister of Education and Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ministry of Education, Jordan began his speech with a welcoming all delegates coming from different countries. His Excellency gave a briefing how ICT in education has enhanced teaching and gave and example of the discovery schools. He finally thanked the British Council on working with the Ministry on education and on running this project.
Dr Tayseer Al-Nahar Al-Noaimi, Secretary-General for Educational and Technical Affairs, Ministry of Educaiton, Jordan
Dr Tayseer gave a presentation about ICT in education in Jordan Ministry of Education (MoE) schools. He began his talk by reflecting on learning development, education cycles, and how ICT can be a vehicle to bring value to the educational system; the use of technology and how it increases effectiveness of learning; how we it can to enhance the quality of learning; and how it enriches teaching.
Dr Tayseer also spoke about the problems in ICT may not strictly be technological – it may also be educational and/or contextual, and the we need to overcome these obstacles when implementing ICT in education.
Dr Tayseer also focused on the structures that need to be changed in order to secure success of ICT, mainly policies, planning of change, financial commitment, and he focused on infrastructure how it needs to be in place with the supporting elements for using ICT in education successfully.
Dr Tayseer finished his speech by giving he audience questions to consider:
1. how can we afford enough IT hardware, connectivity?
2. how to prove that new technological methods are better than current instructional approaches?
3. how to narrow the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ of ICT?
4. if we use technology what can we expect of a typical student performance?
(Click on the hyperlink to view presentations)
http://www.britishcouncil.org/jordan/jordan-ict.htm
Dr Baldev Singh, Head if e-Learning Strategies Unit, Imagine Education Limited, UK
ICT in Education – A Changing Story
Dr Baldev began by drawing the audience attention on how educators must work collaboratively between each other in different countries, how ICT allows collaborative learning, social interaction, and he gave a briefing about what’s is happening around the world in education and technology.
Baldev also spoke about ICT has changed what teachers have been doing in class, and the need for creative teachers to ride the new reform in education with ICT methods. He also emphasised that technology is an enabling force, and that ICT is moving from just becoming a communication technology, into a collaboration, connecting, and changing our cultures (flat world) and how connectivity and collaboration is changing it. Such examples from British Council – e-twinning and e-languages projects that are involving 20 thousand students from around the world.
Finally Baldev rapped his session with a short-video Did you know… giving us facts about how the world is changing the and effect of technology on societies, giving us us an idea about how our future will be and how it will change with the influence of technologies!
(Click on the hyperlink to view presentations)
http://www.britishcouncil.org/jordan/jordan-ict.htm
Follow on the blog to feed in your opinion about Baldev’s points to think about…
More to follow….
Sonia Kawas
British Council Jordan
