Results of the Spring Session of the Ongoing Workshop “Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Intercultural Education and Innovative Pedagogy"

On May 13, 2015, the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE, Moscow) hosted the last in 2014/15 session of the ongoing training workshop for heads and teachers of Moscow schools and colleges "Use of information and communication technologies in intercultural education and innovative pedagogy". The workshop was organized by Moscow Institute of Open Education (MIOO) and UNESCO IITE within the framework of the Agreement on cooperation between them and according to the state taskof the Moscow Department of Education.

The goals of the training are to introduce new forms of innovative pedagogy, to improve ICT and social competences of teachers, to create a development encouraging environment and to apply new pedagogical strategies for educating and training a new generation of children living in a digital society. A particular attention is paid to studying best practices of projects on the use of ICT to improve the quality of intercultural dialogue.

Within four months of 2015, Moscow educational institutions held six workshop sessions, where not only specialists of the UNESCO Chair “International Education and Integration of Migrant Children in School” of MIOO (Curator – Marina Krivenkaya) and UNESCO IITE (Officer-In-Charge – Alexander Khoroshilov), but also teachers of Moscow educational institutions presented their best practices. The UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network was the most active participant as well as the schools with an international profile and school that serve as a testing ground for technologies of language and socio-cultural adaptation of migrants and ethnic minorities.

During the training workshop, attendees learnt about new communication projects aimed to develop on-line discussions between teachers and students on various issues of intercultural dialogue, shape a barrier-free developing environment, and promote the exchange of experience in the use of new ICT in language learning, including Russian as a Foreign Language (RFL), teaching the Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics, humanity and other subjects to address interdisciplinary issues. A particular attention was paid to the presentations made by UNESCO IITE experts and partners. The presentations highlighted resources to improve teachers’ ICT competences in multicultural education. Participants also discussed the issues of better quality of media education in Russia and worldwide and heard the presentation on MIOO’s educational andinformational materials on methodology and technology of teaching in a multicultural environment, prevention of ethnic conflicts in the educational space of a Moscow school, including all the forms of social inclusion.

The final session of the workshop on the theme "The problem of an identity of a teacher and student in the network communication” included discussions of the following aspects:

• What are the criteria of universal communication between a teacher and a student in a virtual cultural and information environment?
• How to tackle the problem of "blurred" borders between class, out-of-class and leisure activities in the training network environment?
• How to overcome the educational difficulties in on-line communication with students when learning is lagging behind content update?
• How to combine a variety of mobile learning resources and the unity of applied educational technologies?

Participants highly appreciated the workshop and found it an effective form of improving ICT, social and overall professional competences of teachers. The most interesting and relevant topics were the promotion of the Russian language; a positive image of Russia abroad using ICT tools; and the coverage of WW2 events in the Internet for the purpose of students’ spiritual and moral development. Most of the participants expressed their willingness to attend the next training session in autumn 2015.

Sources:

• UNESCO Chair “International Education and Integration of Migrant Children in School” of MIOO (Tel. +7 (495) 739 55 94, fax +7 (499) 134 50 98, email: UNESCOchairMSC@yandex.ru)
• MIOO web-site

Photos are courtesy of the UNESCO Chair “International Education and Integration of Migrant Children in School” at MIOO