The IITE Newsletter (No. 3’2000 January-March) is devoted to the main events, activities and publications of IITE’s programme activities during July-December.
Koichiro Matsuura (Japan) was appointed by the Organization’s General Conference on November 12 1999 to serve a six-year term as Director-General of UNESCO. UNESCO Director-General during his official stay in the Russian Federation paid a visit to the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE). He met the specialists of the Institute and was familiarized with the conditions of their work. He also attended the Information Center of the Institute where the facilities granted by the Institute to its employees, partners and visitors were demonstrated to him. The IITE Director showed to the Director-General the training premises of the Institute and their equipment for the organization of the teaching/learning process. The Director-General familiarized himself with the IITE publications since its establishment in 1997 and mainly with those published during this year.
The workshop “Distance Education: Networking and Staff Development” was organized by IITE on the 24th of March 2000 at the Moscow Technical University of Communication and Informatics (MTUCI). There were about 100 participants at the workshop at the conference hall, and a vast audience in 157 places in 7 countries linked with the Moscow auditorium through ISDN channels. The international group of experts, 17 invited speakers and high-level policy-makers attended the workshop. This workshop is regarded as an example of practice of ICTs in distance learning.
In May 2000 IITE started a new series of workshops aimed at presentation of the latest hard- and software for education to teachers and school managers. The first IITE partner was Apple Computer Inc., which largely turns its activity to educational requests. During last two years, Apple Computer set up about 20 pilot schools in Europe. The workshop was held by IITE and organized in co-operation with the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, Moscow Department of Education and Apple Computer Inc. A special training of the participants on using the Apple hardware and software was organized. The classroom was equipped with the latest iMCs, the subjects of learning were Logo-technologies for primary education, computer-aided project activities, animation and video-technologies, HiperStudio as a multimedia environment for teachers and learners, etc. IITE plans to continue organization in its classrooms equipped with Apple and IBM computers of such workshops for teachers and other educators on the modern technologies, hard- and software used in education.
On July 21-22, 2000 the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) held in Moscow (Russian Federation) the research seminar “Teacher Training for Information Society”. During the seminar, participants discussed the main trends of development of the IITE educational/training activities and provided their proposals. Topics covered 4 main areas: elaboration of the IITE educational programme with a view of starting training of educational personnel at IITE; development of the “Elementary IСT Curriculum for Teacher Training”; preparation of the International Information Technologies (IT) Driving License (basing on the existing Computer Driving License); dissemination of the Document “UNESCO/IFIP Recommendations – Informatics in Primary Education”. As a result, the participants discovered the convergence between the IITE activities and those of different international organizations, namely EU programmes, OECD projects, and IFIP actions (as the last working conference “Bookmark of the School of the Future”). In addition, they showed their confidence that the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) influencing and changing the world and human being and giving rise to information society should be used as a productive tool for positive transformations in all areas.
“ICTs in Education: State-of-the-Art, Needs and Perspectives” is one of the main IITE projects. Besides other directions of this project, the extent and nature of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) usage in schools is surveyed. Within the framework of this direction, IITE collects information on the extent of ICT usage in education. The Institute has developed a system of indicators, measuring ICT usage in education.
These Newsletter materials may acquaint our readers more knowledge about events, activities and publications of the IITE Institute.