Technology giants discuss ICT
trends across classrooms and why the United Arabic Emirates (UAE) is leading. The complete
digitization of curricula and the integration of Microsoft's Kinect technology
are but a few emerging trends global technology giants expect to see manifest
in Middle East classrooms.
Information
and communication technology (ICT) in education was the basis for last week's
BETT Middle East exhibition in Abu Dhabi, where Gulf News caught up with
officials from Hewlett Packard (HP) and Microsoft to discuss forthcoming trends
in education.
"From
discussions I've had I think we will see an increase of the digitization of
course content with more curricula and books being stored in clouds", said
Antoine Barre, vice-president of HP Personal Systems Group for Middle East and
Africa. "A second trend I see is ICT will no longer be placed next to or
complementary to educational pedagogy but instead emerge within it as the two
merge together".
He said
course content will develop in a way that will allow for the integration of
multimedia technology in order to facilitate student understanding, an example
of which could be the ability for students to simulate complete chemistry
experiments on their computing devices.
"A
third trend I see is increased mobility as students will have their educational
data available to them everywhere through any type of device, laptop, tablet or
smartphone", he said. "I think this will enable students to be more
efficient in how they find answers to whatever questions they have in life … as
I think this goes beyond the scope of academic training".
Azza Al
Shinnawy, Public Sector Education Lead at Microsoft, said educational
institutions in the UAE, whether schools or universities, are indeed expanding
their scope of ICT into education. "The
[ICT] expansion is happening at various levels depending on the leeway of
freedoms, but the wave is coming at different strengths in both the public and
private education sectors", she said.
"Students
are probably the most ready and exposed as we talk ICT outside education, but
they are in the best position to absorb what comes up in the classroom". She added,
however, that although some teachers are ready to embrace the ICT wave, more
effort still needs to be exerted when it comes to teacher training. "Traditional
teaching methods need to converge with 21st century teaching and learning".
Both Microsoft and HP are working closely with the Abu Dhabi Education Council
with regard to teacher training and other initiatives.
(Source: Gulf News)
Further details