The e-Navigator smartphone application and website can search more than 3,000 items in the Joint University Programmes Admissions System, the Information Portal for Accredited Post-secondary Programmes and the Qualifications Register.

The e-Navigator provides students with more information on the study opportunities in Hong Kong. It helps to compare different programmes and figure out which ones are most relevant to them.

All information is based on publicised data on official websites, and students can access the sites to view detailed information on individual programmes via hyperlinks. Hyperlinks to various official web pages are created for users who wish to find out more details of individual programmes.

Users can also enter their expected or actual Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination results to search for suitable courses.

The e-Navigator was jointly developed by Education Bureau and Hong Kong Association of Careers Masters and Guidance Masters (HKACMGM).

(Source: FutureGov)
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Prime Minister Najib reveals his plans to make education smart.

The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Sri Mohammad Najib Tun Razak, says that Malaysia is ‘extremely likely’ to adopt cheap tablet computers such as those developed in India.

He says that the US$ 50 price tag for the mobile internet devices makes adoption much easier.

Najib reveals that the objective is to equip every student with a tablet computer; however at this juncture the government expects 10 students to share one tablet.

The government will make smart education plans to significantly improve smart children’s performance in school. “It is very important to increase the children’s market value from cradle all the way to their employment”, he says.

(Source: FutureGov)
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A group of primary schools in Kenya’s Pokot and Turkana tribes’ districts is improving its management and education quality by using computers and training teachers and administrators in the use of them. Ultimate goal is to significantly reduce the dropout rate of primary schools students.

In the first year, with the support of IICD and Edukans in the Connect4Change consortium and local partner NCCK Northrift, 4 schools will be targeted: 2 in West Pokot County and 2 in Turkana District. Both these areas are located in the Northern part of the Rift Valley Province. With the support of Edukans, community education facilitators train the School Management Committees on their roles and responsibilities in the management of their schools. These management committees are elected volunteers that have the mandate to approve or dismiss school’s decisions.

To this improved management training, IICD adds a digital component. An ICT officer was hired to support and train the schools and equipment was procured and distributed to the schools over the last few months. Coming June, staff will be trained in the use of basic ICT for  school administration (for instance the use of Excel) and will discuss what should be in the administration system. This will lead to a school administration system where teachers, headmasters and administrators can more easily store school results and monitor dropout rates. It is also easier for teachers and administrators to keep the enrollment lists up to date and to act swiftly if they see that someone is not attending class regularly. They can also see how not attending classes regularly has affected students’ grades.

Another advantage of a digitalised administration system is that it gets easier for School Management Committees in Pokot and Turkana districts to understand how money is spent and how this could be improved. In the future, an online component could also be added so financial and administrative data is also available (in a secure way) if the committee members or school staff are not at school and still would like to access the data. 

Also, the Pokot and Turkana are pastoralist people who are in a constant conflict over land and cattle. About a third of the the children in the IICD-supported schools in the region are orphan or miss at least one parent because of this conflict. There is a lot of distrust between the people, but schools indicate that they are interested in using computers to get closer. A proposed idea was for each school to build their own simple website to promote their school, which can also be used for Turkana and Pokot children to share their ideas and poetry. Though schools are quite far apart, at some point during the implementation phase, schools could also visit each other. Teachers and school management committees may be from different tribes, but their all have the same aim: improving education, and using ICT to do it.

(Source: IICD)
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The Information and Communications Technology Ministry yesterday inked a THB-1.02-billion (US$ 32.8 mil) tablet-computer supply contract with the Chinese manufacturer Shenzhen Scope for the purchase of 400,000 tablets for primary school students.

The first 2,000 devices will be delivered next week and the rest to be arrived within 60 days. The model is specifically produced for Thailand, according to ICT Minister Anudith Nakornthap.

Under the contract, Thailand will buy 400,000 devices at THB 2,400 (US$ 81) per unit and a contract for the remaining 530,000 units will be signed later with the same price after the first batch of Scope Tablets passes government quality control standards. The remaining units must be delivered within 90 days from May 10.

“The specs are higher than what was specified in the terms of reference. This model is being produced specifically for this project, not according to the general specs offered in the market,” he said and added that the ministry’s committee would thoroughly check the devices’ specification.

Thailand Post will deliver the devices, which will have software installed, to school nationwide in July.

The devices, Scope’s Scopad SP0712 model, come in four colours- red, blue, silver and gold and features a seven-inch touchscreen, a 1.2 GHz single core CPU, 1 GB RAM, a storage memory unit of 8GB, Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, and a GPS navigation system for monitoring and tracking purposes. The devices also come with two-year international standard warrantee.

The purchase is under One Tablet PC Per Child campaign promise, a series of populist policies promoted by the ruling government which pledged to provide the country’s 860,000 first graders with the tablet PC.

(Source: FutureGov)
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TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading big ideas through a series of conferences and a free video platform, has continued its expansion into education by launching a brand-new TED-Ed website with tools to help teachers use video in the classroom. The new platform allows educators to customize videos with follow-up questions and assignments, TED says—an initiative that could help power the “flipped learning” model.

This is the second phase of TED’s expansion into education, following the launch of a TED-Ed YouTube channel last month with several educational videos. (See “Free video lessons offered by leaders in innovation, thinking”.) With the new TED-Ed platform, “you can use, tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed, or create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube,” the organization says.

In other words, the site allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student, TED says.

Teachers also can browse TED content based on the subject they teach. Each video on the TED-Ed site is tagged to a curriculum subject and is accompanied by supplementary materials to help teachers and students use or understand the video lesson.

TED-Ed’s commitment to creating “lessons worth sharing” is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas, the organization says.

(Source: eschool News)
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"We and Technology", It is the special event that the National Institute for Research and Training in Telecommunications of the National Engineering University, INICTEL-UNI, held this April 26 as part of the celebrations for the International Telecommunications Day.

60 girls in public educational institutions of San Martin de Porres and Independencia (districts of Lima) will participate in workshops on electronics, robotics and CANSat (Bases to build a small satellite). Also, they visited the UNI-INICTEL facilities, laboratories and attend videoconferences with professional women in the ICT field residing abroad.

The attendees could talk to engineers in telecommunications and experience the site of women in this sector. Through this event they want to promote in Peru the use of Information and Communication Technologies - ICTs on women and girls, as a tool to integrate a gender equality perspective.

This year's theme "Women and girls in ICT" has been chosen by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations agency, to celebrate the "World Day of Telecommunications and Information Society" . Moreover, in this way promotes the 2010 designation of the ITU, in which every fourth Thursday of April an event takes place before the central celebrations of May 17.

(Source: INICTEL - Peru)
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Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development Co won a contract to supply 900,000 tablet computers for first graders in government schools in Thailand under “One Tablet PC Per Child” scheme.

The Cabinet will approve this proposal next week for buying the selection of Scope under the cost of THB 2,482 (US$81) a piece in which the first lots will be distributed to first graders this May to promote a knowledge based and network-connect society.

The Education Ministry also plans to seek approval to purchase higher specification tablets for nearly 700,000 units for Grade 7 students.

Information and Communication Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap said the project committee had chosen “the company that proposed the lowest price of $81, excluding transportation costs”.

The selection of Scope to supply tablets for the project was based not only on price, but also on other criteria, the minister said and added they included tablet specifications, insurance conditions, and delivery time among others.

The other companies in the bid had offered to supply the tablets at higher prices. TCL Cooperation offered $89, Haier Information Technology (Shenzhen) Co offered $105 and Huawei Technologies Co proposed $135.

A government committee set a starting price of 3,100 baht per unit plus 300 baht for uploading e-content. The cost excludes shipping costs to Thailand.

The decision was made after a committee visited the production lines of all four companies in China. Of the 900,000 tablets the government will purchase, 860,000 will be distributed to all of the country’s first-grade students and the rest will be earmarked for teachers and kept as reserve inventory.

(Source: FutureGov)
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More than 3000 public schools in the Philippines are now enjoying the learning and teaching benefits derived from the “desktop virtualization” technology applied in many e-Classrooms, as part of the Department of Education’s Computerization Programme.

The Computerization programme is an initiative by the Government that aims to have public elementary and secondary schools nationwide use Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in teaching, learning, school management, and governance.

This technology enables one host system to power six computers simultaneously. This is in contrast to an older practice where each desktop is connected to a Central Processing Unit (CPU).

By using desktop virtualization, schools can reduce the number of required CPUs in computer laboratories, thereby also reducing hardware costs by 50 per cent, 75 per cent on support costs, and 90 per cent on energy consumption expenses.

In addition, the said technology has the potential to improve student-to-computer ratios in many schools nationwide thereby also improving IT literacy of many students.

The same technology is also being adopted by many public schools in Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bhutan.

(Source: FutureGov)
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Thailand decided to buy up to 900,000 tablet computers from China via a government-to-government contract with payment made in cash and produce for its One Tablet per Child scheme.

A memorandum of understanding on the planned procurement was signed by the two countries, said Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister Anudith Nakorntha yesterday.

“We are negotiating the price and payment options with China”, he said. He also expected the negotiations to conclude this month.

He added that the negotiation would be based on mutual benefit. “The negotiation will be fair to both sides. China is a big manufacturer. It can offer tablets at a competitive price”.

Nakornthap revealed that the government had already approved a THB 1.9-billion budget (US$ 63.3 million) for the procurement of 560,000 tablets to the Ministry of Education, though the ICT ministry will handle the purchase.

However, he said that more funds would be needed because the Education Ministry plans to distribute the devices to all 860,000 first graders before the start of the upcoming semester in May. With some tablets to be given to children in other grades, the ministry will need up to 900,000 units of them.

(Source: FutureGov)
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In the department of Chocó, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, through the Ministry of ICT, delivers mobile classrooms with that seek to promote quality education, fostering development and reducing poverty through the use of ICT tools.

The mobile classrooms are a new concept of Computers for Schools, program from the ICT Ministry, that has given technology to about 7 million children in the public sector educational institutions in Colombia.

"We are promoting inclusion and educational equity throughout Colombia because these technological tools must serve all sectors of our country. The technology gives a child from Quibdó the same opportunities of any other child from another city", said Minister Molano Vega.

With the mobile classrooms, which are transported by all classrooms of educational center benefited, the students from different courses may have access to technology and digital content, which are the main support to improve the quality of education.

This was demonstrated by a recent study of CEDE from the University of Los Andes, which showed that education mediated by ICTs improve academic achievement and encourage students not to leave their classes, among other positive impacts.

The benefited schools from the new mobile classrooms in Chocó are the Educational Institute Antonio Ricaurte, which has over 70 students enrolled, and the Educational Institution Industrial Carrasquilla, where there is nearly 900 children.

"We hope make the best use of this equipments that come to us because these are low-income schools and these tools opens up new opportunities", said the rector of the school Carrasquilla, Lucia Diaz Torres. Meanwhile, the president of the Institution Antonio Ricaurte, Antonio Ledesma said that access to technology makes the children from Chocó citizens of the world.

(Source: MINTIC - Colombia)

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Digital Learning Day is a nationwide celebration of innovative teaching and learning through digital media and technology that engages students and provides them with a rich, personalized educational experience. On Digital Learning Day, a majority of states, hundreds of school districts, thousands of teachers, and nearly 2 million students will encourage the innovative use of technology by trying something new, showcasing success, kicking off project-based learning, or focusing on how digital tools can help improve student outcomes.

Digital learning is any instructional practice that is effectively using technology to strengthen the student learning experience. Digital learning encompasses a wide spectrum of tools and practices, including using online and formative assessment, increasing focus and quality of teaching resources and time, online content and courses, applications of technology in the classroom and school building, adaptive software for students with special needs, learning platforms, participating in professional communities of practice, providing access to high-level and challenging content and instruction, and many other advancements technology provides to teaching and learning. In particular, blended learning is any time a student learns, at least in part, at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.

On February 1, 2012, the Alliance for Excellent Education hosted an in-depth webcast featuring moderated discussion of video footage of innovation in action looking at leadership, instruction, innovation, every subject area, and effective teaching. 

Then the Alliance hosted a live National Town Hall featuring FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a special joint appearance. The event profiled great teachers that effectively use technology to deliver instruction, and focus on education innovation projects happening across the country.

(Source: Digitallearningday)
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Riau provincial government in central Sumatra has initiated a programme to introduce IT to children across its primary schools. It is an extension of a project already in place in other parts of Indonesia since 2008.

The “KidSmart” project, in collaboration with IBM, aims to teach children essential IT skills through specialized software and custom-designed terminals. In total, 250 primary schools in Indonesia are participating in the programme.

KidSmart also involves training the teachers in using the software and hardware tools, and 300 teachers across Indonesia have been trained so far.

The programme was inaugurated in Riau province at the city of Pekanbaru on the 7th of December, with the Governor of Riau HM Rusli Zainal, Riau Police Chief, Mayor of Pekanbaru Syamsurizal, and President-Director of IBM Indonesia, Suryo Suwignjo, in presence.

“For teachers, mastering the technology is extremely important, so that they can operate it and implement it into their daily lives, and also serve as examples for their students”, said Governor Zainal, as Mayor Syamsurizal inaugurated the cyber-technology training centre for teachers.

The teachers are provided basic knowledge about the internet, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations techniques, and participate in a short workshop on crime prevention.

(Source: FutureGov)
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Colombia is a country very active on the Internet and has grown markedly in connectivity. The ICT Ministry will continue working with determination to close the poverty gap and contribute to development.The Minister of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), Diego Molano Vega presented the balance of 2011 and announced the great challenges of the next year.

 Among the achievements of the ICT Ministry in 2011 are:

- The increase in Internet connections through major infrastructure. In 2009 there were 2.2 million connections, in December 2010, 3.1 million, and this year totaled 4.6 million.

 - Colombia is Latin America's leading connectivity. There are 325 municipalities connected with fiber optics, and the goal is that by 2014 all municipalities are connected.

 - Was awarded the contract to connect 2,800 educational institutions in remote and rural areas, four times faster and half price.

 - Ensured the performance of 1,300 Community Access Centres to the Internet in remote areas of the country.

 - 115,000 Colombian homes, from the strata 1 and 2, were subsidized from 77 municipalities to have access to the Internet. Users pay a maximum fee of 20,000 colombian pesos (aprox. US$ 10.4) per month.

 Computers for Schools:

- Until December 19th, were given 81 830 computers.

- 3564 places have seen a computer for first time, and the opening of 230 libraries and houses of culture.

- 66 400 Portable were purchased.

- Recruitment of universities through competitive bidding, $ 10 billion (they carry the PC, give initial train, install the equipment).

- Acquisition of 7,400 classrooms and 3,000 mobile video beam.

 What comes in 2012?

-  More technology, more progress

- Infrastructure: more competition in cellular telephony.

- New system user protection.

- Will open new job opportunities.

- Digital Experience Points: they reach about 800 municipalities distant, so that people learn to use technology.

- Digital Natives. The goal is to provide computers with Internet connectivity to all public schools in the country, accompanied by an aggressive strategy of training for teachers.

(Source: MINTIC - Colombia)

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With mobile telephone access reaching over five billion of the world’s population, the United Nations educational agency today announced the launch of an initiative to harness the technology and bring mobile phone use into the classroom.

In a statement issued in Paris, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the opening of a global summit and symposium gathering experts from around the world to discuss the impact of the mobile telephone on education and learning.

Dubbed Mobile Learning Week, and organized in partnership with the conglomerate Nokia, the meeting has brought together close to 200 policy-makers, educators, academics and researchers from across the globe in an effort to provide insight on how mobile telephones can support teachers and students alike.

Initiatives promoting mobile learning have already been spearheaded across a wide range of countries – including Mozambique, Pakistan, South Africa, Niger, Kenya, and Mongolia – where policies have already provided access to distance education in far-flung communities and improved literacy among girls and women.

According to recent data, 90 per cent of the world’s population now has access to mobile networks, prompting growing enthusiasm for the potential of mobile devices to improve education access and quality.

(Source: UN News Center)
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ICT ministry awarded tenders to connect more than 6,800 institutions for public education - Colombia

The award of the tender for Connectivity Public Institutions, project led by “Compartel Program”, was awarded to firms Telebucaramanga, Unión Temporal Aprende Digital, Unión Temporal Internet Para Todos, Unión Temporal Colombia Digital, Media Commerce Partners, Unión Temporal Gilat Fontic y BT Latam Colombia S.A., to provide connectivity to a 6852 total rural public schools in the country. The project has an investment by the Ministry of $ 126,298 million.

After reviewing the proposals made by the proponents, the grade was given to institutions which offer connecting more and faster. This fact allowed institutions to increase the number of schools beneficiaries of 6178, corresponding to the target set in the tender, up to 6852 schools with the outcome of the tender.

Thus, the ICT Ministry awarded the contract to firms that offered the best financial offers and connectivity, in addition to the requirements of the specification process.

With this initiative the ICT Ministry is supporting the Ministry of National Education in its efforts to generate new models of education in schools in remote areas with difficult access.

"With this result more than 6,800 rural schools in the country will have access to the Internet twice to four times the speed with which they had previously. Thus, more than 1'130,000 children and young people have the same opportunities to use technology in their schools than those who live in big cities", said Diego Vega Molano, ICT Minister.

Since 2004, the Compartel program advances connectivity projects that have benefited around 18,000 public institutions, most of these schools. With the current tender the connectivity conditions are improved to the beneficiary institutions, most of them located in rural areas of Colombia.

(Source: Mintic – Colombia)
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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)

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10,000 young people invited to join the global debate at ITU Telecom World 2011 and imagine the innovations that could make a real difference.

ITU is calling on schoolchildren across the world to join a global metaconference at ITU Telecom World 2011 (24-27 October, Geneva, Switzerland) on how technology can be harnessed to solve socio-economic problems and accelerate progress toward the Millennium Development Goals.

Students and teachers are encouraged to sign up their schools or classes and send in their ideas, prototypes and innovations in areas where technology could be harnessed to:

• alleviate poverty and hunger

• improve education

• address gender inequality

• make sure everyone has access to health care

• protect our environment

• improve the lives of disabled people

• close the gap between the developed and developing world

Students are asked to consider burning questions such as how can we close the gap between rich and poor? How can we make disabled people’s lives easier? Or how can we improve education for all? Ideas and prototypes will be shown to the more than 5,000 influential delegates expected to attend the event, including Heads of State/Heads of Government, industry CEOs, technology gurus, digital innovators and delegations from students’ home countries.

As well as the chance to influence key ICT decision makers, taking part in the metaconference can provide teachers and students with a valuable real-world context in core curriculum areas such as history, geography and mathematics.

Ideas will also form a key part of the ITU Telecom World 2011 Manifesto for a Connected World, a collaborative vision that will be developed out of the event focused on how connected technologies can make citizens happier, healthier, safer and smarter.

Those unable to attend in person will be able to follow the action as it unfolds from wherever they are in the world via live video streams. They will also be encouraged to network and share ideas beforehand, participate remotely in workshops and feed into key discussions as they take place.

“Children are our future and deserve the opportunity to have their voices heard. We’re delighted that the power of technology will enable children everywhere to join the discussion and share ideas and innovations alongside global leaders”, said Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General.

(Source: ITU Newsroom)
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The district of Los Olivos, in the north of Lima, will become the first "digital city" in Peru, and the second largest of its kind in South America after Curitiba Brazil, with the launch of the first classroom of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

A spokesman for the local mayor told EFE that the ICT classroom, which is located in Peru, in Kawachi School, was opened last week and "marks a new era for Los Olivos district because it is the beginning of its conversion into a digital city ".

The classroom has been implemented with twenty computers and a video projector, all connected to an interactive whiteboard.

For the full implementation of this project, they have 90 km of Optical Fiber, with the aim of connecting to 60,000 homes in Los Olivos with schools, police stations, municipal offices, medical centers and hospitals.

It also provides access to the database of the district, "without interference, high quality and speed in a sort of gigantic Intranet".

The ICT classroom mark the beginning of the installation of 33 points of interconnection, through Fiber Optics, with the database located in a resort town prepared for the technological research, job training and entrepreneurship.

It is planned that the complex will be the centerpiece of the "Telematic District Network ", a large data network capacity with computer servers, similar to financial and telephone companies.

Various institutions in Los Olivos are going to connect to the Network gradually, which will let exchange information and share a number of resources, in addition to providing high quality services to its users", said the spokesman of EFE.

(Source: RPP News)
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Under the guidelines in the document Conpes 3670 from 2010 and the National Development Plan 2010 - 2014, and in the developing of the strategies of "Plan Vive Digital", the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies together with the Ministry of Education, have defined a joint strategy where schools in the country will benefit with connectivity, under different initiatives and with the support of various organizations.

In this regard, as part of the ICT Ministry's commitment to support the connectivity primarily in the education sector, the “Compartel” Program has assumed the responsibility to connect a significant number of institutions and as a result they published the draft of specifications for the Project Internet connectivity of Public Institutions, which seeks to ensure connectivity service in those public institutions that demand for support and have not been connected through other strategies.

This project is set up as a transition until the definition of the new scheme which will host the program “Compartel 2012”, in coordination with other sectors for the development of social telecommunication projects to suit the needs of the country, the new technological developments and the growing coverage of telecommunications networks.

To view the documents that make up the draft specification for the Internet Connectivity Project for Public Institutions, click here.

(Source: MINTIC – Colombia)

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Remote parts of Kenya have trouble attracting professional teachers. Some schools are using computers to compensate for the lack of human instructors. Despite the obstacles digital learning brings with it, the schools are pleased with the results.

Kenya’s digital learning experiment is expanding, with both the government and private sector championing its adoption. Digital learning – academic instruction using a computer – is often considered an advantage when distance is an obstacle to education. Schools in the drought-ravaged North Eastern Province are now deploying computers to cope not with distance, but an acute shortage of teachers.

Schools in northeastern Kenya often have trouble attracting teachers because of the harsh living conditions, poor infrastructure and constant attacks from Ethiopian militia groups. Most schools in the region, which is the least-developed part of Kenya, record dismal academic performances and are estimated to have a paltry literacy rate of 8.5 percent.

Given the lack of teachers, high illiteracy and poverty levels in this region, advocates of digital learning say the computers are filling a crucial educational gap. Take, for instance, Sakaba High School in Mandera West District, which has a teacher shortage. Sakaba’s principal, Shabure Haji, believes digital learning is a boon for his students.

“With computers, students are able to use the Kenya Institute of Education digital content”, said Haji. “Students are therefore able to learn and access vital information even in the absence of a teacher”. The school is currently awaiting the arrival of 11 computers the government is giving it as part of an economic stimulus plan. Until then, Sakaba’s 300 students have to scramble for time on the existing 22 computers.

Thousands of miles away, computers are helping educate the students at Turkana Girls Secondary School, located in the Turkana region which has been severely affected by drought. The principal of Turkana, Sister Florence Nabwire, agrees that computers hold the key to addressing the shortage of teachers.

(Source: AudienceScapes)

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Coinciding with the celebration of Teacher's Day, Telefónica Foundation through its portal “Educared” provides some recommendations for teachers to use Internet tools to make their teaching more didactic and improve the student performance.

It is useful and simple tips that have been transmitted to more than 1,500 teachers from public and private schools nationwide, using the skills developed and with the support of the Ministry of Education.

Using blogs, email, interactive online resources, social networks and discussion forums between students are part of the recommendations offered by this portal, so that teachers do not simply teach within the walls of a classroom.

Create learning experiences: Use visual diagrams, whiteboards, online and video tutorials to prepare homework and upload to YouTube, in order that students can see them anytime, anywhere.

Some specific recommendations for teachers are:

-       Teach using the search engines: Not all Internet content is relevant and safe for students. In that sense it is important that teachers be a guide for students to succeed in a particular research topic through the use of Internet.

-       Apply digital media: It is important that teachers take advantage of the audiovisual production capacity with their students, as young people recorded, edited and uploaded to YouTube everyday life activities.

-       Use social networking: Participate in social settings (Facebook or Twitter,) so education allows the exchange of information and generation of educational projects with other groups who share the same interests.

-       Use e-mail with your students: It is essential that they can learn to communicate by email and recognize the difference between formal and informal language, it will be useful also for their future professional life.

-       Post a blog with the students: In addition to using this resource as a means to disseminate information, it is also possible that the students themselves become authors of a blog.

-    Build your own network of learning: Teachers can identify spaces online or networks that are generated by the exchange of knowledge to train and be constantly updated.

(Source: RPP News)
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Social networks, blogs and discussion forums are some strategies that teachers can take to improve education, within and outside the classroom, suggested experts in digital tools for education.

Telefonica Foundation specialists noted that participation in social networks like Facebook or Twitter, and email use, can help teachers to exchange information with students and parents outside of school hours. "They can also create educational projects with others colleagues who share common interests with these tools", they said on the eve of Teacher's Day to be held on July 6th.

They noted that blogs, more than allow the exchange of information, this could be used to encourage students to become authors of Internet content and improve their writing and spelling. "It is important that teachers adapt their technology resources to enhance the pedagogical needs of teaching and learning process", they said.

Another digital tool that improves learning is the Youtube video platform, where teachers can share audiovisual materials with their students, and who may see them as often as they consider convenient, at anytime, anywhere.

Audiovisual creativity applied to the field of education is very important to encourage research, teamwork, decision making, and the ability to expose, among other skills among students that are increasingly become more familiar with recording and editing videos.

While these tools provide many benefits in education, experts stressed the importance of accompanying students by their teachers in their use, especially in the case of browsers. "Not all browsers are relevant and safe. It is important that teachers be a guide for students to succeed in researching a topic on the Internet", they added.

(Source: Andina News Agency)

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 The Minister Errazuriz said "it will be a real transformation, a connectivity revolution".

With a commitment to have all educational establishments connected to broadband in March 2012, the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Pedro Pablo Errazuriz, with his pair of Education, Joaquin Lavin, visited the School República of Paraguay in Recoleta, where they shared with students and where they have seen the areas with some technological advances.
 
The Minister Errazuriz stressed the objective of this initiative: "We want everyone in Chile have these same tools and time to reach the knowledge revolution. This is a true transformation, a connectivity revolution". "I opened the bidding that will allow us to fulfill this presidential commitment. Reaching this year with high-quality broadband to 90% of students in the country and complete 100% by 2012", said Errazuriz.

Minister Lavin said that "for the Ministry of Education this is very important because it means that in March 2012 all schools in Chile will have broadband internet. And when we say all, is all, even some school of the rural or more remote areas with satellite connection”. The Education Minister noted the work that they have being done through links, asserting that "Chile is reaching a level of 10 children per computer. There are 3 and a half million students and 350 thousand computers in schools. In all, notebooks, netbook, and a standard of 10 children per computer for a computer is quite reasonable compared with other countries".

Currently, 5,600 schools have some connection to the Internet but without quality guaranteed, through this program will raise the standards of these schools, also the schools without connectivity, will be connected, and reaching a universe of more than 11,600 establishments.

For the implementation of this project will be used in 2011 about $ 7 billion and a similar public investment figure in 2012, through the Global Telecommunication Development. 
"Additionally, we will have for the first time the online system monitoring and control to ensure full compliance with the quality of broadband service contract, which will connect all schools. So we can ensure that resources invested by the State and the objectives of this initiative are effectively met", concluded the Minister Errazuriz.

(Source: Subtel - Chile)

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This initiative builds on the base that everything depends increasingly on access to information and communication technologies.

Digital inclusion could be inserted in the list of social rights enshrined in the Constitution. The poor Internet access that low-income residents in Brazil have led to members of the Senate to face this reality through a proposed constitutional amendment pending in front of the Committee on Constitution, Citizenship and Justice.

Despite advances in telecommunications networks, in 2008 Brazil ranked 69th position among 193 countries with access to the Internet according the information of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This put Brazil far from countries like Australia, Holland, Sweden and Iceland, where they connect from 70% to 90% of the population world wide web.

While Brazil, with only 17.2% of its population that is inserted into the virtual world, also lost position in relation to neighboring Argentina (17.8%), Uruguay (20.6%) and Chile (28, 9%).

This situation was also supported by the study "Pencil, Eraser & Keyboard ", conducted by the researcher Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz. The survey found that between 10% poorest, only 0.6% had a computer with Internet access, a rate that reached 56.3% among the richest 10%. Deep inequalities are also in the school. It shows, for example, that there is a considerable distance in digital inclusion among public school students (37.3%) and private schools (83.6%).

Senator Rodrigo Rollemberg (PSB-DF), which is who is taking this initiative, argues that this situation could put on risk the future of the country to reduce educational opportunities, social and professional of Brazilian, victims of this digital gap. "The enjoyment of many rights of citizenship, such as information, education, decent work and wages, increasingly dependent on the access to new information and communication technologies. Hence the need for the inclusion of such access as a constitutional right", said Rollemberg.

(Source: Casetel - Venezuela)
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"After the program will be fully materialized, Ecuador will be not the same, because they take into account the sites that are distant from urban centers or that for decades have been isolated, and will be connected each other through Internet", said the Minister of Telecommunication and Information Society, Jaime Guerrero Ruiz, by signing the contract for about US$ 13.5 million with the company Telconet.

The signing of the Contract was attended by the Minister of Telecommunication and Information Society (Jaime Guerrero Ruiz), the Vice Minister of Telecommunications (Mr. Javier Veliz), the Vice Coordinator of Strategic Sectors (Dr. Rafael Poveda), the General Manager of the company Telconet (Mr. Marion Tomislav Topic Granados), and National Secretary of Science and Technology (Dr. Magdalena Lopez).

The resources of this contract come from the private operator’s contributions to the Development Fund for Telecommunications (FODETEL). "This is all part of an ambitious plan in which we want people, who have never had the opportunity to access services, forming part of what we call the Technological Revolution or the elimination of digital illiteracy": said the Minister Guerrero while the contract was awarded to the company Telconet through a public competition which began on last December, at the website of National Institute of Public Procurement, INCOP.

The aim is to install and provide the Internet access services, provide telephone technical support and training in the use of the service to 947 and 26 public schools in social development agencies in the following provinces: Bolivar (30), Cañar (27), Chimborazo (31), Cotopaxi ( 72), El Oro (93), Emeraldas (16), Guayas (102), Imbabura (45), Loja (100), Los Rios (82), Manabi (103), Morona Santiago (40), Napo (37), Pastaza (12), Pichincha (11), Santa Elena (86), Santo Domingo (11), Zamora Chinchipe (19), Tungurahua (48), Azuay (2), Orellana (5)and Sucumbíos (1), giving a total of 973 places. It is important to mention that all selected sites are rural and parishes, precincts, and marginal urban communities across the country.

This award is in addition to other contracts already in the place that provide the necessary equipment to schools, which include computers, projectors and digital whiteboards, as well as training teachers in the use of these technological tools that allow students to enter the world of knowledge.

Source: Mintel
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By signing the memorandum of understanding between the ICT Ministry, the Government of Tolima, the mayor of Ibague and the University of Tolima, was implemented in this region, the strategy "Digital Tolima", which aims to increase the use and Internet access in this department. The agreement was signed on Sunday, when the ICT Minister, Diego Molano Vega, sponsor of this department in the rainy season, visited several places of Tolima.

This region is the first to realize this type of agreement, during the administration of the Minister Molano Vega, and seeks to bring the information superhighway for more municipalities and generate profits through the use of Internet.

In his speech, the Minister mentioned the importance of ICT literacy and digital delivery of computer equipment in the country through the ICT Ministry's social program, "Computers for Schools". This strategy is intended that 50 percent of the teachers in the country will be certified digitally this year. As for the delivery of equipment for schools, the Minister Molano said, previously they only reused the equipments, whereas now the Ministry also claims that for each computer donated by the ICT Ministry, other public bodies also will provide more equipments to the program.

The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development (Beatriz Uribe), and the Governor of Tolima, Oscar Barreto Quiroga and 41 mayors of the municipalities in the department. In what has to do with humanitarian aid and attention to secondary roads affected by the cold wave in the Tolima, the Government announced the delivery of 10 billion dollars to recover them.

According to the Government of Tolima, in this department 1,433 urban and 1,632 rural households were affected by the winter and 1,196 houses are in high risk areas.  The municipalities Ambalema, Amaranth, Flanders, Honda, San Luis, Rioblanco and Ortega are the most affected.

(Source: MINTIC - Colombia)
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Vietnamese Viettel Group won the bid for the concession to provide telecommunications services in C-band, allowing them to be the fourth mobile operator in our country (Perú).

Viettel offered to provide free, for 10 years, access to broadband internet to 4,045 public schools and make further investments of US$ 1.3 million.  The winner must attend the schools, as much as it is possible – at least 1,350 – plus the investment mentioned.

Viettel outbid Americatel (which offered 2,011 schools and US$ 1.3 million) and Winner Systems  (which offered 1,601 schools and US$ 1.3 million). Hits Telecom Holding Company did not participate.

The Minister of Transport and Communications, Enrique Cornejo, estimated that the supply of Viettel Group will make an investment of about US$ 27 million (4,045 schools to serve plus the US$ 1.3 million). On other hand, Cornejo said that in June they will launch the contest for the right to use the band for the 4G technology.

Nguyen Duc Quang, general director of Viettel Group, said he still had no estimate of the number of phones that will be attending. "First we think of the Internet for schools. Maybe in 2012 we start with cell phones. This year we will make the Internet", he said.

Viettel Group will finance its investments in Peru with its own resources, this said its general manager. Jesus Guillen, project manager of "Proinversión"  Telecommunications, said that Viettel has 36 million subscribers in Vietnam. Viettel Group operates in Cambodia, Haiti and recently won a concession in Mozambique.

(Source: El Comercio News paper)
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Government authorized the acquisition of 500,000 new computers and installs the “Canaima” computer assembly factory in Venezuela at the end of the first half of 2011.

This Sunday, the President of the Republic, Hugo Chávez Frías, authorized the acquisition of 500,000 new laptops “Canaima” from the Government of Portugal, to begin delivery to students attending classes at the third grade.

The computers will be awarded from next September, said the president "We'll have millions and millions of computers”, said Chavez, commenting that install the “Canaima” computer assembly factory in Venezuela at the end of the first half of 2011.

President Chávez said that they hope to conclude this year and children whom are attending classes at the second grade in public schools will have in their hands their computer to start in September the delivery to the next grade.

He explained that it is not giving computers as a gift, but to equip children to get better tools and to optimize their learning. Touring the schools, Chavez said that 875,000 “Canaima” computers have been already imported and has delivered more than half, while the rest is under system programming.

(Source: CANTV - Venezuela)
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In the Province of Buenos Aires (Argentina), like in other countries in the region, we face the social impact produced by information and communication technology. This impact results in differences in the development opportunities of the population, causing a "digital gap" between those with and without access to information and communication technologies.

It is for this reason that the government, in the Bicentennial year, has inaugurated the digital cities, to effectively provide equal opportunities to all its inhabitants to have a fully integrated province.

In this framework, through the "Digital Province Plan Municipality by Municipality" will provide Social Internet services free and safe, providing in a first step, Social WiFi coverage to the main square of the municipality, thus regaining the public space as a place of family gatherings and neighborhood, and a Center for Digital Inclusion. Then, through the inclusion of remote sites are connected other areas of social concern such as schools, health centers, libraries, cultural centers and sports facilities among others.

The Social WiFi will have different navigation options according to the user's age and the purpose of use. These options are:
• Free Navigation with access to all pages
• Site Navigation government (national, provincial and municipal)
• Navigation for children, which only allow the access to educational sites and games. This navigation option will be accompanied by instructions for parents to encourage responsible Internet use.
 
All of these forms will have restricted access to pornography, incitement to violence and discrimination. The illumination of the municipalities will be developed in stages, starting with the less connected localities to the most connected, thus achieving equal opportunities for all inhabitants of the province of Buenos Aires.

In a first stage, inaugurated in late September, there will be the "Digital Foundation" of 4 cities in the center of the province: in the pilot will have the service the main square of the Club Ciudad Bolivar and Bolivar, space that will open the first Centre for Digital Inclusion, the main square of General Alvear, the Cultural Center in San Jose Olavarria and the main square in Tapalqué.

In a second stage, scheduled to open in late December, will be held the "Digital Foundation" of 17 Municipalities, Social WiFi coming to 20 cities where WiFi Social "illuminates" the main square and open a Centre Digital Inclusion is located in an enclosed place chosen by the Municipality.

Finally, a third stage to develop during the course of 2011, once put in technical terms the new provincial network, there will be the "Digital Foundation" of the remaining municipalities, Social WiFi coming with all the municipalities of Buenos Aires Province, providing the service a public space and opened a Center for Digital Inclusion in each of them.

(Source: Province of Buenos Aires)
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The benefited students belongs to rural areas and low income families across the country.Education in Peru is progressing, and does so with the program "One Laptop per Child” (OLPC) that attempt to democratize the use of the internet with the delivery of a computer to poor children.

It is two years since the OLPC started this ambitious project, which has benefited over 871,000 children from 9,864 schools in the country. Now, all of them study hand in hand with the information and communication.

According to the general director of Educational Technology of the Ministry of Education, Oscar Becerra, "the daily use of this important technological tool has made that children significantly improved their reading comprehension and logical-mathematical work".

The results were obtained by the Ministry of Education (Minedu), which implemented tests of motivation and reading comprehension to students of primary schools in rural areas favored with "One Laptop per Child program", which will help more students in the next year.

(Source: Educación en red)

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With this project of education, the Dominican Telecommunications Institute (Indotel) next to the Orange Foundation, and Dynamic Stimulation and Digital Literacy (EDAD) have dual purpose: to prevent cognitive decline in older persons and promote the use of technology systems for social integration.

The convention was attended by the Chairman of the Board of Indotel, Dr. David Perez Taveras; Indotel executive director, Dr. Joelle Exarhakos, Mr. Andrés Ferreira and Manuel Gimeno from the Orange Foundation, which discussed the possibility of implement this project without cost in the digital classrooms that Indotel has created.

Older people form a group that usually live outside of the Information Society, despite constituting an increasingly important part of our population and have much free time at home, they can take advantage of ICT access to information, administrative management or shop online from home, contact with other seniors or their family members and enrich their leisure activities. In addition, the use of computer requires a proactive that can stimulate the cognitive abilities of older people but also by helping to keep the mind in the exercise.

To meet these needs, researchers of the Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), with the support of the Orange Foundation, has developed this draft of Stimulation Dynamics and Digital Literacy ( EDAD) and in alliance with Indotel to use the Computer Training Center as a platform to teach these courses in the 32 provinces of the country, encouraging the use of technology systems for the social integration and prevent cognitive decline in older people.

What is the Project “EDAD”?
EDAD Project (Stimulation Dynamic and Digital Literacy) is defined as a free course, available through the Internet, for older people to meet and learn to use the computer with a dual purpose: to prevent cognitive decline and promote social integration through the use of technology systems. The “EDAD” Project is based on the design of a specific methodology adapted to the needs of the elderly, offering a training program that allows easy access to the world of technology and, in turn, strengthens their mental functions as memory, thinking or solving problems.

(Source: Indotel - Dominican Republic)
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The Minister of Telecommunication and Information Society (Jaime Guerrero Ruiz) signed an agreement with the Director of the School Cariamanga Portoviejo, Canton Province of Loja (Mr. Darwin Torres Jiménez), in order to promote development of Information Society and the Good Life in Ecuador, through the technological and computer equipment in that school.

The Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Society (Mintel), in order to contribute to the organization, execution and implementation of social projects, gave loan, loan application to Portoviejo School: 17 computers with their respective voltage regulators, 17 mouse pads, and a printer, a digital whiteboard and a projector that will be used to promote the efficient use of ICT, benefiting 360 students and 17 teachers of the School Portoviejo.

In the event of delivery, Mr. Jaime Guerrero highlighted how crucial it is for the government to build links that unite hearts and convey knowledge to nurture the intellect of children and young people, present and future of Ecuador, to dream something workable, stating that a child or a neglected child of cantons, as Cariamanga, may be tomorrow, who directs the destiny of the country or holding office as Minister of Telecommunications, which gives you the opportunity to take decisions on behalf of the entire society equally and fairly.

For its part, the Director of the School Portoviejo, Mr. Darwin Torres, said, "In school we are celebrating today Portoviejo, we are ahead of Christmas. We now have a modern, globalized education. Today more than ever we will take every opportunity of development and evolution through access to new technologies". As a token of appreciation Mr. Torres presented plaques of appreciation to the President of the Republic, the Minister of Telecommunications and the Regional Manager of the CNT in Loja, Mr. Manuel Benavidez.

Lady Sarango, Portoviejo flagship school, thanked the President of the Republic, Econ. Rafael Correa, and telecommunications minister, Jaime Guerrero, by providing them with equipment and satellite internet. "This technology will serve as support to interact, learn about different realities and project as student development and progress of our peoples," he said.

(Source: Mintel - Ecuador)
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Until the end of this year, the portfolio of Education will implement the first phase of the pilot "My Compu" in order to provide portable computers (laptops) to 3,200 children and 172 teachers from 17 educational institutions in Cuenca, small chuchs of Monay, Totoracocha, Yanuncay and Cañaribamba, and 622 students and 26 teachers from six schools in La Libertad (Santa Elena), as part of its Integrated Technology System for School and Community (SITEC).

In the Government office of Cuenca was signed an agreement with the Municipality of that city for the pilot program. The service includes equipment, awareness, training and assessment, with the input of the municipality on connectivity and logistics.

(Source: Diario El Telégrafo)
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A team of teachers from schools of Neuquén  in Villa La Angostura was one of the winners of American Award for Innovative Education in the Classroom through ICT, which recognizes those educational ventures that successfully incorporated new technologies in the classroom. They were also awarded an initiative of Colombia and one from Mexico.

The event, organized by the Iberoamerican Association of Research Centers and Telecommunication Enterprises (AHCIET), highlighted the work of Gabriela Chaparro, from the school 104 School Corazón de los Lagos, and Alejandra Lopez and Gustavo Perea from the Special School number 18, who presented the project "Para Comunicarnos", which includes the use of computers as an auxiliary resource to facilitate the learning of students with disabilities.

Both institutions will receive 35 netbooks Intel Classmate, two more than expected, which will be split and used according to their specific needs. Also, Ms. Chaparro said that the notebooks will be installed in their computer room, where about 500 children per year, from first to seventh grade, spend their time there.

(Source:CanalAR)
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From this year, 98.500 people in 225 isolated rural villages from Junín, get access to public telephone services, residential and / or the Internet via broadband project for isolated locations (BAS) today reported Álvaro Badiola, general manager of Telefonica Peru. "In Junin, the BAS project, implemented by Telefónica and for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications with the funding from the Telecommunications Investment Fund (FITEL), has successfully integrated eight percent of the population of this region to the national telecommunications network", he explained.

Among the beneficiaries are the areas: Chanchamayo, Perené, Yanacancha, Andamarca, Cochas, Mariscal Castilla, Huancayo, Huasicancha, Pucará, Acolla, Monobamba, Sincos, Carhuamayo, Ulcumayo, Mazamari, Pampa Hermosa, Río Negro y Tambo, Satipo, Acobamba, Huaricolca, Huasahuasi, La Unión, Tarma, La Oroya and Marcapomacocha.

Badiola visited Huancayo to head the board of directors of Telefonica del Peru, which met in this city in order to analyze the evolution and prospects of the telecommunications sector in Junín, where Telefonica has more than 890 thousand customers of fixed telephony, mobile telephony , Internet and Cable TV.
"The positive development of telecommunications in Junín responds to the good performance of the economy and businesses in the region," he said.
      
Finally, he said that the Program "Proniño", which fights against child labor through quality education, in Junín is benefiting almost to 2,000 children and adolescents in six educational institutions of Huancayo, Chilca and San Agustin de Cajas.

(Source: Andina - Agencia de Noticias)
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The Government of New Zealand will look into possible mobile-learning initiatives to connect rural schools, following its announcement to subsidise the costs of ultra fast broadband.“The Ministry of Education is currently looking at how to harness the potential of digital devices that nearly all students have already – their mobile phones,” Colin McGregor, Ministry of Education, group manager of curriculum teaching and learning design, told FutureGov Asia Pacific.

“An ‘m-learning’ pilot has already been successfully implemented by Onehunga High School. The Ministry is currently supporting a second project at Howick College in partnership with Waikato University and Vodafone.”

The government has identified broadband as a significant driver for e-learning and equity in education and has committed to providing 97 per cent of schools with access to speeds of 100Mbps or more via the national fibre rollout. The remaining 3 per cent in areas too remote for optic fibre currently receives 10Mbps via satellite or wireless technologies.

The ministry has been using the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), which provides mainly rural students with access to online courses. In 2010, more than 2000 New Zealand students took part in these virtual classes over the VLN.

Other initiatives include the Ministry of Education’s Laptops for Teachers and Principals scheme, which subsidises the leases on laptops for permanent, full-time or part-time teachers at state and integrated schools. The Ministry has about two thirds of the lease cost of the teacher’s laptops and fully subsidises the base model for principals. More than 43,000 laptops are currently on lease, representing an 88 per cent uptake.

(Source: Aisa Pacific futuregov)

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Digicel, in partnership with the Government of Antigua and Barbuda, is starting a new initiative which will deliver broadband internet service for free to communities and schools across the twin-island nation.

The initiative – entitled “Technology for Communication, Education and Empowerment” – is a joint initiative between Digicel and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda and will use Wi-Fi technology to bring Broadband Internet into 3,000 homes across the communities of Grays-Green, Yorks, and Lower Gambles, as well as more than 5,000 secondary school students.

Digicel is partnering with the government to provide community computer access centres in 12 secondary schools, which will include the physical infrastructure as well as the furniture and air-conditioning. Each of these community access centres will accommodate at least 20 students. The initiative will significantly increase the number of households with regular access to the Internet as schools, homes, and villages get connected for the first time.

(Source: Caribarena Antigua)

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The State Governor, Mr. Fernando Ortega Barnes and CEO of Telmex, Mr. Hector Slim Seade, made a working trip in which they carried out various actions for the "TELMEX 2010: Boosting Innovation Technology", and the social programs of Telmex Foundation for the benefit of Campeche. Thus, in the framework of TELMEX 2010, they announced the operation of a total of 20 digital classrooms in shortly, opened a new public site Mobile WiFi connectivity in Infinitum to reach 50 public sites, and a new Digital Library from a total of 89 that the company operates in the state.

Regarding the impetus for Information Technology, TELMEX signed a cooperation agreement with the Technological Instituto of Calkini (ITSCALKINI) to add to this Institution of Higher Education to the "Plan of Universities. Comprehensive Education Solution" to its participation in the Network for Research and Academic Innovation. This "Academic Portal" is the development of a digital space where students, teachers and researchers in higher education institutions and businesses have free access to content, innovative practices and educational projects. Also, it has the objetive that ITSCALKINI would have available a world-class infrastructure, supported by the Intelligent Network of TELMEX, the company began operating the Fiber Optic Institutional Network and opened the first Intelligent Building and Design Laboratory.

Additionally, Telmex began the installation of public telephones for disabled people, gave to the state DIF 280 wheelchairs from a total of 810, and 1306 bicycles for the program "Help me to get" from a total of 4.210 bicycles; donated by Foundation Telmex.

(Source: Telmex México)

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ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré and Mr Paulo Campos, Vice-Minister for Public Works, Transport and Communications of Portugal, signed an agreement that Portugal, through its e-School International programme, will provide comprehensive technological solutions for schools in a number of interested countries as part of ITU’s Connect a School, Connect a Community initiative. This announcement follows through on a commitment made by Portugal during the ITU World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF), in Lisbon in April 2009. Some twenty countries will benefit from this first phase, with the initiative supporting the launch of one connected school project per country.

Each project will test innovative approaches using ICT in the classroom, measure the impact, showcase the benefits and share lessons learned. The assistance to participating countries will include: 1)  New laptops (up to a maximum of 50) for a group of students and teachers in one school per country, 2) Laptops equipped with software and educational content,3) A smart board in each classroom, connected to the laptops to facilitate interactive e-learning,4) Wireless modems along with a school server, 5) Broadband internet connectivity provided by the local partner.

A multi-partner, international group of experts will support project implementation, including the development of a national school connectivity plan.

(Sources: ITU news, Moneybiz)

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The general secretary of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Dr. Javier Elguea Solis, Carlos Slim Foundation representative and the Secretary of Education of Jalisco, Mr. Antonio Gloria Morales, put into operation the "Digital Classroom Carlos Slim Foundation-ITU" in elementary school Ricardo Flores Magon.

The classroom, which was opened in the framework of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union held in this city, is equipped with 36 desktop computers and laptop computer, video projector, and video cameras, printer, scanner, monocular biological microscope, globe earth with interactive pen, plus the furniture required for efficient operation.

Dr. Touré said: "In ITU we full support to schools to reach the Millennium goals for the Information Society in 2015, for that is relevant to connect schools with broadband, connect to a school, connect to a community is important and that is our goal. For this reason we are extremely pleased to partner with Fundación Carlos Slim this day to connect to this school, because children are our future".

For his part, Dr. Javier Elguea said: "For the Foundation Carlos Slim is especially important this classroom together with the International Telecommunication Union. They help us, not only, to install the technology, but also to make a useful tool for children, teachers and parents. This generation must maximize their digital skills to turn them into productive tools".

Also, Mr. Antonio Gloria Morales added: "Thanks to the generosity and commitment of Carlos Slim Foundation now we have a classroom equipped with the latest technology to help digital education. The issue today is not just using the computer, but also how to share information and make it the most, that is what Carlos Slim Foundation leave us here".

(Source: Telmex Mexico)
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The Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Society (Mintel), as an entity committed to the development of Information and Communication Technologies in Ecuador, signed the agreement to provide Internet services with the company Megadatos S.A., to implement the pilot project of access to broadband Internet services in "Fe y Alegría" schools, located in different rural and marginal urban areas of eight provinces of Ecuador.

Through this agreement 25 educational institutions in the cantons of Cuenca, Azuay, Guamote, Chimborazo, Quito, Pichincha, Guayaquil, Guayas, Manta, Manabi, Joya de los Sachas, Orellana, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ambato and Tungurahua; will receive Connectivity-Internet. As beneficiaries are students and teachers in these counties for the period of one year. The investment is US$ 53,388 dollars.

(Source: Mintel - Ecuador)
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The Ministry of Science and Education of Ukraine and Google to equip 100 schools with wireless high-rate internet, Science and Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk has told a news conference. He says for the project they chose as town so as rural schools."We have reached agreement that there will be fifty rural schools and fifty town schools," the minister said.

In frames of the programme 25 teachers were trained to handle equipment that will enable them teach pupils who are simultaneously in several locations. The minister remarks, this aspect of the programme will allow pupils not to interrupt learning in times of epidemics.

The Education Ministry press service did not specify time frames when the schools would be equipped. Tabachnyk has set him a task of connecting all schools to the internet.

(Source: Ukrainian News)

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The Rector of the Technological Institute of Telmex (INTTELMEX), Dr. Javier Elguea Solis, and the President of the Foundation Lorena Ochoa Reyes, put into operation Telmex Digital Classroom in the school "La Barranca", to contribute actively in the development of education and digital literacy of children and youth from Jalisco.
 
The Telmex Digital Classroom, in the school "La Barranca", will benefit more than 400 primary and secondary students, teachers and parents.
The classroom has 36 computer equipment and laptops, video projectors, video cameras and photo printer, scanner, monocular biological microscope, earth globe with interactive pen, plus the furniture required for efficient operation.
 
During the inauguration, Dr. Elguea Solis said: "This classroom Telmex is part of an ambitious project that began earlier this year, boosting Technological Innovation, which includes connectivity, bandwidth needed to run all applications educational currently used anywhere in the world, and best educational practices as we know it today in Tokyo, Boston, Paris, London. The intention of this classroom is to encourage the acquisition of cognitive skills, verbal, numerical and artistic skills. This Classroom Telmex de La Barranca, is part of a network of thousand schools all across the country that have the same cutting-edge equipment".

Also, the president of the Foundation Lorena Ochoa said: "Thank you Telmex for the opportunity that this classroom is now 100% equipped, you have all the tools needed for children to learn how to work on computers that have an Internet connection. This Telmex Classroom is wonderful, I greatly appreciate all the family Telmex".
 
Telmex in the State of Jalisco has benefited, with its classrooms and digital libraries to 58 schools, with 2.236 teams in support of 26,300 students, teachers and parents.
 
With these actions, fundamental part of the "Telmex 2010: Boosting Technological Innovation", Telmex and Carlos Slim Foundation collaborate effectively in the academic development of children and young people from Jalisco to have better development opportunities.

Source:Telmex - Mexico
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The Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Society (MINTEL), as an entity committed with the development of Information and Communication Technologies in Ecuador, signed an agreement with the company Megadatos S.A. to provide Internet services. The purpose of this agreement is to implement the pilot project of access to broadband Internet services in elementary schools in rural and marginal urban areas of the province of Pichincha.

Through this agreement will provided service Internet Connectivity to 10 educational establishments of Cayambe, Mejia, Puerto Quito, San Miguel de los Bancos, and Pedro Vicente Maldonado Quito. The objective is to benefit 4254 students and 129 teachers for a period of one year. The settlement amount is 31,608.00 U.S. dollars.
The beneficiary institutions are:
   *  Ciudad de Guayaquil, parroquia Ascázubi, cantón Cayambe
    * Escuela Provincia de El Oro, parroquia Ayora, cantón Cayambe
    * Luz de América, parroquia Alóag, cantón Mejía
    * Isabel Yánez, parroquia Machachi, cantón Mejía
    * Darío Guevara, parroquia Puerto Quito, cantón Puerto Quito
    * Guayas, parroquia Nanegalito, cantón Quito
    * Ricardo Rodríguez, parroquia Pifo, cantón Quito
    * Gabriel Noroña, parroquia Píntag, cantón Quito
    * Huayna Palcón, parroquia San Miguel de los Bancos, cantón San Miguel de los Bancos.

The Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Society highlights the commitment of the Government with the Citizen from Ecuador who are in disadvantage, through the provision of connectivity that ensures equal access to technology services and strengthens the Good Living all citizens.

Source:MINTEL
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In a rural school in the town of Valle de Chaca (Region of Arica), the President of the Republic of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, opened the first phase of the project: "Todo Chile Comunicado" ("All Chile Communicated"), a public-private initiative of the Government of Chile through SUBTEL, the regional governments and Entel. This project will provide Mobile Broadband and telephone services to more than 1474 rural communities in the country.
 
In its first stage, the project includes connecting to 451 rural villages from Arica to Punta Arenas, benefiting 1.7 million people. When all three phases are fully operational -in December 2011 - more than 3 million Chileans living in isolated areas will have the option of connecting to Internet and mobile telephony.

For its size, this public-private initiative is the most important connectivity challenge ever undertaken in the country's history.
"Todo Chile Comunicado" will mean an investment of US$ 110 million, from which US$ 45 million is funded equally by the Fund for Telecommunication Development (TDF) administered by the SUBTEL and 15 regional governments.

Source: SUBTEL - Chile
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For the first time, future teachers who attend the main teacher training institutes in the country, will be provided with material that will enable them to integrate new information and communication technologies (ICT) to the pedagogical dynamics.
 
 "Connected with ICT" is one of the projects under the program "sentidos conectados", sponsored by Telecom and developed by "La Fabbrica" (international agency of communication , education and marketing), offers to teachers a variety of teaching and learning situations with ICT mediation. These projects, case studies, testimonials, and examples of teaching sequences using software to perform multimedia productions, which provide a range of proposals in the line with the conceptual development and analysis of scenarios of use of ICT.
 
This new material includes specific tools for future educators to enrich the main themes and activities in the classroom, and adds to "Senti2 Conecta2" and "Identidad.ar" which have already been distributed to over 6,000 schools between 2008 and 2010.

The virtual space of "Connected with ICT" (www.senti2conecta2.com.ar) offers a permanent teaching assistance and blogs to share experiences. It also gives the possibility of virtual classroom workshops on "Use of ICT".

Source:Telecom Argentina
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In the framework of "TELMEX 2010: Impulso a la Innovación Tecnológica", and as part of the strategic actions of the "Plan of Universities. Solución Integral Educativa", the company signed a cooperation agreement with the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), for their integration to Research and Academic Innovation Network.
 
The "Plan of Universities. Solución Integral Educativa" is the development of a digital space, called "Academic Community Portal", where teachers, students and researchers from high schools, education institutions and small businesses have free access to content, innovative practices and educational projects, enabling the exchange and review in a collaborative academic work, as well as active participation in the Information Society.
 
By signing this collaboration agreement, both, as the IPN and TELMEX agree to participate actively in the information society and knowledge through cooperation and exchange of content, with the aim of strengthening processes teaching and research to help raise educational quality.

Source: TELMEX -Mexico
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To ensure that every school child can carry out its academic activities in the classroom or at home with the support of new technologies, Canaima Plan will give them a computer. Canaima is a project focused on developing tools and production models based on free information technology, which aims to build national capacity, endogenous development, ownership and promotion of free knowledge in Venezuelan children.

The president, Hugo Chávez Frías, said that for this the Bolivarian Government works great strides to meet this challenge: "For every child who enters school we will donate a laptop. We will achieve this goal and the child will gradually learn to be responsible to take care about it, to use it with the help of the teacher in the school or parents at home".

Source: CANTV-Venezuela
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The Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (Indotel) and the Ministry of Education (Minerd) initiated contacts to establish a strategic alliance aimed to carry the Broadband Internet services to schools, through, joint projects and actions that include access to educational content through broadcast and the satellite system, with the assistance of telecommunications companies in the country.

The Minister of Education explained that: "his office has a new vision for the education of children and youth in all schools in the country" and for that, "is implementing a new model of educational intervention, focused on convergence media, which is a Dominican education revolution".

The minister said: "The first step we have taken is the creation and distribution of texts corresponding to initial and basic levels to the fourth degree, which requires the support of the technological means". Also, He said that "many of the schools' laboratories are equipped with computers, multimedia kits consist of electronic whiteboards, screens and projectors; plasma TVs connected via wireless television to receive the contents which are available from the Project PIM Learn TV and the Multimedia portal Learn PIM".

Source: Indotel
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The Digital Network in Education (RED) is a program funded by the Ministry of Education of the Province of Rio Negro. In the website of this program can be found several proposals with ICT, including material aimed at teaching and activity guides for students.

There is also possible to access to a library of resources for primary and secondary level in education, from which everybody can download educational software, utilities and visit several educational sites, blogs and virtual libraries. The program also offers several courses and workshops and a mobile digital classroom project. More information is available in the website of the program.

(Source: website RED Program and Inclusion Digital)
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EDUTEKA is published by the Foundation “Gabriel Piedrahita Uribe (FGPU)” which provides, free of charge, all class material for teachers, school managers and teacher trainers interested in improving elementary and secondary education with the support of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

EDUTEKA offers hundreds of their own resources and several links to other sites for educators. Some of the educational contents cover general topics, because their special value. However, most of them focus on the missionary theme of EDUTEKA: theoretical and practical resources that help to enrich the learning environments using ICT.

(Sources: Eduteka and inclusiondigital)

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"Aulas Hermanas" is a international collaborative project aimed to students between 12 and 17 years old, promoting interaction and collective construction of two classrooms in different countries (twin classrooms), through technology and Internet platforms. As a result of the interaction between the participating classrooms they get a blog that records the investigations, interactions and results of the "twin classrooms" coming around to the subject treated. This year, under the title "Living together", the organization proposes to address the issue of tolerance and coexistence in the context of societies with different kinds of differences.

The collaborative project "Aulas Hermanas" which has met since 2002, aims to link teachers and students from member countries of the Latin American Network of Educational Portals (RELPE), including Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru , Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Guatemala.
The registration for teachers and students who wants to participate are open until August 20th,2010.

(Source: EducAR and Aulas Hermanas)
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The meeting is part of the schedule of Information and Training of the National Plan of Inclusion Digital in education, specifically into the program "One computer to each student".

The meeting was held with the participation of around 65 people. This Workshop consisted in the Training and information of the participants about the National Digital Inclusion Plan in education and the program "one computer to each student". The organization of the Seminar and the development of this was led by the National Team of Plan IDE.

After the opening of the "model classroom", there was a plenary presentation to all attendees on the scope of IDE Plan. In this space the training materials were showed by the Plan team to see this first stage. Also the participants could navigate in the website of the Plan and the presentations, resources that were already stored, the educational map with information on technical schools, news, digitized materials and teaching aids.

(Source:Ministry of education of Argentina)
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MICROSOFT, together with the Ministry of Education in Kenya is in the process of implementing programs that will enable all schools in Kenya to be online. According to Microsoft Corporate and Social Responsibility East and South Africa Manager Mark Matunga, plans were underway to ensure that all schools in Kenya get to be digitized with the curriculum installed from primary to high school at the shortest time possible.

Speaking in Nairobi, Matunga said Microsoft was working together with the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) in developing digital content that is mapped into the current curriculum and said so far the programme for form one was complete and they were working on form two which they hoped would take about six months to complete.“Students will in future able to study online by using this new curriculum that we will have installed in their respective schools. Government will also save on costs of buying text books and also avoid scams like the recent one of money being misused at the Ministry of Education” said Matunga.

He also said the government was making efforts to ensure that all teachers were ICT compliant by ensuring all the Teachers Training Colleges were equipped with the latest technology and online.  The minister said that the programme that was being installed in school computers was user friendly and easy to learn.

(Source:it news Africa)

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Since establishing the KERIS on April 22nd, 1999, KERIS has been responsible for Korea’s educational Information & Communication Technology (ICT) development. It works closely with international organizations such as the World Bank and UNESCO to assist other nations in developing or improving their own ICT infrastructure and implementation.

The National Teaching & Learning Center (EDUNET), is a comprehensive education information service in Korea with public access, but designed specifically for teachers and students. Through linkage to the central government, local governments, and schools, EDUNET provides a range of instructional and learning support material and other education-related information.

The Cyber Home Learning System is a web-based that enables self-study at home or at sites other than schools. Students can learn at their own pace with adjustable materials to suit individual needs.

The Digital Library Support System (DLS) is a system that supports school libraries built within metropolitan and provincial Offices of Education, and is an Internet-based, one-stop service system that helps school libraries carry out the functions of a teaching-learning support center, digital library, and reading & culture center.

U-Class, the actual ubiquitous classroom model built by the Korea Education & Research Information Service (KERIS), is celebrating its 3rd anniversary since opening, in June of 2007 and to date has had a total of 5058 domestic and international visitors. U-class is a state-of-the art “classroom of the future”, a place where students and teachers can experience future educational facilities consisting of cutting edge technologies for classrooms. KERIS has been implementing robotic assistants within primary school classrooms, using them to aid children as they learn English. KERIS looks forward to the important role of the U-class to promote the establishment of the future classroom model in Korea.

KERIS received the Received the 1st UNESCO Prize for ICT in Education in 2007.

(Sources: KERIS, Wikipedia)

The Government of Colombia evaluated the progress of its initiatives "Compartel" and "Computers for Schools", which over ten years ago were implemented with the intention of providing access to information and communication technologies for children and young people. The results exceeded the expectations of the autorithies and realized that ICT helped to improve education and increase the chances that people enter university.

According to Minister of ICT, Daniel Medina, the plan became a real contribution to national development. "Not only by improving the infrastructure of the schools and teaching qualification, but also the contribution to enhancing the quality of education and expanding opportunities for new generations."

(Source:CanalAR)
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The Ministry of Education of Argentina began providing computer equipment to schools in Santa Cruz, which is framed in Digital Inclusion plan of the country, which aims to provide a computer for each student in the upper level of technical schools. At this early stage, the schools No. 4 in Rio Gallegos, the school No. 5 Rio Turbio, the school No. 3 in Puerto Deseado and the School of "Biologia Marina" of Caleta Olivia will receive the equipment; according a report from the Regional Office in the downtown of Puerto San Julian.

"This Plan is an initiative of the Ministry of Education that aims to democratize the access of everyone to the new technologies in the educational context. Also this Plan is composed of four sub-components: the program 'A computer for every student ', Connectivity, Digital TV Models for Schools and Classrooms.. "

In Santa Cruz the delivery is done through the Provincial Department of Education, which is under the Provincial Board of Education. The teachers of these institutions who will receive the training, the learning resources and all information related to this plan are now available on page www.inclusióndigital.gob.ar.

(Source:Diario Sur Noticias)
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Visual Classroom is the largest online educational library of Chile, which already offers more than one thousand videos on the web. This innovative web tool, was designed to encourage active use of media as resources to support in class, and it began as a way of responding to new demands of the twenty-first century students.

"Water is Life", this is a video made with stop motion technique by Professor Luis Norambuena (from the College Republica de Portugal), from Chillán, took first place in the category of basic education, while the teacher Omar Leiva, (from the school Internacional Sek del Pacifico) from ConCon, with the video "The mysteries of Kafka", won in the category of middle school.

(Source:Fundacion Chile)
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This past May, elections were held in the Philippines during which a different government was elected and a change in administration took place.  Recently, it was reported that despite the change in government, the country's iSchools Project is still on track to be completed on time.  The iSchools project was created by the Commission on Information Communication Technology's Commissioner Emmanuel Lallana.  The project focuses on three main components of school connectivity:  Internet-enabled computer laboratories, capacity building for teachers, and the use of free and open source software.  One way in which the iSchools Project aims to connect the schools is through installing Wireless Internet Computer Laboratories in each public school; these laboratories are comprised of 19 desktop computers, a server with a webcam, a laptop, an HP four-in-one printer, a multimedia projector, and speakers for each computer.

The project is still slated to connect 1000 public schools across the archipelago.  While the new administration will most likely restructure the priorities of the project, the goals will remain the same.  So far, 680 schools have been connected through the wireless computer laboratories, and over 8400 teacher have been trained.  The thousands of teachers who have been trained can be attributed to workshops held by the iSchools Project in subjects such as the Computer and Literacy Course, Laboratory Management Training, Sustainability Planning Workshop, and others.  Teams are currently ready to be deployed to help the remaining 320 schools overcome key obstacles such as lack of Internet access, and will be sent to do so within a year, which is by the culmination of the four year project.

(Sources: FutureGov and The iSchools Project)

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With a significant increase in the content, through new facsimiles and interactive support materials, mobile podcast, the formation of a network of collaborators who actively use this tool, and a special focus to areas which were affected by the earthquake, through "educarchile esencial", there was launched PSU educarchile July 2010. This system is the virtual high school, driven by the Chilean education portal and sent to 170 000 students who have taken the exam this year.

"This is a complete and a modern tool for the thousands of students who can not afford a high school but who want to prepare well for their future studies. The history of PSU educarchile is marked by examples of young people who lived in very difficult situations, and who have been able to improve their performance, and some of them have got the higest score around all the country" said José Weinstein, Manager of Education of Foundation Chile (this organization and the Ministry of Education are responsible for the portal of educarchile).

(Source:Fundacion Chile)
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As part of its program to spread the use of technology for social purposes, Microsoft Research awarded $ 47,500 to Eduardo Grampin, Uruguayan researcher, for the development of his project, which will support the inclusion of remote areas through wireless networks .

Specifically, the project of Grampin will focus on contribute to the inclusion of remote communities that rely on physical connections are expensive and low capacity. In this context, a mobile infrastructure, combined with the use of long-range wireless connections, can be seen as an appropriate solution to reduce the connectivity gap. The project of Grampin, will test the application of concepts of "Ambient Network (AN)" in these kind of  contexts for the development of infrastructure that provides connectivity to isolated communities at low cost.

(Source:Microsoft Latam)
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This first exhibition of Digital Inclusion came at the initiative of a school, a community focused on organizing a quality event. First Exhibition of Digital Inclusion met experiences of students who were supported by all teachers eager to use technology in their classes.

The school Alexander Fleming has incorporated into its educational program the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Hence the idea of organizing the First Exhibition of Digital Inclusion arose from the need to share the experiences of schools and other institutions, through the integration of technology into the teaching work in the classrooms.

(Source:Educarchile)
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Under the National Plan of Education Digital Inclusion, the program "One Computer for each student" will provide an inexpensive laptop computer to each students of secundary for public technical schools (industrial and agricultural) around the country. Through this program the government plans to reach in its first phase of implementation at about 230,000 students and 20,000 teachers of the 1200 educational establishments.

The project includes the provision of:
*250 000 economic ultraportable computers (one for each student of the final cycle of agricultural technical schools and one for each teacher involved in the program)
*1200 school servers (one for each technical school involved in the program)
*250 000 pen drives (one for use with each of the laptops)
*20 000 wireless router (to establish the network courtly)
*Internet access for schools.
*7150 Furniture stores and recharges portable devices (furniture for every 35 laptops).
*Adequacy of electrical installations in the premises.
* Wiring data.
* Suitable security system in each school (allocation of fences, alarms, locks, security doors).
* Suitable cooling system keeps the enclosure at each school (Provision and installation of fans and / or air condition.

(Source: Ministry of Education of Argentina)
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As part of its Partners in Learning program, Microsoft Argentina, the General Directors of Schools of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Association of "Misión Futuro", launched "Communicating from the islands of the Delta". This is a comprehensive project of digital inclusion, from which it will provide connectivity to eight schools in the islands of the Delta of San Fernando with the aim of improving access to new information technologies and provide training to teachers, students and residents of the region.

The program includes training and retraining of teachers, students and neighbors in the use of new technologies, the provision of recycled hardware and software, satellite Internet connection, training youth in technical support, training on new technologies for teachers and principals and pedagogical advice for the implementation of technology in school projects. In this way, the Delta region seeks to facilitate access to current information, reduce the distance imposed by nature, learning through distance education, generate new opportunities for local development and optimize the communication of educational institutions with oversight institutions.

(Source: ComunicaRSE)
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As part of Workforce Development, a sector of Microsoft that works to create training opportunities and technological tools for those who are underserved by technology, Microsoft awards grants to organizations who are deemed to have the potential to benefit from an "Unlimited Potential - Community Technology Skills" grant.  Since the program began in 2003, Microsoft has provided over USD$350 million in software grants and cash to more than 1,000 community partners, which has supported over 40,000 technology centers in approximately 100 countries and regions.  This week, Microsoft Malaysia pledged RM1.7 million (around $540,000) to several NGOs in Malaysia, allowing for the development of Malaysian individuals through a network of 29 existing community technology learning centers.

Two of these organizations, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and the Yayasan Salam Malaysia (YSM) will be direct beneficiaries and will put the money towards the technology learning centers.  The community technology centers supported by these grants provide people of all ages and sexes with free or low-cost access to ICTs that teach them ways to use computers, further their education through technology, participate in community activities, and more.  some of the centers employ the use of the Digital Literacy Curriculum, which is a set of e-learning courses designed to help people learn how to use the Internet, create a résumé, and procure other such skills.  The President of the YWCA, Dr. Mariana David, has already committed the money to continue training women and girls in ICT use.

(Sources: MaxIt Online, Bernama, and Microsoft - Workforce Development)

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The Primary Education Project (PEP) is a five-year initiative targeting all public primary schools in Macedonia. PEP seeks to improve the quality of instruction and increase employment skills in youth. 

PEP’s ICT in Education Component is supporting the computerization of Macedonia’s primary schools by training teachers, developing maintenance solutions, providing digital content, and introducing innovative uses of ICT such as computer control, robotics, electronic music, video & audio recording.

The highlights of ICT component are that it supports the development of digital content for Macedonia’s schools and helps to adapt and localize existing applications in Macedonian and Albanian. The focus is on Math and Science, but content is created across the curriculum. This will enable students to benefit from modern technology in all subjects. PEP has also introduced innovative hardware and software solutions in selected primary schools in Macedonia. The range of hardware varies from low-cost lap-tops to electronic microscopes, music recording equipment, robots and control technology kits. The purpose of this is to measure the impact that different solutions can have on educational outcomes and demonstrate to decision makers the range of ICT options for education available. PEP will monitor and support these schools during the life of the project.

Macedonia, once the least developed of the Yugoslav republics,has been transformed into the world’s first “wireless country” of its size or larger. Through a grant from USAID, and support from Microsoft, Motorola and several other partners, AED project Macedonia Connects worked with a local internet service provider to connect every one of the country’s 430 primary and secondary schools to a wireless network. Now a vast majority—95%—of the country’s population has access to wireless, broadband internet service.

(Sources: PEP, USAID)

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The Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) is an examination administered in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago that is used to place students into secondary schools throughout the country.  Recently, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago asked for all companies interested in providing laptops to those students who successfully pass the SEA to provide tenders to the Ministry of Education.  Today, the government tender for the laptops closed, and the evaluation process began.  The evaluation team is comprised of six people, two of whom represent iGovTT, the department of government put in place to realize the goal of turning Trinidad and Tobago into a developed country by the year 2020.

Several preparations are being made for the release of these laptops to the students.  Policies are currently being written concerning warranty, loss, replacement, and repairs.  Additionally, the Curriculum Department of the Ministry of Education is developing a curriculum with respect to the various uses of the laptops, which includes several software packages.  The Ministry of Education is also working with the Ministry of Tertiary Education to train more educators in ICT use.  Dr. Tim Gopeesingh, the Minister of Education, announced that this project would benefit the students, the teachers, and also the school system, connecting 132 public schools, eleven private schools, and nine life centers.

(Sources: Newsday, iGovTT, and The Ministry of Education)

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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) focuses their work on eight main sectors of development, one of which is education and training.  The education goals of USAID center around assisting developing countries in improving pre-primary, primary, and secondary levels of education by working directly with students, training teachers, designing programs for adult literacy, and providing special opportunities for women and girls.  Yesterday, a US Ambassador unveiled a pilot ICT lab at the Al-Ahliya Junior Secondary School in Karawang.

This pilot ICT lab is the product of a partnership between USAID, the Government of Indonesia, and seven other private-sector partners.  These private-sector companies, responsible for equipping the ICT lab with the most recent technology, include Cisco Systems Indonesia, Hewlett-Packard Indonesia, Indosat Tbk, and others.  The ICT lab will be made accessible to both students and teachers with dual goals in mind: one to improve the relevance of Indonesian education by applying current life skills to students' daily education, and thd second to improve the quality of teachers in Indonesia and their capabilities to use ICTs in the classroom.  Administrators will work to achieve these two objectives as part of the strides many schools are taking to develop the "knowledge capital" that President Yudhoyono deemed essential to the lasting success of the country's education system.

(Sources: Anatara News, The Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies, and USAID)

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IT@School project endeavors to enhance the intellectual productivity of teacher and the curricular comprehension of students. The work of the project saw 4 million students and 0.2 million teachers empowered in ICT through a network of dedicated 200 Master Trainers and 5600 IT Co-coordinators. IT@School is the nodal agency for implementing EDUSAT (first Indian satellite exclusively serving the education sector) network and runs an exclusive channel for education called ‘ViCTERS’ (Virtual Classroom Technology on EDUSAT for Rural Schools).The project has now associated with BSNL to provide Internet broad band connectivity to all high schools in Kerala.

The success of the Project can be visualized by the conduct IT practical examination in free software for about 4 million students, first of this kind in the world with so much vast resourceful deployment of free software. The efforts of Project saw deployment of adequate IT infrastructure to all schools including computers and other accessories. The project also focuses on capacity building by providing hardware and software training to teachers along with special programs to teach them the use of ICTs in education. Infrastructure up gradation is also an essential part of the project along with several E-governance initiatives. So far the project has supplied 40,000 computers to schools along with laptops, printers, scanners and generators. A recent news report also suggests that the project will provide free digital libraries to schools in Kerala soon.

The IT@School Project has now also joined hands with chip giant Intel, to deploy a dual language version of the Skoool Learning and Teaching Technologies website. The platform is expected to benefit teachers and students in the state by providing attractive educational packages in school level Mathematics and Science, as a free Internet resource.

The project is the World’s largest Simultaneous deployment of FOSS(Free and Open Software Systems) initiatives in Education sector. It is also the winner of National e-governance Award for the Best Project and also the winner of World is Open Award 2008. IT@School Project, through its various initiatives, has enabled the educational system to make a paradigm shift to ICT enabled education from the conventional IT education.

(Source: IT@School)

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The ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu (ICTACT) is a consortium of the Government of India, the Government of Tamil Nadu.  The ICTACT is overseen by an autonomous board of directors comprised of representatives from the Government of Tamil, leading educational institutions including all government universities and top tier schools, and leading companies in the ICT industry with a presence in Tamil Nadu.  Lead by a vision of creating a leading ICT knowledge center, the board of directors at ICTACT decided to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Oracle Academy.

Oracle, a leading software and hardware designer for businesses, founded Oracle Academy as part of their series of education initiatives.  The goal of Oracle Academy is to prepare students for IT careers by bestowing up them world-class training and professional development opportunities; over 58,000 students already benefit from the Oracle Academy program in India alone.  Through this MoU with ICTACT, Oracle Academy will provide software, technical support, curriculum access, and professional training that will benefit over 250,000 students across the state within three years.  Specifically, Oracle Academy will provide 300 hours of curriculum, over 120 hours of instructor training for 240 instructors by July 2011, and access to a hosted online server to conduct courses.  These resources will be used to support over 400 colleges in Tamil Nadu to increase the quality of education in the region.

(Sources: EFY Times, ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, and Oracle)

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The island of Mindanao is home to approximately one-fourth of the Philippines' population, yet the quality of life on the island has historically been far below that of the rest of the country.  The Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) works to connect and energize communities that cannot be connected to the power grid, by using clean, standalone renewable energy sources such as solar energy and microhydro energy.  AMORE is a partnership between government organizations, primarily USAID, and private sector companies in the energy industry.

On 16 July, AMORE inaugurated a solar-powered computer laboratory in Marilog Central Elementary School, a primary education school to 557 students.  This ICT facility consists of six laptops donated by Intel and is powered by electricity harnessed by modules donated by the SunPower Foundation.  This ICT project aims to improve the teachers' instruction capabilities through using ICTs in their classrooms and by allowing students access to online resources.  AMORE has identified at least 200 schools in the region that can be fitted with ICT resources for education that can be powered by solar panels; teachers on Mindanao hope that AMORE will continue with its ICT for education work and extend the project to some of these other schools.

(Sources: Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation and AMORE)

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The Singaporean Ministry of Education (MOE) has committed approximately 610US$ million to supplying ICT for its schools over the next 8 years. The MOE has awarded the tender for Standard ICT Operating Environment (SOE) for Schools to National Computer Systems Pte Ltd (NSC) with a subscription of around 120 000 seats. Each seat will comprise a computing device, network connectivity and support services for all Government and Government-Aided schools. The seats will cater to 40 000 teachers and administrative staff and 500 000 students.

The SOE for Schools programme will be implemented over the next two years. It supports the third Master plan for ICT in Education (mp3) in providing schools with an ICT infrastructure that will continually enhance teaching and learning. Facilitated by school-wide wireless connectivity, students will be able to use portable computing devices and access media-rich and interactive digital resources for learning opportunities beyond their classrooms. The programme will also provide an environment where schools can trial their innovative solutions for teaching and learning.

The implementation of SOE for Schools programme in pilot schools will begin in early 2011 following the setup of the central infrastructure, processes and governance of the programme. The rest of the schools will be transited in phases by end 2012.

( Sources:Ministry of Education Singapore, UNESCO Bangkok )

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The Department of General Education in Kerala, India, launched IT @School with a mission to create an IT literate community and improve the quality of education through using the latest ICTs.  Amongst its many achievements, IT @School has become the world's largest simultaneous deployment of Free and Open Source Software based ICT education.  IT @School has trained 90,000 teachers in classroom IT use, and is working towards creating a broadband Internet connectivity between all schools within the state.

Today, IT @School announced the development of a Resource DVD that can be used on any computer or laptop, and will be distributed to 60,000 high school teachers in Kerala.  This DVD, entitled e-Vidhya, includes introductions to office packages, painting software, presentation software, and tools for a select number of school subjects.  The release of e-Vidhya is designed to help implement the new ICT syllabus of the Kerala Government, which directs all schools to teach each subject through an ICT enabled learning process.  To help achieve this initiative, the DVD also includes PDF versions of a myriad of textbooks and the most recent versions of free application software.  E-Vidhya was prepared entirely on free software, which allows for teachers to freely copy, edit and redistribute the DVD if they wish.  Tomorrow, the state's Chief Minister will formally release the 8 GB DVD and begin distributing it to schools.

(Sources: The Times of India, IT at School, and IndiaTech Online)

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In May 2008, the Sichuan Province in china suffered a devastating earthquake; among the companies to quickly respond with aid was Cisco, a worldwide leader in Internet networking.  Just two months later, in July 2008, Cisco and the Government of China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that established a partnership between the two institutions to bring 21st century healthcare and education systems to the region.  As this three-year partnership comes to an end, reports and data highlighting the successes of the Connecting Sichuan program are surfacing and the effects of this program are being felt throughout the province.

The education section of the MoU aimed to bridge the urban-rural digital divide in China.  Cisco's solutions focus on four key areas and applications of technology to achieve this goal: connected classrooms, connected schools, connected communities, and the Cisco Networking Academy.  To connect classrooms and schools, Cisco partnered with over 45 organizations, including ECCOM Network System Co. Ltd. to provide laptops to schools along with wireless Internet and networking capabilities.  Once teachers and schools had been actively connected, Cisco helped to create an education metropolitan area network and data center to connect the communities of the province by allowing teachers to share resources, exchange best practices, and trade tips on ways to use and integrate technology into the classroom.  The Cisco Networking Academy, which is active in 165 countries, instructs students in networking skills and ICT capabilities; through the MoU, Cisco has expanded this program to 50 universities in Sichuan.

Amongst other programs initiated through the MoU, Cisco has also focused on expanding educational opportunities for children with disabilities.  In Sichuan, Cisco helped fund, financially and technologically, the DuJiangYan Youai School, which creates a highly accessible and unique learning environment for disabled students.  This partnership between Cisco and the Chinese Government has seen much success, including the percentage of students scoring well enough to join a regional high school jumping from 3% to 31%.  As the benefits of the partnership begin to affect more than one generation of school children, the successes will continue to grow and benefit the Sichuan province as a whole.

(Sources: Cisco and ECCOM)

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The Andean Digital Library is a place that brings representative works of the cultural heritage of the Andean countries and it is also an environment of information, knowledges and services in different areas of integration. This project, originally promoted by the General Secretary of the Andean Community, has been developed with the participation of fourteen institutions in the Andean region - national libraries and public and private universities, and support of the French Institute of Andean Studies (IFEA). The books in this site are available in PDF format.
(Sources: Comunidad Andina and Ediciona Institute)
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On 1 July 2010, Judith McHale, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, announced the launching of the "Apps 4 Africa" contest.  This competition challenges local technology experts and coders to create technological applications that can improve the lives of those living in East Africa.  While the goal of the competition is to build the best digital tools to address local challenges, both programmers and those not necessarily involved in a technological profession are welcome to participate.  Citizens are invited to post ideas for coders on the Apps 4 Africa website, and coders can submit content using any open source code format.  Ideas that have already been submitted and for which coders have begun working on designs include mobile math tests to asses quality of education institutions and a mapping program to help those in the slums of Kiberia find local assets and resources.

Anyone residing in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, or Tanzania may submit content for judging.  By requiring coders to live in East Africa, Apps 4 Africa ensures that the top designs submitted will be suitable and effective in the region.  The contest began with Under Secretary of State McHale's announcement on 1 July, and will conclude on 31 August 2010.  In early September, winners will be decided based on a set of criteria including usefulness to citizens and governments of East Africa and potential for the application to be used throughout the world.  Those whose designs win will attend an awards ceremony where their creativity and ingenuity will be rewarded with cash along with tools to improve upon their technological skills.

(Sources: U.S. Government and Apps 4 Africa)

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The Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) strives to promote top-tier education through the development of high quality curricula.  This week, KIE announced a partnership with Intel and Mustek East Africa that will provide software and hardware to Kenyan schools to promote online learning.  Through installing new technologies in the schools, KIE hopes to improve learning while cutting down on long run education costs.  Mustek East Africa has urged local governments to adopt mini-laptop, a design that Mustek East Africa is creating, to help achieve improved education and to lower long run costs by eliminating needs for updated books and desktop computers.  KIE has created a program with Intel that is designed to foster a close relationship between students and ICT learning resources.

In addition to improving upon education, a second result of this partnership is the procurement of Internet access by rural communities.  By taking the opportunity to lay fiber optic cable to the schools participating in the program, it will allow students and other to have access to Internet resources previously unavailable.  There are already a number of schools that have been selected to take part in this program, and as the program begins to achieve results, more schools will become included.

(Sources: The Standard, Mustek East Africa, and KIE)

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When three schools in the Central Visayas region of the Philippines performed poorly on standardized achievement tests, with one school, the Tayud National High School, producing a mere 17 per cent pasing rate, the Coalition for Better Education (CBE) decided to iimplement programs that would improve these statistics.  Intervening through the Involving Communities for Better Education initiative, CBE partnered with Globe Telecom to create a pilot program at Tayud.  Globe Telecom has designed and implemented several ICT education courses, including the Global Flilipino Teachers and Globe Bridging Communities.  Global Filipino Teachers (GFT) is an intensive six-day teacher training program that instructs primary educators on ICT application in the classroom.  Globe Bridging Communities consists of several initiatives, including the Internet in Schools Program for high school students, which provides one year of free Globe Broadband Internet access.  As of 2010, Internet in Schools Program had provided Internet to over 950 schools nationwide.

As part of the pilot program at Tayud, teacher received GFT training after CBE ensured that they were ICT literate.  Additionally, Tayud became a recipient of the Internet in Schools Program.  In order to create a more active community, Globe has also agreed to help create a community resource center that will open this month.  This community center represents a partnership between the school, the governemtn, and the local community, and will help to promote the goods and services of the Tayud region.

(Sources: Malaya Business Insight and Globe)

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The Ministries of Education in Singapore and Kuwait signed a second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for enhancing educational exchanges during a visit to Singapore by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah when he was Prime Minister.  Through this MoU, Singapore would serve as an advisor to Kuwait as Kuwait improves its ICT and e-government sectors.  In a recent visit to Singapore, Undersecratry of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education Tamadher Al-Sudairawi stated that one of the primary exchanges in which he hopes the two contries would participate is in the exchange of the myraid of uses in ICTs in education.  Recently, Singapore has been extremely active in promoting the introduction of ICTs to education.

This most recent visit of Al-Sudairawi and the Minister of Higher Education Dr. Moudhi Al-Humoud along with others has allowed the Kuwaiti delegation to wtness firsthand the ways in which Singapore has advanced with ICTs in the public sector, specifically the way that the Singaporean government has develope dand planned new curriculums using ICTs and the application of ICTs in helping to run the administrative side of the public school system.  While Kuwait has been active in promoting ICTs in education, the infrastruture has been farily basic and not necessarily executed in the most efficient manner.  In addition to ICTs in schools, the Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Research and Curricula Sector, Mariam al-Wutaid, expressed her hope that perhaps Kuwait and Singapore would extend their e-government partnerhip that was signed in November 2008.

 

(Sources: Kuwait News Agency and iDA Singapore)

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The Ministry of Education of Singapore announced the development of the third masterplan for ICT in Education in 2008 that was to be fulfilled over a period of five years, between 2009 and 2014.  This third masterplan addressed several broad strategies including the strengthening of ICT into school curriculums and enancing ICT provisions in schools.  In order to achieve this masterplan, the Ministry of Education recently announced its contract with National Computer Systems Pte Ltd (NCS) that is valued at S$850 million over a period of eight years.  This contract awarded NCS the project of the Standard Operating Environment (SOE) for Schools, a contract of approximately 120,000 seats; these seats will allow for connectivity amongst 40,000 teachers and administrators and approximately 500,000 students.

SOE is a government-wide initiative aimed at unifying ICT in various branches of government to allow for improved operation efficiency with ICT programs in the public sector.  Because the Ministry of Education falls under this broad initiative, SOE for Schools is undertaken in a similar manner but separate from the nationwide initiative.  Schools awarded the privilege of participating inthe SOE for Schools program will subscribe to predefined services, on a per user per month basis.  The SOE for Schools program will be implemented over the next two years, with pilot programs beginning early next year and the goal to have all schools connected wirelessly with SOE for Schools infrastructure by the end of 2012.

 

(Sources:  The GovMonitor and The Ministry of Education of Singapore)

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Gearing up Internet Literacy Access for Students, also known as the GILAS project, is an initiative in the Philippines whose goal is to provide Internet access to all public high school students in the Philippines.  Today there are 2,720 schools in the Philippines connected to the Internet, out of a total of 6,519 public high schools; the participants of the GILAS project, mainly corporations and non-profit institutions, helped to make tthat happen.  Specifically, in the Compostela Valley province of the Philippines, GILAS has already helped connect six out of 56 high schools. 

In early June, the Compostela Valley provincial government, in partnership with the department of Education and the Azala Foundation, turned over eleven server computers complete with printers and Local Area Network peripherals in order to implement the GILAS project in an additional 25 schools in the region.  Currently, 3,799 schools remain to be conneted to the World Wide Web.

 

(Sources: Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation and GILAS)

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The partnership between the Ministry of Education and Fundación Omar Dengo in Costa Rica is seen by many as a model for introducing, implementing and evaluating technology use in education. The Omar Dengo Foundation (ODF) is a private non-profit organization that has been managing and carrying out national and regional projects in the fields of human development, educational innovation and new technologies since 1987. Its different projects have benefitted more than 1.5 million Costa Ricans, including children and young people, students, educators, professionals, people from the community, and senior citizens, contributing to renovation of the national educational processes by introducing and taking advantage of digital technologies. A few programs of  ODF are highlighted below. Through http://www.fod.ac.cr/en/institute, the unit responsible for creating proposals for programming and the products and services offered, the organization has gained expertise in ‘education informatics’, ‘cognition, programming and learning’, ‘digital government’, ‘robotics and learning’, ‘entrepreneurship and digital productivity’. “Labor@: Centers for entrepreneurial practice” teaches the high school students, office productivity software, logical reasoning and effective use of ICTs in business - by providing a simulation of working in a firm, a part from, business management and entrepreneurial skills. “Explor@: Using digital technologies to foster youth talents” is collaboration of government with Walmart and Microsoft aimed to target 20,000 youth inspiring them to use ICTs for innovation. The project organizes workshops for electronic game design, digital newspaper editing, web-designing, disaster prevention, data processing packages and software. The magazine http://www.fod.ac.cr/zonam/ is a digital newspaper distributed twice each year over the Internet, prepared by students in grades 7, 8, and 9 who participate in the Digital Journalism Club. CADE program is an educational program designed to promote active citizenship. The program seeks to strengthen and develop deliberative capabilities in children and adolescents using digital technologies as didactical resources. Robotica is an Educational Robotics Program providing a digital environment relying on digital technologies and inspiring innovation, creativity, thought, analysis, design and troubleshooting. The program also includes training for teachers and a discussion blog. The official website states the motive as: “The purpose is to use the work done on projects to create a scientific-technological culture where the students prepare significant programming products, build prototypes related to industrial or technological process simulation, or recreate sites and events linked to their socio-cultural setting.” New Millennium is a digital magazine for students published on the Internet in two annual editions. This project seeks for Costa Rican students to be creative and active Internet users, using this medium to express themselves and share what they have learned with boys and girls from around the world. In addition, it is an attempt for students to be able to appropriate the technology, i.e, know how to use it and build significant products. Edunov@ explores the use of mobile technology in education. Reviews of Omar Dengo Foundation’s project can be seen here, here and here.

The partnership between the Ministry of Education and Fundación Omar Dengo in Costa Rica is seen by many as a model for introducing, implementing and evaluating technology use in education. The Omar Dengo Foundation (ODF) is a private non-profit organization that has been managing and carrying out national and regional projects in the fields of human development, educational innovation and new technologies since 1987. Its different projects have benefitted more than 1.5 million Costa Ricans, including children and young people, students, educators, professionals, people from the community, and senior citizens, contributing to renovation of the national educational processes by introducing and taking advantage of digital technologies. A few programs of  ODF are highlighted below. 
  Through http://www.fod.ac.cr/en/institute, the unit responsible for creating proposals for programming and the products and services offered, the organization has gained expertise in ‘education informatics’, ‘cognition, programming and learning’, ‘digital government’, ‘robotics and learning’, ‘entrepreneurship and digital productivity’.
  “Labor@: Centers for entrepreneurial practice” teaches the high school students, office productivity software, logical reasoning and effective use of ICTs in business - by providing a simulation of working in a firm, a part from, business management and entrepreneurial skills.
  “Explor@: Using digital technologies to foster youth talents” is collaboration of government with Walmart and Microsoft aimed to target 20,000 youth inspiring them to use ICTs for innovation. The project organizes workshops for electronic game design, digital newspaper editing, web-designing, disaster prevention, data processing packages and software.
  The magazine http://www.fod.ac.cr/zonam/ is a digital newspaper distributed twice each year over the Internet, prepared by students in grades 7, 8, and 9 who participate in the Digital Journalism Club.
  CADE program is an educational program designed to promote active citizenship. The program seeks to strengthen and develop deliberative capabilities in children and adolescents using digital technologies as didactical resources.
  Robotica is an Educational Robotics Program providing a digital environment relying on digital technologies and inspiring innovation, creativity, thought, analysis, design and troubleshooting. The program also includes training for teachers and a discussion blog. The official website states the motive as:
  “The purpose is to use the work done on projects to create a scientific-technological culture where the students prepare significant programming products, build prototypes related to industrial or technological process simulation, or recreate sites and events linked to their socio-cultural setting.”
  New Millennium is a digital magazine for students published on the Internet in two annual editions. This project seeks for Costa Rican students to be creative and active Internet users, using this medium to express themselves and share what they have learned with boys and girls from around the world. In addition, it is an attempt for students to be able to appropriate the technology, i.e, know how to use it and build significant products.
  Edunov@ explores the use of mobile technology in education.
  Reviews of Omar Dengo Foundation’s project can be seen here, here and here.

The Portuguese government is providing educational PCs to school children receiving basic education -- equivalent to elementary school -- in a memorandum of understanding with Intel Corporation. The Magellan Initiative, a program under Portugal’s education technology plan, targeted to deliver a half million computers based on the Intel-powered classmate PC to Portuguese children in the year 2009. The Magellan Initiative complements Portugal’s successful year-old e-School project, which provides educational notebooks and Internet access to teachers and students for the secondary level of school education.

The full-featured student laptop is specially developed by Intel for education. Regarded as the ‘rugged little laptops’ Intel’s Classmate PC comes in various versions in various developing countries, with educational softwares and high-speed internet connectivity options, designed especially for school children. The laptop is distributed in more than 50 countries. In addition to the Classmate PCs, Intel will serve as Portugal's technology adviser for the Magellan Initiative and currently plans to create a “Competence Centre” in Portugal to expand the use of mobile PCs and Internet access and use that knowledge to replicate pilot projects in other countries. Recently, Venezuelan government has also signed an agreement with Portugal that will bring 1 million low-cost Magellan notebooks to the South American country.

Link for Video about Magellan initiative in Portugal

Sources: Intel news release, Technology blog

In many parts of the developing world it is too expensive to lay the fibers and copper cable to deliver a standard internet connection. Wireless technologies also do not reach many remote places. Under ‘United Villages’ initiative, founded by Amir Alexander Hasson, vehicles equipped with Wi-Fi are being used to deliver web content to remote rural villages in the developing world. In rural India and parts of Cambodia, Rwanda, Costa Rica, Paraguay, the vehicles offer web content to computers with no internet connection.

The buses and a fleet of motorcycles update their pages in cities before visiting the hard-to-reach communities. The offline search system works in a very simplistic way: users search through a standard non-real time browser. Motorcycle drives by and collects all the searches and takes them to the internet connection which sends them to ‘United Villages’ server. The server conducts search, takes out information from top results and links, edits unnecessary ads and send the compressed information back to the users.

In Cambodia, this approach is serving many rural villages. The Internet Village Motoman was launched for 15 solar-powered village schools, telemedicine clinics, and the governor’s office in Ratanakiri, a remote province of Cambodia, using five Honda motorcycles equipped with mobile access points and a satellite uplink. The network was implemented for American Assistance for Cambodia, which is funded by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, and operates over 200 rural schools. They had computers and solar panels in all these schools, and teachers teaching English on computers, but no Internet. The teachers learned how to do e-mail, and then they taught the students, and then that got shared with the rest of the village. Telemedicine clinics held by Operation Village Health, give patients access to physicians in Boston, Massachusetts. The patients’ information including digital photographs is transferred to physicians in Boston via satellite. So, those communities are able to do e-mails, offline Web searches and tele-medicine through this novel approach.

Link for some more information about this project.

Link for interview of Amir Alexander Hasson with Gartner

 

Sources: BBC news, press release American Assistance Cambodia, Internet Village Motoman network

 

Plan Ceibal, the education reform initiative that is aiming (most famously) to provide one laptop for every student and teacher in Uruguay. The initial goal was primary education and now its being extended to include the secondary education level. The presentation given by Brechner at IDB’s sponsored event describes the pillars of Plan Ceibal as Equity, Learning and Technology (video of presentation available here). The plan targets to provide one laptop per student and per teacher at all public schools, but is not essentially limited to laptops, rather it extends to development of contents and tools for improving education. The plan also includes efforts for provision of wireless internet at school and public places.

Summarizing the results of partnership with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, Bechner stated that, when it came to individual access to personal computing for all students in Uruguay, "What was a privilege in 2006 is a right in 2009". The Uruguayan example, Brechner continued, shows that it is indeed possible to provide a laptop (for free) to every student, and how this can be done. In the case of Uruguay, "costs are manageable", he said, and "impacts are immediate". Uruguay's interest in serving as a global model for educational transformation enabled in large part by 1-to-1 computing for students is laudable. The presentation provides financial data to substantiate all the above claims.

The official portal of Plan Ceibal provides various news of the subsidiary projects and initiatives of the Plan. The most striking feature of connectivity through laptops is their ability to connect rural and remote areas to the rest of the world, Plan Ceibal is doing the same. The Plan Ceibal Blog covers the latest news and updates on the project. The blog covered the impacts of OLPC on learning of children in schools and lives of children with disabilities through short anecdotes. A book on the Plan titled “Ceibal in the society of 21^st century” was also published in collaboration with UNESCO giving a detailed account of the project and its evaluations.

See the detailed and complete analysis at Trucano’s Page

More information about Plan Ceibal and OLPC in Uruguay:

• official Plan Ceibal web site
• blog about Plan Ceibal
• OLPC Uruguay page on the OLPC wiki (Translation in English available through Google Translate (Click link on top right))
• independent reports on OLPC Uruguay deployment from OLPCnews.com (note: this is an independent site not associated with the One Laptop Per Child project)

Cisco is partnering with the government of Portugal under Technological Plan for Education, which aims to bring information and communication technology (ICT) literacy to students and promote the use of new technologies in the educational system. Cisco® technologies will be used to provide high-density local-area network and wireless access in every classroom in every secondary school in Portugal.

Cisco would be working in cooperation with Portugal Telecom, the prime contractor of the 'Internet in the Classroom' project, to equip 1,220 schools with 215,000 Ethernet ports and 15,000 wireless access points. The Portuguese Ministry of Education launched the Internet in the Classroom project as a foundation for the Portuguese government's Technological Plan to bring high-speed fibre broadband access to every school and put fixed and wireless networks in the classrooms to connect all students and staff. The Technological Plan for Education will also see a number of secondary schools establish Cisco Networking Academy® programs to teach key ICT skills to a diverse student population. Five academies are being set up with further plans to increase the number to 200.

With Technological plan for Education, Portugal is on its way to completely digitize the education system with several ICT- related activities. Provision of ICT skills to teachers, computers for schools and laptops for students are among key initiatives of this project.

Source: Cisco press release, Ministry of Education Portugal resources

 

Australia's primary school students are now being equipped with the skills needed for the digital age. School students are now being switched on to some of the most up-to-date technology available, from laptop computers for students in years 9-12 to interactive whiteboards, video-conferencing equipment and even virtual classrooms.

The West Australian Education Department recently trialled a program that allowed students and teachers to download free information and resources through iTunes U - an area of the iTunes store offering free education content from top institutions around the world.

Schools throughout Australia will be using the technology of interactive whiteboards, which have the capabilities of connecting immediately to the internet so students and teachers can access information immediately. By connecting the whiteboards to a laptop computer and projector, teachers can also convert freehand writing on the whiteboard into text, and then print it for students.

The Victorian education department is now trialing virtual classrooms - a computer accessible, online learning environment intended to fulfill many of the learning facilitation roles of a physical classroom. The Queensland Education Department has a similar concept in the Learning Place - a comprehensive online eLearning environment available to all staff and students with anywhere, anytime access through a dedicated portal.

Source: Sydney morning herald

 

The aim of the Digital Education Revolution (DER) is to contribute sustainable and meaningful change to teaching and learning in Australian schools that will prepare students for further education, training and to live and work in a digital world.  Through the DER, the Government is providing $2.2 billion over six years to completely revolutionalise the education system. $100 million is exclusively available for the further development of affordable, fast broadband for schools. Also the funds of up to $11.25 million of the total ($22.5 million) provided under the state and territory element of the Australian Government Quality Teacher Program (AGQTP) in 2009 were planned be directed to ICT-related school-based professional development for teachers.

Under DER in NSW, the New South Wales province in Australia is on a quest to outfit every Year 9 to 12 students with a customized Lenovo net book by 2012. It is expected that over 200,000 computers will be distributed to students and teachers. NSW Minister for Education and Training, Verity Firth says:“In a world first, Microsoft’s Windows 7 has been installed on every laptop which is  also equipped with $5,500 of the latest Microsoft and Adobe software and is wirelessly enabled to allow students to access the internet from anywhere within the school. NSW will also employ an additional 400 IT support officers to provide on-site assistance to students and teachers, providing more jobs in the current tough economic climate. The NSW Government has also invested $16 million over four years to provide secondary high school teachers with the same laptops, with another $10 million allocated for professional learning.”

 

Sources: Information extracted from Australian DEEWR, DER

 

IT IS-LTAR e-Collaborative Learning Management System

Aims and Objectives

Specific Objectives of the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative

• To provide ICT skills and knowledge to primary and secondary school students that will enable them to function in the emerging Information Society and Knowledge Economy;
  
• To provide teachers with ICT skills to enable them to use ICT as tools to enhance teaching and learning;
  
• To provide school managers with ICT skills so as to facilitate the efficient management and administration in the schools; and 
• To make every learner health literate.

Source: e_school , eafricacommission , 50x15 , infodev

In an effort to “connect” more students and youths to the information superhighway and boosting their capabilities the field of ICTs, DST Group and Ericsson signed an MOU in July 2009 to provide internet connections for some 4,000 students from four different schools in Brunei Darussalam. Tanjong Kindana Primary School, Berakas Secondary School, Pengiran Jaya Negara Pengiran Haji Abu Bakar Secondary School and Sayyidina Othman Secondary School were selected by the Ministry of Education to be part of this pioneer programme.

The four selected schools will be provided with fixed wireless terminals, high-speed data SIM cards and laptops. DST Group Go! Broadband service supports Internet Access of up to 7.2 Mbps. Schools will be able to enjoy seamless and fast Internet connection effortlessly, through top-notch infrastructure and high-speed wireless networks at any one place without cables or landlines. At the same time, educators will also be able to take e-learning out of the classrooms and enjoy instant speed and flexible deployment anywhere around within the schools premises. This mega project is in line with the Ministry of Education’s system that aims to equip students with the necessary skills to compete in the new economy namely the “Internet economy”.

Sources: Brunei FM, The Brunei Times

What is USPNet?

The e-learning initiative by Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) aims to modernize Vietnam's education system by 2011 and to provide opportunities for the country's teachers and students – especially those in remote and rural areas.The Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam and Viettel are collaborating on a project ‘education network’, which will allow 39,000 kindergartens, secondary and high schools to have free access to the Internet. These schools will also be exempted from installation fees. Notably, they will enjoy this free service forever. For provincial and municipal Departments of Education and Training, universities, colleges and vocational training schools (around 600 units), Viettel will collect a portion of monthly Internet charges.

The MOET is also in partnership with Intel Semiconductor Ltd. Vietnam to accelerate the MOET's e-learning initiative. Under “Computer for Schools” project, Intel and local technology companies will make available 1 million affordable PCs during the next 2 years. The program's objective is to provide all Vietnamese teachers with a PC with educational software and broadband Internet connectivity. The MOET and Intel also announced a contest to encourage 1 million teachers nationwide to create e-learning content. In Vietnam, Intel has cooperated with the MOET in the past too, to increase Internet-connected PCs and development of rich, localized content and software applications among local schools, teachers and students. These efforts include the donation of more than 1,900 PCs; training 43,000 teachers to date under the Intel® Teach program; and an intention to train an additional 15,000 teachers in the year 2009-2010.

Elead, ViOlympic and Bkis would bring the ‘Computer-for-schools’ program another breakthrough product ViOlympic. ViOlympic is the especially significant computer, meaningful for those who wish to compete in the ViOlympic contest by the Ministry of Education and Training. This is the unique series to have onboard ViOlympic software for practice mathematical problem solving. The computer is also installed Myeqtext- mathematics software to meet the requirements of pupils in general and ViOlympic contest in particular. ViOlympic computer ensures the safety and protection for pupils from negative impacts when accessing the Internet as it is pre-installed with copyright BkavPro 2009 Internet Security antivirus software, which is able to control and prevent access to websites of bad contents.

Sources: VUFO- NGO Resource Centre Vietnam, Intel News Release, FPT Newsroom

Singapore is taking massive steps to integrate ICTs into education in a variety of ways. The FutureSchools@Singapore program seeks to develop up to 15 schools with up-to-date teaching and learning methodology through utilization of ICTS in education system. It is a joint project of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) and vendors like Hewlett-Packard (HP), Singapore Technologies Electronics (ST Electronics), Microsoft, Singapore Telecoms (SingTel) are also involved actively in this project.

The Ministry of Education has also established its first interactive web-based Education and Career Guidance (ECG) portal for students. ecareers.sg is a project, jointly developed by the Ministry of Education and the Center on Education and Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Pilot-tested in 2009 in 18 secondary schools, 4 junior colleges and Millennia Institute, the portal received positive feedback on its overall user friendliness and up-to-date and comprehensive features. ecareers.sg was expected to be available to secondary and post-secondary schools by August 2009 and to primary schools by early 2010.

Ministry of Education (MOE), the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Microsoft Singapore, are also collaborating on BackPackLive! initiative. This initiative is an expansion of the previous five year IDA-Microsoft BackPack.NET initiative launched in 2003. BackPack.NET was the first education initiative where Microsoft, IDA and MOE collaborated to create a fundamental shift in the way a student experiences learning through the use of innovative Tablet PC (TPC)-based learning applications. The new collaboration will focus on inspiring, exploring and scaling innovative ICT practices among teachers. The Cyber Wellness Student Ambassador Programme, to promote safe and responsible use of Information-Communication Technologies (ICT) among students through peer education, is also a part of the BackPack LIVE! Education initiative. It plans to target students at Primary 4 and Secondary 2 levels, and was planned to kick off with 47 primary and 44 secondary schools in November 2009.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) is also working together with NCS Pte Ltd and Google to make available the Google Apps (Education version) suite of online communications and collaboration tools to more than 30,000 teachers and staff in over 350 schools in Singapore by end 2009. The successful implementation of this project would make MOE the first Ministry in Singapore to adopt an open standard cloud computing platform and the first in Asia to provide Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools to all teachers in the public school system.

From as early as 2010, the Next-Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) would also support education initiatives in Singapore such as Future Schools through high speed connectivity 1Gbps and beyond which would pave way for enhanced web-based interactive features in teaching and learning.

Source:Ministry of Education Singapore Press Releases

Michael Trucano praises Chile for introducing ICTs into education in a systematic manner. “Chilean experience is perhaps the most lauded and studied” he says. According to him Enlaces started off as connectivity pilot project, rooted in universities, not essentially limited to technology but incorporating teacher training and digital content, long before other such projects could implement these essentials. The initial Pilot was such a success that it led to immediate expansion into a national project of education ministry. To date 1100 schools participate in the project and nearly 110,000 teachers have participated in professional development courses. “The national education portal is considered a model by many other countries. By next year, the government projects that it will have a student: computer ratio of 10:1. Many other countries look at such figures with envy.”

Trucano says that being a primary model doesn’t guarantee sustained leadership, in particular, technology advancement keeps revolutionizing the role of ICTs in education. Trucano cites example of Uruguay’s roll-out of 1-to-1 computing for all primary students under Plan Ceibal. However, ever increasing computer density poses child safety issues.

Other useful resources:

Enclaces official site (in Spanish, English translation link in the post)

Technology in Schools: Education, ICT and the Knowledge Society [pdf]

Chile: Building the National Learning Network “Enlaces” [pdf]

Enlaces: The Chilean ICT Experience in Education [pdf]

Adapted fromFundacion Pais digital

SchoolNet is an initiative that promotes the effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in learning through supporting the connection of schools to the Internet and by creating a network of schools. The UNESCO SchoolNet project, “Strengthening ICT in Schools and SchoolNet Project in ASEAN Setting”, was initiated in recognition of the need to assist teachers in integrating ICT into teaching and to facilitate participation of teachers and students in the Asia-Pacific region in SchoolNet telecollaboration activities.

The project was launched in July 2003 and focuses on three subject areas, languages, mathematics and science. SchoolNet activities have been piloted in 24 schools in8 participating countries of the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) region: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam.

The UNESCO SchoolNet project aims to encourage use of ICT in teaching-learning, improve connectivity, expand access to the wealth of educational resources available via the Internet and establish and promote SchoolNet in the Asia-Pacific region. National coordinators facilitate project implementation in each participating ASEAN-region country. Project partners include Japanese Funds-in-Trust and ASEAN Foundation.

Source:UNESCO SchoolNet Project resource

The IT for Rural Schools Program was started in 1995, with the objective of minimizing educational inequality by providing rural school teachers, students, and children with disabilities with access to computer technology. The project covers some 72 rural schools across Thailand.

Launched in 1998, the Learn and Have Fun with CAI for Primary School Students Project has the main function of identifying quality CAI software from abroad for use in Thai primary schools, and integrating this software initially into three subject areas: math, science, and English. The project also includes staff development to train teachers in the full and effective use of the CAI software in their classes.

RH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn believes that if prison inmates are trained in skills that are of a practical use and in high demand, such as computer skills, they will have a better chance of finding a good job after their sentences are finished and of becoming good citizens of benefit to society. Acting on this belief, Her Royal Highness launched the IT for Inmates Program under the Princess’s IT Project. The Program began at Bang hen Central Women’s Prison at Khlong Prem in 1997. In 1992, the Technical Information Access Center under the National Science and Technology Development Agency hired the prison inmates to type Thai and English journal indexes. At present, numerous organizations offer the inmates typing jobs. Between 1992 and 2003, the inmates earned a combined total of approximately 160,000 baht in this way. Later, the prisoners also learnt computer graphics. At present, the average accumulated income generated as a result of this Program is about 50,000 baht per month.

In 2003, HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn provided an opportunity for the inmates to contribute to society by taking part in the production of audio books for the blind. This project came about through collaboration among three bodies: the Princess’ IT Project, the Thai Blind Association and Bangkhen Women’s Prison. Initially, some 47 inmates participated in the project, 35 of whom read, while the other 12 carried out audio editing using the computers. By the end of 2003, this group of inmates was expected to have produced a total of 1,000 hours of audio books.

Further details can be seen in this report. Source: UNESCO Bangkok online resources

Microsoft has recently developed a new technology - called MultiPoint – which has high potential to serve rural areas which have limited technology infrastructure and budget, to integrate technology in education. MultiPoint Mouse SDK applications allow schools to increase the number of students that can access technology in a classroom or lab, simply by plugging in an existing or new mouse per student. This product enables up to 25 children to simultaneously use and operate a single computer via multiple mice. This saves schools having to buy a separate PC for each child.

Applications built on the MultiPoint Mouse SDK can increase student learning comprehension through interactive methods. Applications built on the MultiPoint Mouse SDK can provide teachers with tools to gain real-time assessment information to help them provide a personalized learning experience for each of their students.

MultiPoint Mouse is already being used in 12 countries. Video demonstrating uses and benefits of MultiPoint Mouse can be seen here.

Born without arms and legs, Toyeeba Soumair, a girl from Narathiwat province, never thought that she would get a chance to explore the world of computers until she met HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn at Baan Plug Pla School 11 years ago. That moment changed her life."Since the young girl has no arms at all, we had to design a computer which has a special switch device, which allows her to easily perform mouse functions using her shoulder with just one click," Pairach Thajchayapong, the vice chairman of the Princess's IT project, said. IT for the Disabled Program under the Princess’ IT Project in Thailand is an exemplary project to provide assistance to students with disabilities through the use of technology.

In 1998, Srisangwan School became part of this project. Computers were placed in the regular classrooms, 10 in each for grades 1 to 6. The National Electronic and Computer Technology Centre (NECTEC) has provided training for teachers at Srisangwan School on how to assess the capabilities of disabled children in order to identify the most appropriate assistance for them, and on how to effectively utilize IT tools for working with disabled children. The school also receives support from physical therapists, speech therapists, special educationists, and computer instructors to create individual curricula to suit each child’s special needs and physical abilities. The computer skills of the students at Srisangwan School have been shown to be of the same standard as those of non-disabled students, and the teachers are capable of using computer-assisted instruction programs to support their own teaching.

Kawila Anukul School is a school for children with learning difficulties in Chiang Mai province. In addition to a computer workshop facility, the Program has also constructed an IT-assisted classroom at Kawila Anukull. In this classroom, computers are used as a teaching aid together with other technologies that make it possible for students with writing, speech, or learning difficulties to learn and develop necessary skills.

Source: Adapted from UNESCO Bangkok online resources

“Partners in Learning” is a global initiative designed to actively increase access to technology and improve its use in learning. Since its launch in 2003, Partners in Learning has touched the lives of more than 135 million students, teachers, and education policymakers in 101 countries.

Its program “Innovative Schools” helps schools around the world to move beyond the limits of the classroom and traditional learning models. For instance, In Singapore, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and Microsoft have initiated BackPack.NET, an ambitious five year program which encourages inquiry, creativity, and student-centered learning through advanced applications of technology in the classroom. It includes a pilot project that puts Tablet PCs into the hands of every student at a number of “pioneer schools.”

“Innovative Teachers” connects and empowers educators worldwide. For example, in India, Microsoft is working with education departments, colleges, and universities to incorporate pre-service information and communications technology (ICT) curriculum in a sustainable and scalable model. Already, 160,000 teachers and hundreds of teacher educators have been trained in ICT skills. The Innovative Teachers Network enables teachers to learn from one another and work collaboratively on new approaches to learning through national or region-wide portals. Today, on a daily basis, more than 400,000 teachers on 52 local networks connect and share ideas, practices, and professional development resources.

“Innovative Students” aims to provide students with access to programs and curriculum that help fully integrate technology into the learning process, both in school and at home. It also enables qualified governments to provide used computers and affordable software to underserved primary and secondary student households that aspire to own a PC. Microsoft is also supporting the Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) research project to contribute information and policy insights on effective education transformation.

Detailed information about Microsoft Partners in learning initiatives in five Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam can be found in this case study.
Source: Adapted from Microsoft Partners in Learning webpage and brochure.

Innovative use of ICTs in education ICTs are bringing revolutions in every aspect of our lives making us use technology more and more to get the best out of it. Use of ICTs in education is also creating a paradigm shift in our pedagogical methods by incorporating technology: exploiting its immense potential to invigorate the cognitive process of students; capitalizing on its ability to bridge distances and divides of time and resources, by providing equal opportunity for access; relying on its inherent capability for quick replication, in other regions – predicting that the future of education is highly coupled to technology incorporation.

Hundreds of projects are being carried out in the asia pacific region for innovative us of ICTs in education, only a few selected ones from south asia are being covered here. Dharkan 107.8 is an example of the use of radio for imparting education, general awareness and supporting health education in rural areas of Madhya Pardesh (India). Nokia’s LifeTools is an example of the ‘mobile application’ providing rural areas with services related to agriculture, education and entertainment. Digital StudyHall is a initiative combining traditional pedagogical methods with the digital recorded lectures disseminated through DVDs and small TV sets in rural areas (battery powered). UNESCO Jakarta’s (Indonesia) project to use open source software converting text to voice for visually impaired individuals is another outstanding example of how ICTs are facilitating special education. A similar project is being implemented in Pakistan for assisting the deaf through ICTs.

Google’s internet bus project is educating people about benefits of internet (education in particular) through a customized ‘internet enabled bus’ travelling from city to city. Egyankosh – a national repository, is preserving and sharing digital learning resources developed by institutions all over India and also collaborating with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and several other countries. “E-learning for Kids is a global, non-profit foundation dedicated to fun and free learning on the Internet for children ages five-to-12” providing short courses (in 5 different languages) on basic subjects e.g.Science, Mathematics, Language arts, etc and has outreached over million children in 80 countries. Solar powered ePods is an example of incorporating energy efficient solutions in education.

Metfone Viettel, a Cambodia-based affiliate of the Vietnamese military-owned Viettel Corporation, offers free internet services to schools in Cambodia.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) on “Metfone Internet in school and scholarship program”, valued up to 5 million USD, has been signed between Metfone and Cambodia’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) on December 29, 2009.

Following the MOU, from 2009 -2015, Metfone will provide free Internet connections and related equipments to all public schools, education centers, universities, colleges and MoEYS’s offices in Cambodia, totaling up to 2,000 access points. Moreover, under Metfone scholarship fund, hundreds of excellent pupils and students would be awarded scholarships worth 240 USD for two years (10 USD per month).

Also, in this MOU signing ceremony, 334 broadband internet connections were handed over as completion of phase 1, for schools, departments and computers for learning, teaching, managing and e-education purpose of Cambodia.

It is expected that by 2015, more than one million students and teachers will enjoy utilities and benefits upon the completion of the connections, generating new drive/stimulus for the development of education in Cambodia.

Source: Adapted from Foreign Press Center Vietnam

The Azerbaijani Education Ministry aims to connect 7,000 educational institutions to high-speed Internet as part of the "state program on informatization of education in 2008-2012", as declared by Education Minister Misir Mardanov on June 12, 2009.

The action plan of the state program includes improving material and technical base of educational institutions, equipping them with computer equipment, developing networks and intranet access to the Internet, creating electronic research tools in all disciplines, resource base of e-education (e-learning), Information and Resource Center in the application of ICT in education, a single educational portal, measures to promote distance education in the country, educational informatization management system, strengthening of human capacity and improving the regulatory framework.

Under this program, AZEDUNET is collaborating with Azerbaijan Ministry of Education and Ministry of Communications and IT, to connect all the educational institutions of the country to the unique high-speed internet network.

Through the state program, 500 schools in Baku and Sumgait were expected to be connected to Azerbaijan data and resource center till the end of 2009. By December 2009, 350 schools of the capital Baku and Sumgait were already connected to the center.

For the protection of moral and psychological state of schoolchildren, AZEDUNET Azerbaijan education network is also operating the web-content filtering system built on Web sense solutions. It filters websites included to limited category, and limits access to video audio files, harmful information searching in different languages over 60 categories in the search system. It gives the opportunity of providing maximum online protection to children from harmful content.

The Azerbaijan Education Ministry also plans to increase teachers' skills and computer literacy in the year 2010. “A mechanism has been created to improve teachers' skills”, Education Minister Misir Mardanov said at a press conference. According to the official, training sessions for primary school teachers in computer science and English would begin in 2010.

Source: Adapted from Trend News Agency (Azerbaijan)

Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development (SEED) shares science, education and technology with teachers and students around the world. SEED is a volunteer-based, non-profit education program focused to inspire, influence and enable educators in underserved communities where Schlumberger people live, and work to engage youth in science and technology.

The SEED School Network Program offers to disadvantaged schools located in developing countries the financial and technical assistance needed to connect them to the Internet. It provides computer hardware and software, internet connectivity and related services, educational resources, and future planning guidance. During the period of grant, SEED works in close collaboration with the participating schools to ensure the continuity of the program once the grant expires. To date, there are 248 schools serving more than 260,000 children in 42 countries.

SEED’s Educational Programs offer students and educators in SEED network schools hands-on workshops and online activities and projects using a project-based, Learning While Doing (LWD) approach. So far, total 58 school workshops have been conducted in 15 countries benefitting 1,490 students and 247 teachers, with global themes: Climate Change and Energy; Water. 78 projects have been in completed in 18 countries on topics like Waste collection, tsunami warning systems, automatic irrigation, smoke detection, earth science, robotics, and others

Its Online Science Center provides a broad range of educational resources and opportunities to learners and educators in seven languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

NASA Education Program, UNICEF and IEARN (International Education and Resource Network) are among many friends and partners of SEED program.

The department of Education (DepEd) in Philippines has joined hands with several private corporations and social organizations to launch DepEd Internet Connectivity Project (DICP). Under this program, DepEd has fully adopted and supported Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students (GILAS) project.

Launched on May 15, 2009, DICP aims to connect all the public schools in Philippines to internet as well as providing necessary training to teachers and students in about five years. Provision of electronic library system and integration of ICTS in all learning areas of curriculum are also on the target list of DepEd. So far, the project has already connected 2,375 out of 6,505 schools throughout the country.

Through DICP, Philippines was the first country to affiliate with ‘ICT for Education project’ of Intel. Globe Telecom, IBM, Microsoft Philippines, Apple South Asia, and Philstar.com are among many other partners of the program.

MSC Malaysia, conceptualized in 1996, is a national initiative by Malaysian government, to lead the nation towards fast evolving knowledge based economy using ICTS. Since its inception, MSC Malaysia has continued to bridge the digital divide through its flagship applications: MyKad, Telehealth, E-Government and Smart School.

The main objective of Smart School project, principally implemented by Ministry of Education, is to deploy latest information technologies to revolutionalise the education system. By the end of the pilot project in December 2002, 88 schools were connected, equipped with IT-trained teachers and integrated smart school management system. In 2006, a standardization process was deployed to measure the use of ICTs in all 88 smart schools.

The plan is to convert all 9000 schools in Malaysia to ‘smart schools’ by the end of 2010.