Jeff Piontek speaks at the College of the North Atlantic about the importance of information and communication technology in engaging students
Educators from across Qatar are taking part in the fourth annual ‘Exploring Information and Communications Technology in Education Conference’, hosted by the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) and the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNAQ).
Regional and international experts yesterday gave lectures and conducted interactive workshops on a range of topics addressing how technology can help improve education. The three-day conference is being held at the CNAQ campus.
“Educators across Qatar are finding innovative ways to bring the benefits of information and communication technology into their classrooms. They are creating engaging digital content, preparing lesson plans collaboratively through wikis, bringing lessons to life through gaming and increasing parental involvement through new learning platforms. This conference is an excellent opportunity for these educators to share their experiences with their peers and discover the latest thinking in ICT and education,” said Khawar Iqbal, Digital Inclusion Manager at ictQATAR.
Jeff Piontek from the Hawaii Technology Academy was the keynote speaker at the opening session of the conference. He said the “global learners of today will be the global leaders of tomorrow. Current technology trends are affecting our personal and professional lives, our youth and elderly, our learning institutions, the nature of teaching and learning and our definition of intelligence itself.”
He encouraged teachers to be engaged in technology and new media, saying “sooner or later you will probably have to learn the lingo, otherwise you will have no idea what students are saying to one another behind your back.”
Other lectures at the conference addressed e-content for education, privacy, digital content rights and digital citizenship.
The interactive workshops in the afternoon provided teachers with an opportunity to experiment with some of the new ICT in education models and discover ways to integrate it into their classrooms. Topics covered in the workshops included Web 2.0, critical thinking, technology and mathematics, universal design learning, cyber safety, podcasting and collaborative online tools.