 Mohammad, can you tell us about your participation in the conference and what issues are you going to discuss in your lecture or workshop that you're going to present in the conference? I will be talking about a variety of topics and a very important one is how to use mobile devices in learning, especially for the new generation of students. Because the new generation of students, they already have the mobile technology. So what we need to do is to utilize those technologies in the learning process. Also the new generation of learners, they need different teaching strategies and one example of that, they need to know how to use games. So we should be looking at how can we use games in the education system so that we can engage students. It's very critical. And also we need to empower the students with the technology because the students are inquisitive. They like to explore and so we should give them the opportunity to actually use the technology to explore so that they can learn on their own. It's very, very important. So how do you predict students will respond to the mobile learning technique? Have you ever tried it or what do you think the reception will be in Arab countries for this technique? My observation in North America is the students already use the mobile technology for interaction, for social interaction. So we need to convert that into more academic interaction. But one of the challenges in the Middle East and the Arab countries is to convince the parents to get the students to use the mobile technology. Because the parents don't have an idea of what's the mobile technology, how you can use it for learning. So it's a big challenge. How do you convince the parents and the teachers of the benefit of mobile technology? So we welcome you here today in the ISD Education Conference and we'd like to know your participation, what topics are you going to tackle in the conference and tell us more about your participation. I'm Mala Bauer. I'm the Executive Director of CyberSmart. And we provide online professional development to teachers and a free curriculum to students to empower them to use the internet safely, responsibly and effectively. I'll be speaking today about looking at the issue of cyber safety and recommending that we look at it from a paradigm within an educational context as opposed to a law enforcement context. So that our discussion is framed around what can we do to support ICT literacy and learning and teaching as opposed to a framework where we're discussing the dangers of the internet. So this cyber security topic, what are the most important issues within this framework are you going to tackle in your workshop or presentation that you're going to give? Well, what I'm doing is giving a quick overview of what's happened in the United States over the past 10 years where the discussion is really focused on the dangers of the internet, brightening the parents, the teachers and the children and resulting in an ineffective response so that the kids really aren't more safe online. And in fact what's happening in the United States is the response is preventing the schools from embracing the excitement and power of the online resources and online tools that we could be using to give our children a much better education. So I'll be speaking about looking at it very differently so that we can make our children safe online and empower them to select the most appropriate resources and do the most effective research without saddling them with this really ineffective notion of fear, which research has shown is actually not in fact what's happening with children. Please tell us about your participation today in the ICT in Education Conference and what topics you're going to discuss in your lecture or workshop. Well, we're going to look at one-to-one computing through the eSchoolbag project and look at the theory behind it, the practical aspects of it, using it through maths, English and science. And the research that shows how valuable using one-to-one laptops are. So are you going to compare your experience in other non-Arab countries and apply it to the Arab world or what are you going to... Yes, one of the things that we're going to stress is how important it is to, with one-to-one laptops, all the work that should be done should be actually linked back to the children, to their culture, to their homes and families, that they start from where they know before sort of exploring the outside world. Thank you very much. So how can you predict the reception that Arab students can have to an eSchool project and how can the education system in the Arab world be receptive to this or not? Well, our experience, although very brief, my colleague Angela and I, I think we're finding that the schools are extremely receptive to the concepts of using technology effectively in their classrooms. And the experience with the one-to-one laptop programs in schools so far has been well received by both students and teachers. So what requirements does any school require to have such an eSchool program integrated in its educational system? I think what we're finding and what research is telling us is that a few things need to be in place for a successful one-to-one laptop program. First of all, you need very dedicated teachers, which we definitely have here in Qatar. And you need very, very strong leadership that can support those teachers. And of course you need children who are really keen and enthusiastic and that's very evident as well. So we thank you for your time and we hope you're best of luck today in the presentation. Lynn Thomas from Cognition Consulting. So I'm from New Zealand, but we're up here working with the independent schools. And my workshop is creating digital stories to enrich literacy because I feel the whole is the multimedia and all the ICT is very motivating for students learning. And I find the whole digital story thing, getting students to write and that whole flow of story writing using the computers. They still do their planning off the computer, but they put it together in a multimedia way. So using all the tools of ICT, so you've got your recording, your voice and getting your images and things like that. So how is the education system in your country, New Zealand different from here, about the infrastructure and about how can you see the reception to technology here as opposed to your country? I think you've got a huge amount of technology here. So you've got the infrastructure equipment wise. For us back home, we haven't probably got so much of the technology in all those computers. So you've got the network systems here. It's just making good use of it. And I think it's about just upskilling teachers and getting them to have confidence to use this equipment with the students. So you don't get that until they feel confident to use it. Once the teachers are confident and have lots of ideas, then they'll go with it. So for us, we're a little bit further down the track, but I think it's just those steps and it'll all happen. You've got the equipment, so I think good things will be happening. Hopefully. Thank you very much for your partnership. Certainly. My name is Douglas Butler. I'm a mathematics teacher from England. And after many years, we decided that it's possible to visualise mathematics in exciting ways. And we've developed a software called Autograph, and I'll be showing that here at this conference. It is actually the first software, I believe, that does full right to left Arabic notation for mathematics. But we also do it in a version which has western left to right mathematics notation, but the Arabic interface. Because I think many of the teachers here are struggling to teach mathematics in English, but it's not their first language. It's a particularly difficult subject to teach in your own language, I always think. So to teach in a foreign language needs every help they can get. And that's one of the reasons I'm here today, is to show this new version. So in your opinion, how can ICT help in simplifying mathematics or making it more appealing to children? Oh, it's amazing. When I show these graphical images, which are dynamic images, to adults, they nearly always say, ah, if only I'd had that approach when I was at school, I might have understood what on earth was going on. There are a lot of hidden depths to mathematics. It's the most fascinating subject. It's the one you never stop learning about. But I always feel that the clever children get it anyway. It's the next layer down. They peel off because they just can't see what's going on. But now with graphical images like Autograph can present, they can zoom in. They can look in detail. They can vary parameters. And not only in two dimensions, but also in three, which is really difficult to imagine on a two-dimensional board. But the third dimension is just fantastic. So we wish you best of luck today, and thank you for participating in the conference. You can currently introduce yourself and the topics you're going to discuss today. My name is Agent Blight. I'm from Education Impact in the UK. I'm going to be talking today about emerging technologies in education. Primarily I'm going to be looking at what are the drivers for change in education and how technology can support that as an enabler towards transformed learning. So we'll be looking at some strategic planning situations. We'll be looking at some actual technology solutions that you can use in schools to transform assessment, transform curriculum, transform teaching and learning approaches in general. It's rooted in the work of people like the OECD and UNESCO and people think tanks such as FutureLab and the Horizon Report in the USA. So it's focused on research-based methodologies transforming education by using technology. How do you think the Arab world, like Qatar, is receptive to technology versus the other developed countries? I think very receptive. I think the Middle East in general, if I can use that phrase to cover the Gulf States as well, I think is aware of the process we call leapfrogging which is looking at what's happened elsewhere, maybe in Western Europe, maybe in Asia-Pacific region where countries have tried and perhaps failed with integrating technology and they can leapfrog over those mistakes. And I think there's that awareness of looking around, exploring what's happened in other countries, taking the best bits, ignoring the worst bits and maybe saving money and time in the long run. Thank you very much for your time. I'm at the conference because I was asked by ICT-Katarafo present on the KnowledgeNet project which is a big project in Qatar to implement a learning platform eventually with all schools in Qatar. I think the conference is fantastic. We've got a lot of international speakers here so it should be interesting and informative but it's also really nice that we're showcasing one of Qatar's very exciting projects which is also, I would say, a leading international project. So what are the key benefits of Knet that it would create for people, for school teachers and students as well as parents? How can it benefit both? So there's different benefits for different groups in the schools. Between teachers and students there are opportunities for more engaging, motivating learning opportunities and with parents there's better communication between the school and the home and parents can get more engaged and involved in their child's learning and then also as a communication tool it can help streamline and make communication much more efficient in the schools. We wish you best of luck and thank you very much. My name is Sanjay Sharma. I'm from WSPA Genova in the UK and I'm going to be talking about success stories from the UK in terms of how ICT has been implemented in schools. So that's what I'm going to be covering. So how do you think the Arab world is receptive to ICT versus the more developed countries? Well, I think at the moment here in Qatar actually it's kind of moving at a pace that is probably not an existence here in the Middle East. I think what would be interesting is to see what people's perceptions are to the material that I'm going to talk about today. I'd be tempted to say that you're probably a couple of years behind, particularly around developments to do with CPD, maybe developments around looking at how you can engage parents in terms of things like real-time reporting. And of course in the UK we've got a big building programme which is unparalleled in the entire world. So I'd be tempted to say that there's a lot that can be learnt from the UK but at the same time the starting points are quite good. So what success stories are you going to speak about? Can you just give us a hint about what you're going to speak about? I'm going to really try and focus on three schools in the UK, one where I was an assistant head teacher for about seven years. I did some research for Bektiv and the secondary national strategies in the UK about two years ago. And from that what we looked at was what makes a school successful with ICT. So essentially what I'm going to be talking about is the journey that we've gone through with schools in the UK and then to try and summarise some of the key points that people can take away over here to start to define what their journeys might look like. So I'm talking about some of the best schools in the UK. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Okay, my name is John Dabrow. I come from work in London, northeast London. And today I'm going to be talking about how we can use the tools that we use in the school that I work to help communication and learning experiences for children who are experiencing behaviour difficulties. So they're traditionally children who don't work within the mainstream school and we have to find alternative and sometimes innovative ways of engaging them in the learning process.