 Mr. Mohamed, can you tell us about your participation in the conference and what issues are you going to discuss in your lecture 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, in 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? 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 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, frightening 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. We will attend your presentation and we hope you best of luck today. Please tell us about your participation today at 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, so that they start from where they know before 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. Thank you very much. Thanks. 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, 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 in 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 participation. Thanks a lot. Can you kindly introduce yourself and tell us about the topics you're going to discuss today in the conference? 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 will 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 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 and amic 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. Thank you very much.