IITE took part in the Brainstorming Session on Intercultural Dialogue and Education UNESCO/World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations”, organized in UNESCO HQ in Paris on April 2-4, 2012.
The World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations”, with which UNESCO has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, has solicited the technical assistance of UNESCO to organize a two-and-a-half-day brainstorming session to discuss educational methods and contents on intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity in the primary and secondary school systems.
The session included presentations from, and sharing of experiences with, UNESCO programme sectors, the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, the association Initiatives et Changement, and the educators from pre-school, primary and secondary levels in non-state educational institutions of the RZD (“Russian railways”) educational system. Areas of focus included inter alia guidelines for curriculum development, elaboration of teaching materials, use of ICTs in pedagogy, use of best practices, and capacity building.
Prof. Alexander Khoroshilov and Ms. Ekaterina Kuzina (UNESCO IITE) jointed their colleagues during an online session on April, 3, and the former delivered a presentation on the approaches to ICT usage in teaching intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity and on relevant IITE projects. Among them, “Teachers of the Arctic”, “Learning for the Future”, IITE publications on ICT usage for protection and promotion of indigenous knowledge, development of media and information literacy.
This brainstorming session will also contribute to the implementation of the RZD “Schools of the dialogue of cultures” project which aim is to educate children in the spirit of tolerance and respect towards those who belong to other cultures.