The UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE) in partnership with St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation (SUAI) and its UNESCO Chair “Distance Education in Engineering” organized an International Conference “UNESCO Chairs Partnership on ICT Use in Education”. The Conference took place on 1-5 June, 2014 in St. Petersburg (Pushkin), Russian Federation within the XV International Forum “Modern Information Society Formation – Problems, Perspectives, Innovation Approaches”. The Institute expresses high appreciation to its partners from private sector – Cisco Ltd., АИР, GIVC-Technology, Dpi-Projects, and General Lockers for the support of the Conference.
This event was targeted to continuation of a dialogue forum on the innovation and higher education policy and reform, at assess and analyze the trends and issues as well as to identify the good practices, successful innovative initiatives and projects contributing to developing and strengthening sustainable, inclusive, and diversified systems and institutions for and with innovations.
The main objectives of the Conference were the following:
- to analyze the trends and issues of further UNESCO Chairs networking as well as to identify the best practices, successful innovative initiatives and projects contributing to developing and strengthening sustainable, inclusive and diversified systems and institutions for and with the innovations in the field of integration of ICTs and pedagogy, including OER, MOOCs and social media, focusing on relevant issues of education policy and standardization in education, teacher pre-service and in-service training, e- and mobile learning, ICTs and professional development in Higher Education;
- to exchange the best practices of the implementation of educational programmes for teacher and faculty professional development in the field of and by means of ICTs and innovative ICT integrated pedagogical methodologies including the ones based on IITE International Master Programme “ICTs in Teacher Professional Development” and its separate modules;
- to exchange the relevant experience and to define effective approaches to the development, implementation, use and dissemination of OER, MOOCs including the ones for teacher professional development based on UNESCO ICT-CFT;
- to discuss further development and refinement of UNESCO ICT-CFT according to the requirements of different sectors and levels of education;
- to define the most effective approaches to e- and m- Learning deployment in the context of accessibility of quality education and training;
- to discuss a concept of the new IITE – UNESCO Chairs Pilot Project “Knowledge and Innovations for the Future” (KIF) as a tool to improving the interaction inside UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs on ICTs in education and innovative pedagogy as well as outside with other UNESCO networks and their partners from public and private sectors.
The Сonference hosted 53 participants from 15 countries: UNITWIN/ UNESCO Chairs’ Chairholders and their representatives, high-level international experts, representatives of the universities’ authorities, teacher training institutions, researchers and practitioners involved in the use of ICTs in education and innovative pedagogy, IT-companies chiefs and their representatives (Cisco, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, etc.), as well as representatives of the UNESCO HQ and the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO. The events of the Forum joined 156 participants from 18 UNESCO Member States.
The opening ceremony began from the welcome addresses by Prof. Anatoly OVODENKO, Rector, Sankt – Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation; Chairholder, UNESCO Chair on Distance Education in Engineering, Russian Federation; Mr. Fengchun MIAO, Programme specialist in ICT, Team Leader for ICT in Education, Section for Teacher Development and Education Policies (ED/THE/TEP), UNESCO; Prof. Alexander KHOROSHILOV, National Programme Officer, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, who presented the welcome speech of Mr. Dendev BADARCH, UNESCO Representative in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation, Director of the UNESCO Moscow Office and UNESCO IITE Director a.i.; Mr. Grigory ORDZHONIKIDZE, Secretary-General, Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, Moscow, Russian Federation; Prof. Vladimir EGOROV, Head of Coordination Committee of UNESCO Chairs of the Russian Federation; Chairholder, UNESCO Chair “Public service and management of social and economic processes”, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Russian Federation; Prof. Nella PRUSS, National UNESCO ASPnet coordinator of the Russian Federation, Rector of the University of Management “TISBI”, Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in Training and Retraining of Specialists under Market Economy Conditions, Russian Federation.
The Plenary session “IITE Network of UNESCO Chairs on ICT in education and innovative pedagogy: experience and further development of cooperation on integration of ICT and pedagogy” was chaired by Mr. Dae Joon HWANG, Member of the UNESCO IITE Governing Board; Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Republic of Koreaand Prof. Alexander KHOROSHILOV, National Programme Officer, Chief of Section “Teacher Professional Development and Networking”, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education.
Section 1 “Cooperation of UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs in the field of ICT in education and Innovative Pedagogy for Sustainable Development” was chaired by Mr. Fengchun MIAO, Programme specialist in ICT, Team Leader for ICT in Education, Section for Teacher Development and Education Policies (ED/THE/TEP), UNESCO and Prof. Vladimir SILKIN, UNESCO Chair “Public service and management of social and economic processes”, Director of the Centre on Information-Communication and Mass-Media Management of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Russian Federation. Section 2 “Integration of ICTs into various sectors of higher education” – by Prof. Piet KOMMERS, Associate Professor, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands and Prof. Nodir ZAYNALOV, Chairholder, UNESCO Chair in Automated Information Technologies, Samarkand Institute of Economics and Service, Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
The Plenary session 2 “Topical Issues of ICT-Integrated Pedagogy” was chaired by Prof. Tapio VARIS, UNESCO IITE Governing Board member; Chairholder, UNESCO Chair in Global E-Learning with applications to multiple domains, University of Tampere, Finland and Prof. Alexander KHOROSHILOV, UNESCO IITE.
Section 3 “Professional Development in Education in the Field and by Means of ICTs” – by Prof. Gennady SELUTIN, Chairholder, UNESCO Chair on Educational Science and Teacher Training, Kazakh National Teacher Training University n.a. Abai, Kazakhstan and Prof. Charles HOPKINS, Chairholder, UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Teacher Education, York University, Toronto, Canada; Chairholder, United Nations University Chair.
Section 4 “Partnership of UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs, ASPnet and UNESCO-UNEVOC Centers” – by Prof. Simeon CAISIN, Director, Institute of Teachers’ Training and Re-Training, Republic of Moldova and Prof. Andrea KARPATI, Head of Centre for Science Communication, Faculty of Science; Chairholder, UNESCO Chair for ICT in Education, ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary.
The Round Table “New IITE-UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs on ICTs in education and innovative pedagogy Pilot Project ‘Knowledge and Innovations for the Future’” was chaired by Prof. Alexander KHOROSHILOV (UNESCO IITE).
In the framework of the Сonference the presentations of UNESCO IITE partners: CISCO Ltd., SAMSUNG, GIVC-Technology and HP – were carried out.
The Amendment to the Memorandum of Understanding on establishing of the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs network working in the field of ICTs use in education and innovative pedagogy was signed by new members – participants of the conference from Bulgaria, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation joined to the UNESCO IITE Network.
According to the results of the Conference and Forum relevant recommendations were adopted. In addition, in the framework of the events consultation meetings were held to discuss issues related to development of UNESCO IITE activities in accordance with the objectives and priorities of UNESCO for the period after 2015, in which Mr. Fengchun MIAO (UNESCO, ED/THE/TEP), members of the UNESCO IITE Governing Board Prof. Tapio VARIS (Finland) and Prof. Dae Joon HWANG (Republic of Korea), and Prof. Alexander KHOROSHILOV (UNESCO IITE) took part.
Besides, negotiations on the further development of UNESCO IITE cooperation with Cisco Ltd., Samsung and Hewlett-Packard were held.