9-14.10.2006 Training in Gliwice

From 9 to 14 October in Gliwice, Poland, intensive training sessions for the Ukrainian work group were conducted. The group included 14 people, teachers, methodological specialists, trainers, and representatives of boards of education and non-profit educational organizations from various areas of Ukraine. Over a five day period, specialists in the field of education had intensive assignments in theory and practical use of the methods of Teach-IT.net, they discussed among themselves and spoke with Polish teachers who are raising their professional qualifications according to this method. At the end of the training, the Ukrainian educators formed a working group for the project, underlined the plan of the next events in the execution of Teach-IT.net, and divided up assignments and obligations among themselves.

As the participants of the training sessions themselves admitted, the project Teach-IT.net is distinguished from other similar projects in that it is planned for the long-term. As a rule, educational projects last for an exactly decided time and end when deadlines and financing are finished. Teach-IT.net is in this sense essentially different, inasmuch as it envisages the separation of the project from the foreign partner and securing one’s own sources of financing. During the training, the Polish side more than once emphasized that the executors of the project in Ukraine should have “a feeling of ownership” regarding the project, which envisages adaptation and changes in the Ukrainian version of Teach-IT.net, according to the conditions of Ukrainian educational law and the system of education.

This will lead to the development of unique educational methods that will be a synthesis of various educational programs that have been developed and personal experience of applying information technologies in education. It is important to note that one of the main goals of the project is the creation and confirmation of changes in the educational standards of the system of education of Ukraine. In particular, knowledge and skills in using information technologies should be introduced as necessary components for the qualifications of a teacher.

On 8 December 2006 as part of the project, a conference will be held on issues of the timeliness of informational education in Ukraine, the need to spread knowledge of information technologies among teachers and, through the mediation of teachers, to introduce appropriate standards in the qualification of teachers and to provide the Ukrainian teacher with the motivation to study and use information technologies. The conference will be held on 8 December 2006 with the participation of Ukrainian and foreign specialists, and also representatives of international agencies, educational organizations, embassies and the media.

The initiative comes from non-government organizations: the KANA Catholic Youth Education Center (Gliwice, Poland) and the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine) are carrying out the project. The successful activities of KANA in Poland, its weighty influence of the decision of Poland’s Ministry of Education, witnesses to the activeness of non-government organizations. This gives hope that the cooperation begun in this field with the Ukrainian Catholic University will also bear fruit in the general national horizon of Ukraine.