Jordan Times
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Intel launches Teach to the Future curriculum
By Ruba Saqr
AMMAN — Intel Corporation, the international computer-manufacturing giant, announced on Wednesday the launch of the Jordanian Intel Teach to the Future curriculum — an educational tool to substitute the “chalk and board” in schooling, with computer-based learning.The curriculum, which is designed to aid an 80-hour course to “connect” school teachers with the latest technological teaching techniques, comes on the heels of the “revolutionary” integration of IT-learning into the Kingdom's schooling system, according to Intel officials.
“We succeeded in training 5,000 teachers, a number we never thought was possible for a start-up programme,” said Bassem Nasir, Intel's education programme manager in Jordan.
Last year, the Ministry of Education and Intel launched the Teach to the Future programme, as part of the Intel Innovation in Education initiative — aimed at bringing IT to 3,000 teachers from 12 directorates in Amman.
The gender-aware programme, from which 2,500 female teachers graduated, helps educators and students to incorporate IT into the class-room to increase the effectiveness of the learning process.
According to Martina Roth (the programme's director in Europe, the Middle East and Africa), the introduction of the Teach to the Future curriculum was tailored to suit local classroom needs.
“The effect of this educational revolution will be sensed in the classroom [as] the whole life of students and teachers alike will be changed,” Roth told The Jordan Times.
Never before were students reported to have showed such enthusiasm in working with their teachers, who took part in the Intel IT teaching programme, she noted.
Roth explained the acquired IT literacy will enable students to compete in a knowledge-based economy and hop on the bandwagon of technologically-connected labour markets.
Instead of staying with archaic teaching methods, visual aids in schools will take a more technological twist, said Ziad Nsour, the programme's director at the Ministry of Education. Power Point presentations can now substitute pen and paper and are expected to help students get acquainted with tools they will have to use.
In 2005, Nsour said, the Kingdom will have 16,000 IT-trained teachers, with the Ministry of Education's higher aim to link the entire schooling system to IT.
Next, Intel is expected to launch a similar programme in Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Some of the trainers will be Jordanian teachers and instructors who graduacted from the progarmme here.
Intel's success in Jordan, Roth said, is due to the country's IT vision, launched by His Majesty King Abdullah to transform the Kingdom into a thriving economic engine.
“Jordan is the first Arabic country we worked with and the results were astounding,” Roth concluded.