Gathering new ideas for future e-learning

The Global Teenager Project was initiated by IICD in 1998 to introduce international interactive e-learning among secondary schools. To date more than 262 schools in 32 different countries take part in the project connecting 6,600 students. The project is supported by various partners in different countries. In the past year GTP Ukraine formalised local collaboration with a private sector company Intel. GTP Egypt managed to gain more support from the Ministry of Education. Each year monitoring and evaluation is carried out globally to see whether the project still meets its demands and to resolve potential issues. The outcomes are discussed at the annual JKF event.

This year’s meeting took place in Cairo, Egypt, where GTP coordinators from Romania, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, South Africa, The Netherlands, Zimbabwe to Macedonia gathered. One of the issues that came out of this year’s debate on the evaluation results was that GTP should do more with the influence of current trends, like ‘chat’ in its programme. The evaluation results also showed that rural participation is still an issue. Therefore GTP should find ways to include more rural participants in the programme as the current number of participants from these areas is quite low. Another suggestion is that GTP should also try to become part of the national curriculum.

The way forward
The JKF meeting was also a good opportunity to organise a two-day Scenario Planning workshop to develop future scenarios for GTP. A Scenario Planning workshop helps participants to think laterally - without any restrictions on implementation issues and local contexts.

During the Scenario Planning workshop participants were initially asked to come forward with ideas and dreams about the future of ICT within international education. Participants had to consider their ideas within local contexts and the feasibility of them within a time frame of 13 years. The use of innovative techniques was particularly encouraged. Business plans were made in teams, which stimulated collaborative activities between several different countries. Out of all the business plans submitted, the three best proposals will be selected and carried out with support from GTP managers.

Plans 2007-2008
For the year 2007-2008 the implementation of an Arabic Learning circle is on the agenda, along with the use of Web 2.0 throughout some learning circles, the implementation of Primary Learning Circles and activities supporting quality control within GTP.