Participated at UNESCO CASIE 2013

Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan – On January 28-30, 2013, Prof. Shinobu Yume Yamaguchi, Prof. Jun-ichi Takada, and master student John Auxillos participated in the Central Asia Symposium on ICT in Education: Innovative ICT Practices on Lifelong Learning Practices organized by UNESCO Bangkok (Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education), with financial support from the Government of Japan, and in collaboration with Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech).

The symposium aimed to be a platform for practitioners, policymakers, academics, and development partners to share their best practices, issues, and challenges in the central asian region where many countries share similar nomadic characteristics.
The conference was kicked-off with a keynote by Mr. Chang, Chief of the Education Policy and Reform Unit in UNESCO Bangkok, where he suggested that lifelong learning is not a new concept, citing several philosophers from Socrates to Einstein who were lifelong learners. He also suggested that there is a need for a comprehensive approach to improve the access and quality in the school system, and the need to improve the environment to promote lifelong learning.
During the two and a half day conference, delegates from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Mongolia each gave a country report on their current practices, policies, and challenges they are facing with the use of ICT in Education.
Prof. Shinobu Yamaguchi and Prof. Takada also presented Open Source Software to Promote Lifelong Learning among Teachers, where they gave an overview of their intervention in Mongolia to introduce Scratch as a tool for teachers to create teaching material.
Some of the take away ideas from the conference include 1) the clear differences between policy and implementation, 2) the importance of a clear funding mechanism for education initiatives, 3) the importance of data collection, utilization, and analysis for policymaking, 4) the importance of adopting pedagogy with the use of ICT, and finally 5) the recognition that introducing ICT is changing cultures.
For more information about the symposium, please visit: http://www.unescobkk.org/en/education/ict/ict-in-education-projects/policy/central-asia-symposium-on-ict-in-education-casie-innovative-ict-practices-on-lifelong-learning/