EMBED 2012, the annual ICT in education exhibition, opened its doors yesterday at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta to thousands of students, teachers and parents who want to see feel how technology can make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun.
The investment represents the government’s vision for students
The event is organised by the Curriculum Management and eLearning Department (CMeLD) within the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education (DQSE) and the Directorate for Educational Services (DES), and this year’s running theme is Maltese history.
For the second time round, the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) is co-funding this event with the education directorates and with other private sector players who have sponsored in some shape and form the setting up of this six day long marathon of hands-on use of technology in teaching and learning.
“MITA takes an active role at EMBED by hosting a booth and a series of workshops,” explained Fabianne Ruggier from MITA. “This year, we have partnered with the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta to entertain groups of students and show them how to create games, stories and other interactive productions using free online and simple programming tools.
“We have also, in anticipation of EMBED, launched a programming competition with students in secondary schools and we will be giving these student teams the opportunity to showcase their games, productions on the booth to other visiting students and educators. Through the eSkills Alliance we have pooled in a number of sponsors to support this competition, including the Ministry for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications, Crimsonwing, Microsoft, Alert Communications and Computer Solutions. We will jointly be offering exciting prizes for all the participating students and educators,” added Ms Ruggier.
During the weekdays EMBED is mainly open for students from primary and secondary schools across the country, and everyone gets the chance to interact with technology through various activities based on the use of the latest technologies, including interactive whiteboards, robotics, videoconferencing, programming, and multimedia.
At the weekend EMBED is open to the public and offers an opportunity to understand better how technology is enabling an enriched education for everyone. At the Mita booth parents can, for example, appreciate more closely the government’s recent investment of €8.6 million in the new e-learning platform called ‘iLearn’ which is being rolled-out in primary and secondary school.
The e-learning platform is a technology tool that gives students access to high-quality interactive learning content and online services. It also provides educators with the means to create and maintain their teaching resources online in a purposely-created class space.
“The investment represents the government’s vision for students, educators and parents to benefit from top-notch technology tools to enable continuous improvement in the resources and materials utilised in class and accessible from anywhere,” reiterated MITA.
“Having a strong appreciation of the impact and effect of technology in education will enable Malta to continue in its quest of strengthening further its human resource base. Having more students skilled in the use of technology means an improved opportunity for Malta to create a stronger future ICT workforce. In turn, having a stronger ICT resource pool means having more innovative applications of technology in health, in manufacturing or tourism and therefore more sophisticated products and services for the Maltese population, tourists and for local businesses to sell abroad and increase their market-share.
“Having more students and individuals capable of maximising the potential of ICT to learn, absorb knowledge and self-develop means a more educated population. These indicators are two important criteria for an economy that is strong and capable of being agile and adaptable to changing business and economic realities.”
EMBED will be open to the public at the Mediterranean Conference Centre on Saturday (from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and Sunday (from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6p.m.).
www.mita.gov.mt