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SubscribeNationwide Festival Celebrates Technology and Education
October 2004
Students from Montgomery Blair High School
chat
online with Uzbek students
On September 18, more than 15,000 people took part in the School Connectivity for Uzbekistan National Internet Festival. This 12-hour event, organized by IREX and conducted at the program’s 60 Educational Internet Centers (EICs), aimed at sharing the benefits of informational technology with a broad public audience.
For more than three months, school administrators, teachers, and students had been planning a wide range of events which demonstrate the use of the Internet and the resources of their EICs to their communities. From 8am to 8pm throughout the School Connectivity network, students performed concerts, teachers conducted open lessons, program staff trained new users, and all center visitors had the opportunity to participate in a series of hourly forums on the connect.uz site.
Notable among festival guests included US Ambassador to Uzbekistan Jon R. Purnell, whose presence helped set a record on the connect.uz site, as more than 110 users participated in a live forum about US-Uzbekistan relations. Other online guests included five officials from the Ministry of Public Education, who participated in a forum with more than 90 participants on plans for educational reform in Uzbekistan; and Bahram Ismailov, the director of the State Testing Center, who discussed the university entrance exams with teachers and students.
Events conducted at the program’s centers in addition to the all-day trainings and site demonstrations evinced the creativity and potential of the Internet as an educational tool. I*EARN clubs at each school presented their accomplishments and ongoing collaborative projects to parents and community members. Web design clubs presented the more than 100 sites created through the program. Students at many schools invited US government exchange program alumni to discuss their experiences and opportunities for participation.
Individual schools also planned hundreds of unique events. Ferghana School No. 15 organized a fair at which students demonstrated customs and traditions from Uzbekistan’s regions about which they had learned on the Internet, and then baked recipes representing each region’s cuisine. Teachers and students at Namangan School No. 48 put on an exhibition of handicrafts and toys created through a School Connectivity program Student Initiative Project. Ferghana School No. 4 conducted a drawing competition for kids 10 years old and under using the Windows Paint program. School No. 33 in Nukus conducted a “Miss Internet” competition in which girls participated in a competition in computer skills and Internet searching.
Centers also each hosted an Internet Bake Sale fundraising event; students and parents baked recipes found on the Internet and then collected funds for center maintenance. Altogether, schools raised more than $900 with Nukus Gymnasium No. 1 setting the pace by collecting more than $80.
Live hourly events hosted on the program’s sites included meeting with US exchange alumni from educator and student programs, a discussion with parents of uses of the Internet for the family, and a forum where Internet Bake Sale participants posted their favorite recipes.
The day concluded with a live forum between students in the United States and Uzbekistan to discuss student life. Over 40 students from both countries participated, including students from John Muir Alternative School in San Diego, California; Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland; Stone Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia; and Northside College Preparatory High School in Chicago, Illinois.
“The conversation with the Uzbekistan students was awesome. It was so much more realistic to actually be speaking with people our age than to just being taught the information. I would love to do more stuff related to this,” remarked Lea Savard- McNicoll of Montgomery Blair High School.
Throughout the day, visitors at all centers could follow events throughout the network by visiting the festival’s site at www.connect.uz/fest.php where they could view constantly updated photo galleries from each region, check a schedule of upcoming activities, see realtime statistics of center and website visitors, and leave their comments on a public feedback board. In addition, seven web-cams followed festival events throughout the day, giving participants the chance to view live events in all program regions and the Tashkent office.
The success of the Internet Festival will undoubtedly result in a renewed energy and enthusiasm for the academic year as schools and communities throughout Uzbekistan become more involved in the School Connectivity program.
To see a full gallery of photos from the day, please visit www.connect.uz/gallery/index.php? cat=26.