Towards Building Teachers’ Competencies to Leverage ICT and OER for Learning

On 6-7 March 2020, UNESCO Beirut, in partnership with the Center for Education, Research and Development (CRDP), organized a two-day conference titled “Towards Building Teachers’ Competencies to Leverage ICT and OER for Learning”, at the Coral Beach Hotel in Beirut.

The conference aimed to present current CRDP initiatives and orientations related to teachers’ technology competencies, to present UNESCO Information and Communication Technology Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT) and local Open Educational Resources (OER) strategies, and to engage in conversations with relevant partners regarding building teachers’ capacity to leverage technology for learning.

The event was attended by key education partners and stakeholders involved in teachers’ training and curriculum development.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Dr Nada Oweijan, CRDP Director, spoke of the necessity to integrate ICT and OER in curricula and teachers’ training, in order to deliver quality education and achieve SDG4. Dr Oweijan spoke of the efforts deployed by CRDP in this regard, and mapped out all the initiatives taken so far by the Center.

Then, UNESCO Beirut’s Programme Specialist for Communication and Information, George Awad, spoke of the importance UNESCO devotes to promoting knowledge societies as a means to support education for all and achieve sustainable peace. Awad highlighted the value of UNESCO’s ICT-CFT Framework for Teachers: “The UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT) is intended to inform educational policy makers, providers of professional learning and working teachers on the role of ICT in educational reform, as well as to assist Member States in developing national ICT competency standards for teachers”. He emphasized the value of using this framework in the context of Lebanon.

The various sessions, structured around experts’ presentations and working groups, covered a wide variety of topics, including: Contextualizing the ICT CFT in Lebanon; Open Educational Resources – UNESCO Initiatives; ICT CFT Harnessing OER Hub; CRDP strategy for educational resources.

The conference will result in a report compiling local initiatives related to building teachers’ competencies to leverage technology for learning, and local strategies and initiatives regarding the use and production of OER. Participants also agree on a road map of activities pertaining to OER and ICT-CFT in the Lebanese context.