Ministry of Education launches new educational platform

Muscat: The Ministry of Education, represented by the Department of Educational Information, launched the new educational platform on Tuesday. The launching comes on the sidelines of the second day of Oman Science Festival 2019.

HE Sheikh Mohammed Al-Toobi, Councilor of the Ministry of Education, said: The new educational platform comes as a substitute to the educational forum working since 2002. The project comes from the need to keep up with the new technological developments to create an interactive environment on a large scale to disseminate and communicate information to the largest segment of our students and all employees of the educational process and society in general.”

The second day of the festival began with a discussion session under the title “The Role of STEM in Promoting Learning in the Light of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”

The discussion session included five papers presented by various institutions. Mark Langley from STEM Center at York University in UK, presented the first paper titled “Supporting STEM Education: How Rolls-Royce and the STEM Ambassador network effectively engages primary and secondary education with STEM industries, leading to a wider benefit to society”. Siham Al Saidi, teacher at Al Batinah North Governorates presented the second paper titled “STEM Oman: Omani experience of STEM program”. The third paper came under the title: “An Introduction to Makers Oman presented by Dr. Peter Mason from Makers Oman. Dr. JP Keener Director for Mathematics, Science and STEM program in the State of Florida in US presented a paper titled “In Search for the Perfect STEM”. Paul Landers presented the last paper titled “The Potential of 5G to transform STEM skill development”.

The festival also held a second discussion session in the afternoon under the title “Supporting and Promoting Science and Innovation” and it included four papers. The first paper came under the title “Science and innovation in a changing world” delivered by Erick Jacquemyn, a leading expert in science centers, innovation centers and interactive scientific museums. Dr. Daniel Glaser, a neuroscientist and founding director of Landon Science Fair presented the second paper. Dr. Charles Troutman, visiting researcher at Cornell University and fomer director of the Ithaca Science Center in New York, presented the third paper titled “Brain Science: The Key to Successful in the 4^th Industrial Revolution”. The fourth paper came under the title “The National Strategy for Research and Development 2040” presented by Dr. Jameela Al Harthi, Project manager of the National Strategy for Scientific Research and Development 2040 at the Research Council.

It is worth mentioning that visitors of Oman Science Festival 2019 expressed their excitement and benefit from the festival. Aisha Al-Wahibi, a visitor to Oman Science Festival said that the festival brings learning and entertainment gathered in all corners of this festival based on the use of modern technology. I came to know many educational games presented in a fun and interesting way, as well as many fascinating projects in photography and artificial intelligence. Thuraiya Al Qasmi, an IT teacher from Al-Fath School for Basic Education said, “The atmosphere of the festival is very wonderful and inspiring. Being an IT teacher, the technological presentations gave me many ideas to develop my way of teaching lessons, so thank you to everyone for organizing this festival.”