October 2007

  Interview with SAF sponsors:
ParsOnline

ParsOnline is one of the most important and valued sponsors of SAF. Most of the schools and educational centers within the SchoolNet network have access to the internet via the Pars Online Network.

Mr.Abdollah Fateh is the managing director of ParsOnline and a member of the SAF board. This is an interview with him:

SAF: What is the mission of ParsOnline?
Abdellah Fateh: "Pars Online was established 8 years ago in 1999; at that time, we provided our customers with email and dial up services. From the beginning, our aim was to create a National Telecommunication Network. Our focus from the start was to build infrastructures and not get involved with content.

Fortunately the ITC's (Iran Telecommunication Company) policy of outsourcing data communication to non-governmental companies helped us on our way. Pars Online currently has the following licenses from ITC:

1. ISP (Dial Up Services)
2. ISDP (Dedicated bandwidth distribution)
3. VoIP (Voice over IP services such as long distance calling cards)
4. PAP (DSL Services)
5. WiMAX (Wireless Broadband Services)
6. SAP (Satellite Communication Services)
7. IDC (Internet Data Center)

After building the network, we realised the need for a National Data Center in order to keep local traffic within Iran and not have to send all of our customers’ Internet requests abroad. Our Data Center is located in Pardis Technology Park near Boom-e-Hen, northwest of Tehran. We currently have over 1,600 square meters of floor space available for hosting and collocation services.

We believe that with this final license we can position ourselves as a national data communication provider and provide any infrastructure requirement that our customers in Iran might have.

SAF: In how many cities can individuals or companies make use of your services?
Abdellah Fateh: "We provide services for home users, companies and institutes in 34 cities in 21 provinces in Iran. We currently have over 100,000 ports installed in the network in more than 200 telephone exchanges across the country.

SAF: When and how did you start your collaboration with SAF?
Abdellah Fateh: "The first time we gave internet connection to SAF was on 4th of September 2001 (6 years ago). I had been introduced to Dr.Tabesh and Prof. Edalat and through them we came to know SAF, its activities and projects. Ever since then, we have worked closely with SAF and have been eager to cooperate with it. Our first DSL connection to SAF was 3 years ago."

SAF: Could you please explain your role as one of the main sponsors of SAF?
Abdellah Fateh: "We believe in the SAF mission and believe that several groups coming together to accomplish a goal as a team will be more effective than each individual group trying to go their own way."

SAF: What have you done in educational field?
Abdellah Fateh: "One of our long term objectives is to build and start a Pars Online Academy, which will be focused on teaching IT related topics on a mostly e-learning platform. We hope to be able to differentiate our e-learning platform by ensuring that our students do spend at least a few hours a week in a classroom environment and not complete their whole curriculum behind a computer.”

SAF: What services can ParsOnline offer schools? Do you have any special plans that could affect student knowledge and help their learning process?
Abdellah Fateh: "As I mentioned from at the beginning, we are focused on building infrastructures and therefore do not have the ability to offer any sort of content or applications for the educational system. Our services can be based on either providing connectivity or hosting services in our data center.”

SAF: Do you have cooperation with any other charitable institutions? Could you name some of them?
Abdellah Fateh: "Yes, we do. We support the Mahak Hospital for children with cancer, Kanoon Koodak, which is a foundation that helps pupils who cannot pay for their education and several other charities focusing on special diseases."

August-September 2007

TASMA FAIR

TASMA is a name for Generating and Reforming the Educational Content. It was the first time that such a fair have been held in Iran. The fair was held in Kanoon Koodak (the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adult) in Tehran, between 9th and 15th September, 2007.

SAF had two booths in this fair and it was the first time for us to participate in a national fair. The fair was held on two floors. The first floor was for those participants who had products to sell and the second floor was for the ones who wanted to introduce themselves and their activities. Our booths were on the second floor. The projects that we had on display were Rayaschool, SchoolNet, NIP, SAFEcard, IT-Centers and SAF’s projects in BAM after the earthquake. RayaSchool was introduced along with all the e-learning courses it has and the way that people could register and participate in the courses. Visitors were generally surprised when they saw this online-school and said they are going to introduce and talk about the RayaSchool with their colleagues and friends at their schools and communities.

As the schools in Tehran still had not opened, unfortunately, there were not as many students as we had hoped at the fair. If the fair was held during school time, more students would have attended the fair and found out about NIP, Ecards and other projects that we had on display. NIP consists of projects which are designed by a group of high-school students who will be going to university this year. Ecards project is a photography competition for students that participate in e-learning classes at RayaSchool. The visitors were also introduced to SAF IT-Centers in Zahedan and Bam, our e-shop for handicrafts of Zahedan’s women and SAF’s projects in Bam after the earthquake; the painting shop for Bam children and music-therapy, both as post-trauma stress therapy.

The visitors were also told about SAF’s other projects, including the project for VIPs (Virtually Impaired People) and HIPs (Hearing Impaired People). The favourite project was the CDs and books of the Farsi Linux for primary and guidance-school students. These CDs attracted a great deal of attention and there was a lot of demand for these CDs as parents realized their educational advantages for the children.

This was a great opportunity for SAF to introduce itself and its various projects and activities to so many families and teachers at the fair. Visitors were very interested in our projects and we full of praise and encouragement for all our activities.

June-July 2007

1- SAF in BAM in News

SAF was the main NGO that, after the Bam earthquake, made a major contribution in helping the children to overcome their trauma by helping them in an IT centre, which was set up in couple of temporary prefabricated buildings. SAF Bam ITC (Information and Communication Technology) resource centre officially opened in December 2006 and already they are making good use of this Centre. SAF's new project in Bam is to use this ITC resource centre as part of a long term strategy for education at schools in Bam, by training trainers and thus truly empowering the locals for their future needs.

In Bam, SAF has published a handbook for both primary and secondary schools based on the first Persian Linux operating system for children, called Sharif Linux, which was designed by Farsi Web Company at Sharif University of Technology. The SAF plan for Bam also includes establishing a central point for connecting educational institutions to the internet via wireless and eventually creating a virtual school.

The SAF local office, in cooperation with the local educational authorities, invited interested teachers from all schools in Bam for training. About 200 teachers who had applied were interviewed by the training staff. 65 of the teachers were chosen to undergo the training, which was supported by UNICEF Iran office. You may be surprised to know that out of the 65 successful applicants, 45 of them were women.

For reading the complete article please visit :
http://www.payvand.com/news/07 /may/1099.html#

2- ENO School And The Iranian Students

ENO School is an international online school. Four themes are studied within a schoolyear and during this time students will learn about the issues relating to development and environment awareness, both online and offline. The ages of students are between 10 to 18 in this virtual school.

The themes of the 2006-2007 school year were:
-The Place We Live In: ENO Tree Planting Day
-This Is Our Nature: Climate Change
-The Way We Lead Our Lives: Ecological Footprint
-This Is Our Culture: Traditional Food

This year the students of 7 schools from Iran participated in this project, which ended in June 2007.

Junior students of Kherad High school, one of the 7 participating schools, started they schoolyear with an event covering the first theme: they planted trees around their school on the 21th of September 2006. Then they described their city as it was back in 1956, now and what they would expect it to be in 2056. The descriptions are available in the ENO website.

As part of the 2nd theme, they participated in UNESCO climate change competition. One of their activities during this exercise was collecting and makingpledges related to climate change for ENO pledge-bank.

The third theme covered the Ecological Footprint and the students learnt the concept of Ecological Footprint and how they can reduce it in their daily activities. The course finished by the studentspreparing their traditional foods and uploaded their papers on the ENO website.

For more information about ENO and participants you can visit : http://eno.joensuu.fi

and you can read the news of the ongoing schoolyear at: http://enocc.blogspot.com

3- Hearing Impaired and Nezamafi High School ( HIP)

With the help of Science and Arts Foundation (SAF), Nezam Mafi School for Hearing Impaired People (HIP) Has been equipped with a computer site and internet access. Some of the students' projects at this centre are listed below:
-HIP Gesture in Persian, English and Arabic
-The International Project of Origami in iEARN
-The International Project : Daffodil and Tulip
-Making an Information Supply Base for Poets

As the HIP need to be enable to use other sources of information, the students decided to start a project to prepare a three language resource ( Persian, English and Arabic ) of the words and corresponding gestures. Teachers and students designed a website for this project and the words and phrases that were gathered, were placed alongside their related gesture on this site.

This project had been registered as an iEARN project. SAF has also designed a website for HIP which is: http://hip.saf.ir
where you can find news and information about HIP. There is also a forum for chatting and exchanging ideas in the site.

For more information and details of the projects you could visit the complete article at:
http://roshdmag.ir/default .aspx?page=Document& app=Documents&docId=12384 &docParId=12280

4- Publication of the Linux Books for Primary Schools

Sharif Linux is a bilingual Persian/English operating system, which has been developed to meet the local needs of Iranians, specially the Farsi speaking users. It is the result of the research that was undertaken by the FarsiWeb Project and Sharif FarsiWeb Inc. since early 1999.

As noted above, as part of SAF's activities in Bam, a version of Farsi Linux for primary school students has been developed and a book named "Computer Literacy For Primary School Students" has been published for teaching students to work with Farsi Linux operating system.

FarsiWeb Company has produced this book at the request of SAF and UNICEF, as part of the development of computer literacy for primary school students. The first batch of these books were sent to Bam students to help them in their use of computers and IT education at SAF IC, which were set up after the earthquake. you can see more information at:
http://fa.farsiweb.ir/fawiki/School

Also a version of this book have been published with the support of International Qeshm Energy Company for the use of primary and middle school pupils in Qeshm. You can find information about the Qeshm Energy Company at:
http://www.qeshmenergy.com

If you would like to support SAF promote education programs such as the one above, please visit:
http://www.science-arts.org/src/support/

April-May 2007

1- BAM ICT CENTRE

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, BAM Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, is now complete and fully functional. The Center was built under the management of the Science and Arts Foundation with support from Bam's Department of Education, Coalition of Persian Charities, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Iranian charitable individuals and also our educational program partner, UNICEF. Construction commenced on 1 January 2005 and took 20 months to complete.
This two storey building replaces the ICT centre which was established in temporary buildings shortly after the earthquake. The centre is fully equipped with computers and runs courses for both teachers and students.
More information about the ICT center in BAM will appear in next number of the newsletter.

2- SECOND MATHEMATICS AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE (VIP) CONFERENCE, ISFAHAN

The second conference of mathematics and visually impaired people was held in Isfahan on Saturday 11th November 2006 with the participation of 60 university professors, visually impaired mathematics teachers, and a committee of visually impaired and sighted teachers.
This conference was supported by the Impaired Education Ministry of Isfahan, Isfahan Mathematics House, Aba Basir Educational Center, Moj-e-Noor Cultural Committee, Isfahan Education Ministry, Mathematics Teacher Committee and interested VIP. In this conference Mr. Rahmi who is visually impaired himself and has a PhD in mathematics, made a speech and emphasised VIP's right to have access to all the educational facilities. He also stressed the necessity of changing Braille code into Nemeth code for scientific uses. He reminded the audience that VIP should not be deprived of some sections of science such as geometry shapes and drawing curves.
Mr. Nasrollaf Rezayi, a retired VIP teacher, also emphasised the use of computer software such as Maple and Excel in teaching mathematics and statistics to VIP. He announced that he had written a book for teaching mathematics replacing Braille symbols with Nemeth code for the first time.

3- SCHOOLNET PORTAL – Interview with Mr.Moeeni – Schoolnet Portal Developer

-What is the Schoolnet portal site?
Briefly, the Schoolnet portal is a Content Management System (CMS) portal to allow Iranian students and teachers to easily create and publish their content on the Internet.
-What features and facilities does the Schoolnet portal offer at the moment?
It lets students to create easily various content types on the site and submit them to their teachers for approval, but the point is that they can do all of their interactions with the site using their Internet browser and do not have to use any other 3rd party software.
In our portal, each member of school (students and teachers) will publish their contents below their school space. All content which is created by a user on the site, will show the author information, too. This can be a high encouragement for our students.
-Would you explain more about the activities undertaken to create this site?
Well, first of all we needed to evaluate and design the site and develop it but let me mention that in the development, we merely used quality open-source software. However as our site is in Persian and hence right-to-left, in addition to developing site features, we had to deal with right-to-left issues. This took a great deal of time and energy to fix or at least make it less of an issue.
We introduced it to a very limited number of our schools and also held some workshops for a few groups of students and teachers. Unfortunately this did not help much and there was a reason for that; users could not be fully trained in a one-session crowded workshop. So we created a user's manual for it. We took a considerable amount of time to design and write a quality manual to help users. With the help of this manual, students and teachers have been able to train themselves. This is the last thing we did for our project.

4-(c)REATIVITY (c)LUB

The creativity club is a subset of Schoolnet and is created to help with the interaction between high school students and schools. Its activities are done by members of Creativity Extension Association and it is the intermediary between high school students and the website is
http://creativity.schoolnet.ir
The Creativity Association was formed in summer 2003 and the Creativity Club was formed in spring 2005
Some of this club's plans are:
-Creativity day programs
-Second course about creativity in Rayamadreseh
-At least 2 workshops in high schools
-At least 1 match in SUT
Our principal aim is the extension of the concept of creativity. Our programs included putting on the site subjects for students to read and to introduce them to various creativity definitions, identifying some of the obstacles, morality of creative people and different techniques in creativity. But these all were not enough. We needed a two way relationship and a more interactive one. So we prepared a competition and set up workshops at some schools.
The Program which we have now undertaken covers a series of workshops and summer courses for Creativity, which will include team-games. We are also preparing for a Big Competition on International Creativity Day!
When this project started, we had high expectations and hoped for a great deal more response from students. Sadly, we were disappointed. In spite of all the attractions of this subject and the attention from students to our workshops and specially team-games, it seems that our problem is with the structures of the electronic club.

5-SCHOOLNET EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM FOR SPRING 2007

The Schoolnet Educational Team has started learning courses for teachers who are members of Schoolnet since the year 2004. These courses are both face to face and online. Now the courses are accessible for people all over the world freely! The team tries to observe UNESCO standards for ICT in educating.
The courses which have been published until now are: Web Designing, C++, Java, PHP, Robotics, Excel, Flash MX, Chemistry, Biology, Arabic, Net Support, Registry, Networking, Windows xp OS and Creativity. Courses such as ' Word 2003 ' , ' Power Point 2003 ' , ' Learning Management System ( LMS ) for teachers ' and ' Participating in Group Projects teaching ' are future plans and will publish soon…
You can find the Time-Table for the spring course at:
http://raya.schoolnet.ir/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=227

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