Sulinet

Activities of the Sulinet Program Office The Sulinet Express Program is a governmental initiation, which was launched in 1996. The year 2003 was a milestone in the Program‘s life. Until 2003 the main goals were:

to provide schools with Internet connection and computer labs; to help teachers through a portal with structured extra teaching materials; to organise trainings for teachers and camps for students, teachers and system administrators; to announce calls for applications. In 2003 – besides the traditional activities – new challenges appeared within the frame of the Program.

The infrastructure of the schools should be developed further. The infrastructure-development is again a state initiative. Not every elementary school has an Internet connection yet. Although all the high schools have already had Internet connections, the quality of it is not good enough. The goal is to provide all the elementary schools with Internet connection, and to establish a broadband connection in every school where not available yet.

It is also very important to provide the teachers with information about the usage of the digital teaching materials. For that reason trainings for teachers have been organized, which are based on the results of a recent research of Sulinet that detected the needs. During these in-service trainings teachers learn how to integrate ICT into subject teaching.

According to a governmental initiation the employees of the Sulinet started to work on massive content development, referred as Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base. The aim of this development is to create a digital curriculum, which covers the national core curriculum of levels 7–12, secondary school – in two years‘ time. The content development takes place by calls. The first call was announced for schoolbook publishers. They could apply with existing secondary level (9–12 or 7–12 age blocks) course books and had to transform them into an interactive, multimedia-rich format. The second call was announced for cross-curricular modules, newly introduced or still missing subjects. The third call was about preparation of additional teaching materials and media collections. For the fourth call teachers could apply with screen scripts of LOs.

Sulinet was searching for an appropriate portal to deliver this educational content, but couldn‘t find a suitable one. Therefore they started to design and create the SDT Portal. The Portal has functionalities of storing and searching materials made of and stored as elements, editing materials (LCMS), publishing, collaboration and communication (VLE). The access to SDT (Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base) is open from September 2004 via the Sulinet website‘s Education Sub-portal designed and developed locally.

The Sulinet Program Office operates the Sulinet website, which consists of different sub portals. There are valuable information and articles for teachers, students, parents and information system managers. Different sub portals are specialized on health, environment protection, vocational training, European Union, traditions, innovative schools, elementary schools and on background information necessary to understand the curriculum.

The Education Sub portal is one of the biggest sub portals on the Sulinet website. On the average 40.000 enquirers visit it per month. It‘s especially popular, because its target group covers almost every educational areas: elementary and secondary school students, undergraduates and teachers, civilians – those, who are not related strictly to the education – also might find interesting topics in different sections. The structural backbone of the Education Sub portal rests on eleven curricular sections and on other two sections covering knowledge areas in a wider sense. The curricular sections include biology, physics, geography, literature, informatics, chemistry, mathematics, media, arts, history, foreign languages (English, French, German, Spanish). The knowledge areas cover natural sciences and arts. The above-mentioned sections from the content‘s point of view aspire after completeness. Articles related strictly to the directives of the National Core Curriculum support the students to prepare for the classes and for the entrance examinations to universities. The methodological guidance attached to the articles serves the preparation of teachers. The Educational Forum allows the creation of a dialogue between students and teachers. They can state their opinion and talk over the questions in connection with the subjects or the articles.

The most important programmes of Sulinet are the following:

The Educatio International Educational Exhibition and Fair Several hundred exhibitors represent Hungarian secondary and higher education on the exhibition. Visitors can get to know the present and the future situation of education, the production of educational aids, schoolbook publication, vocational training, foreign language education, quality assurance and information science.

The Sulinet Adventure Tour (“Kalandtúra”) The applicants first have to answer questions via Internet. The best twenty groups can be part of the big adventure. They compete with each other through solving exciting theoretical and practical exercises afield. The winner group always obtains great presents, this year for example a rafting tour in Slovenia.

Sulinet camp Since 1997 the Sulinet camp has been organised every year for students and another camp for teachers and information science managers. Students can extend their information scientific knowledge through group work. Besides there are several sport opportunities, which students can resort. The participating teachers get familiar with the opportunities of the computer supported education, with ICTs and with the Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base. The school information science managers discuss the problems arising within the school practice and solve different exercises.

Sulinetwork The conference has been organised every year, where the visitors can get acquainted with the newest techniques, tools, etc., which are demonstrated by experts.

Sulinet Roadshow Experts of the Sulinet and of other famous institutions visit different places of Hungary, and demonstrate the activities of the Sulinet Program Office. They give presentations and demonstrate a video about the most important happenings related to Sulinet.

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SDT - a possible answer for the educational challenges of our days

In the period of the accelerated technological development traditional methods of knowledge transfer can not serve the demands of the labour market anymore. Acquisition of skills and abilities got into the centre of interest. Knowledge could be diverse and it can change quickly, therefore life long learning has become very important. Life long learning is composed of different basic competencies. Skill of reading, writing and basic lexical knowledge is still essential. Foreign language knowledge and ability to use information and communication technologies make this complete. The Ministry of Education represents the programs aiming to develop the life long learning skills in the Middle Distance Development Plan of the Public Education. The formation of life long learning skills expects the establishment of new physical and mental infrastructure; therefore the Sulinet Program Office in cooperation with the Ministry of Education decided to create the Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base.

Content development

SDT is a digital curriculum database and a content management tool LOs cover the curriculum of grades 7-12 according to knowledge areas Goal: to create a complete curriculum database covering the curriculum of grades 1-12 SDT is a Learning Content Management System consisting of different reusable elements (pictures, texts, sound- and video files) Subjects of History and Geography are available right now - 15.224 LOs and learning assets Other eight subjects are going to be available by the end of 2004, that means about 200.000 LOs and learning assets The internal storage of data and the publishing happens aligned with international standards (SCORM, IMS, LOM, Dublin Core) towards the enhancement of independence from the content-suppliers and the portability of the content The multiple classifications, technical and content meta information related to the assets and LO's support the maintenance of the substance Book publishers and teachers are also involved in the process, and the development takes place also in form of voluntary work. SDT portal

Available via the Education Portal of Sulinet Program Office - http://sdt.sulinet.hu Its use for non profit goals is free of charge for everyone Examples, animations, demonstration films, supplementary databases, background information, lecture drafts, methodological assistance It has collaborative functions - forum (open and closed), chat Search function (simple and advanced), browser LOs are provided with detailed metadata - it makes searching easier Editorial function: users have the right to edit the LOs and to create new ones, which might get into the SDT after professional verification Test phase of the portal started on 1 September 2004 Teacher training

Intends to develop teachers' ICT and methodological skills Based on a survey on teachers' skills and awareness level Shift in teaching content: informatics as a profession supporting the creation of digital culture Ten modules - teachers might choose modules they would like to take according to their existing skills Subjects: Studies on operation informatics Studies on informatics with supplementary multimedia-based educational auxiliary materials (multimedia-based tools and softwares) CBT/WBT methodological studies Constructive, collaborative and cooperative pedagogy (through articles and presentations) We want to teach teachers as they are expected to teach! Our mission

We pledged ourselves to develop the Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base with the aim to support the acquisition of the life long learning's minimum competencies. One of the tools is the basic information database, which builds model about the information acquisition and the knowledge building of the labour market environment better than the traditional books with linear structure delivering complete knowledge.

Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base (SDT) http://sdt.sulinet.hu/