July 4, 2011, a training workshop on HP LIFE program for secondary school teachers of the ORT school network has started at the Odessa ORT School.

Developed by the Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I, Geneva) in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Corporation HP Learning Initiative For Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE) is a global program that trains students, potential entrepreneurs and small business owners to harness the power of IT to establish and grow their businesses.

Face-to-face trainings and online tools address the educational needs of people, improve and strengthen their skills and enable them to move forward – regardless of backgrounds, locations or circumstance.

ORT is a partner of HP social projects since 2004.
Over these years, thanks to the fruitful cooperation between the two organizations, centers of education and micro-enterprise acceleration were opened in Russia and Ukraine. Being trained there, the small businesses entrepreneurs, both beginning and more experienced, solve the problems they face in their daily activities, which hinder the growth and development of their business.

In 2009, the successful experience of collaboration has allowed HP and ORT expanding programs of bridging the digital divide and ICT training for entrepreneurship and to involve some secondary schools to participate in them.

This decision was due to the fact that today's secondary schools face the task of preparing competitive students who are ready to live and work in high-tech world. One of the most effective ways of achieving this is education, which gives considerable experience and practical skills in business and entrepreneurship.

The educational process achieves maximum efficiency when the students are placed in front of creative problem, solving of which requires school knowledge implementing in real life situations.

All the technologies, presented in LIFE program, studied from the practical point of view: in the classroom students receive information not only on widely available technological tools, but also learn to use them to overcome daily problems and to develop their businesses effectively.

Within these five days, from 4 to 8 July, 2011, fifteen teachers from ORT schools network of Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine will be provided with the opportunity to be acquainted with the newly developed curriculum and to discuss the prospects of training of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship at secondary school.

Trainings will be conducted by Ana Barfield and Brankica Canic (MEA-I). Finishing this course participants will receive certificates of the Institute of MEA-I and can apply their knowledge in teaching fundamentals of entrepreneurs at schools of ORT network.

Print version

Irina Silaeva, Program Manager, ANO "ORT"

It is with pleasure that HP and its partners, MEA-I, EDC, ORT and UNIDO, announce the HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs, (HP LIFE) 2011 grant recipients. These new recipients, 40 training centers worldwide, will become part of the existing 300 HP LIFE centers network in 47 countries, helping equip entrepreneurs with the IT and business skills they need to turn their visions into reality.

Selected applications from 12 countries, these organizations will each receive a grant of state-of-the art HP technology, financial contribution and professional support valued at approximately $60,000 (HP list price).  It includes a professional train-the-trainer course and access to the HP LIFE network as well as all innovative online and offline training tools.  

Moscow ORT Technology School (Gymnasium № 1540) becomes the only Russian participant to receive a HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs grant this year.  

"We are very pleased that Moscow ORT Technology School (Gymnasia # 1540) becomes a participant of the HP LIFE program this year ", - says Dr. Sergey Gorinskiy, ORT Russia  Director - " In ORT schools special attention is paid to technology training. The combination of modern technology and business education - this is exactly what of great demand for innovation economy. On the basis of Moscow ORT Technology School we'll develop a model of such integrated and innovative education".

On the photo (from left to right): Sergey Gorinskiy, ORT Russia Director; Marina Moiseeva, Moscow ORT Technology School Principal; Alexander Mikoyan, Managing Director, Enterprise Business Lead, HP Russia, at the open ICT lesson on the day of HP-ORT Center opening at the Moscow ORT Technology School.

Print version

May 29 - 31, 2011, in Berlin a meeting of the Board of Representatives of the World ORT, dedicated to the 90^th anniversary of World ORT Union inauguration as an international organization.

In the same Meistersaal, where in 1921 a historic conference marked the ORT expansion outside the only country, had been held, 100 representatives from 23 countries sharing ORT students’ excitement in international Robotics competition.

 
Teams of the ORT schools from Argentina, Bulgaria, Israel and Ukraine presented their creative projects, built on the basis of NXT, and competed at the "Triathlon" route.

Team of Odessa ORT school № 94, consisted of 4 people: Alexandra Gorlovitch, Sergey Grigorash, Dmitry Kozachkov and team leader Anne Michurina, presented the project "Robot is the Artist". Students  prepared and showed to the guests two models of robots: a robot who writes the word "ORT"on the ping-pong ball, and the robot, writing all the letters of the alphabet on a sheet of paper with the ability to create any word from the letters.

Competitions on the “Triathlon” included of two phases. On the first phase the robot was supposed to overcome obstacles (barriers, curves, hills, buttons), go on the road and to deliver the ball, taken from a certain point at the beginning of the track, to the finish line. In the second phase the number of obstacle has been reduced, but the robot had to find two jars standing on the highway, and drive around the first of them - on the left side and the second - on the right.

Odessa team has received the highest marks on the road and won the first place, showing excellent results in both types of competitions. Second place was delivered to the team from Israel, the third one- to the team of Argentina. All students who participated in the competition received great gifts from donors - iPad (for 1 place) and iPhone (for participation). In addition, students and their teachers were able to visit the Berlin Technology Museum and to have a small city tour.

Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum joined the 100 schools of Ukraine, that were selected to participate in the project "Alfanetschool”. This project provides online video tutorials on such subjects as Math, History, Geography, Ukrainian language and literature, and Chemistry. Within project there will be 4 classes at the Technology Lyceum equipped with facilities for conducting such lessons (computer, multimedia display, HD-video). On September 1, 2011, six Lyceum teachers will begin to conduct lessons for the whole Ukraine.

27 May, a Skype-conference between the ORT in St Petersburg and ORT France was held. This is the first experience of similar work in the practice of  "ORT-SPb” Centre. The conference was organized at the request of the Jewish Charity Center “Hesed Avraham” and there were representatives of regional departments of Health Department of St. Petersburg participating. On the other side of the Skype-bridge Mr. Marc Cohen, an expert on senile diseases, was speaking. He told about the modern ways of working with patients suffering from Alzheimer's.

As a result of the working group meeting, held May 26, 2011, the winners of the Competition of projects of non-profit organizations in the framework of the “Next step. Program for the development of activity of the older generation", realized by the Ladoga Foundation with organizational support from CAF Russia were announced. Among the 13 winners two applications of the Centre "ORT-SPb" - the project "Improvement of teachers of computer courses for older people” and the project" Digital Family Archive: training in computer digital technology". From September the realization of these grant projects will begin, through which 144 elderly citizens of St Petersburg will attend free ORT computer courses. Projects also allow teachers to share their ORT experience with young colleagues - 40 novice teachers become familiar with teaching instructions and will be trained in the “ORT-SPb" Center.

May 22, 2011 Dnepropetrovsk hosted a grand parade of the Lag B'Omer. The parade was attended by the almost all Jewish organizations of the city, especially those ones of formal and informal Jewish education. This year  there were members of All-Ukrainian meeting of Jewish students' “Menorah’s Stars" in the column of the Jewish community, divided into twelve" tribes " and each "tribe" had their own T-shirts with its title and its own standard. As always, the military band headed the column, and it was accompanied by limousines and vintage cars, decorated with Jewish symbols. The parade was attended by half to two and a half thousand people, according to various estimates.

After the parade, and a celebratory concert at the square, in front of a Jewish school there were  stations for children organized by various Jewish organizations of the city, in order children, and sometimes their parents, could compete in strength and agility, to learn more about Jewish traditions, or simply have  a fun.

According the evaluation of site of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community the station of Dnepropetrovsk ORT Center "were the most intellectually challenging": they included the race of robots, computer games competitions and construction of the Lego sets.

May 22, 2011,  Jews of Zaporozhye celebrates Lag B'Omer, organized by the Chief Rabbi of the city N.Erentroi.

Many guests came on this fest. Among the young participants there  were students of ORT Aleph school and “Chabad” school and of Jewish kindergarten.

The celebration began with a solemn procession going through the streets of the right bank of the city, accompanied with the sound of drumming.
For participating in the celebration program third grade students of ORT Aleph school  prepared a festive scene on the theme "Love your neighbor as yourself". The concert took place smoothly with colorful costumes, music and other attributes. It appeared to be the best performances at this festival. The audience warmly greeted the young artists.

After finishing of the concert there were competitions organized for children : "skipjack", "skillful hands," Lag-ba-Rodeo "," Lag-ba-lo-lo", "Jolly Fisherman","School of ballroom dancing","clever boys and girls". After that there were a big fire and dance of children and adults around him.

May 19 at "ORT de Gunzburg" school the premiere of "Velimir in the Promised Land" took place. This performance became the result of the realization of the grant within the open competition of projects «Grassroots-2011" run under organizational support of CAF Russia. Puppet show designed for children of kindergarten and primary school age. Fairy-tale hero Velimir introduces young viewers to the history, geography and customs of Israel, helping two small heroes - Gena and David to keep their friendship and overcome the evil Dibbuk. In September, another 7 free performances of this puppet show will take place at schools, kindergartens and orphanages of St. Petersburg.

April 28 to May 4, 2011, within the frames of the project  "Masa Shorashim (" Back to the Roots"), realized under support of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Ministry of Education of the State of Israel, students of the schools  of ORT network in the FSU have visited several cities in Ukraine: Kiev - Rovno - Berditchev - Lviv - Brody - Chernivtsi - Buchach - Medzhybozh. Students were able to see firsthand what they had been told by the teacher on the lessons of history, culture and traditions of the Jewish people, a special course on Holocaust, and to return to their roots.

Within six days, continuously moving from place to place, accompanied by experienced guides, they were acquainted with the history of cities and towns, visited the former synagogues, the old Jewish cemeteries, researched “matsevs” (tombstones), met with the Rabbis, learned about the modern life of the Jewish communities that have still existed.

The trip was not a fun walk, because even at home, the information of the locations of future visits of expedition had been collected - all were about to see firsthand and after return to share their impressions and experiences.

And the buses during the transfers such movies as "Babi Yar" and others were shown and discussed, prepared in advance dramatizations of the lives of Jews were presented, poems sounded.

In Czernovtsy, on the Day of Holocaust and Heroism of European Jewry, memorial evening prepared by the teachers was held. The children were shocked. Pinching violin sounded, candles lit, soft female voice singing a sad song. The students themselves could not cope with tears and strong emotional experiences, they had to be comforted. And then, sounding anthem of Israel, which gives hope that the days of the Holocaust will never happen again in our history.
The next morning two minute siren sounded - growing children stood, heads bowed, and tried to keep screw-on eyes with tears.

A trip to Ukraine in 2011 has left an indelible mark in the children’s memory and hearts. This is something that they will carry on in his entire life. And these experiences they will pass on to their children and grandchildren.

Deputy Principal of the school № 550 "ORT de Gunzburg" Gregory Vodopyan  was included into the Encyclopedia "Golden Fund of Professionals of secondary and additional  education of St. Petersburg ". This project of Publishing House "Cultural Capital" is supported by the St. Petersburg Government and the Legislative Assembly. The main purpose of the Encyclopedia is to involve the best teachers of the schools to participate in the project. The project aims for identifying and public recognition of 1000 best professionals in the field of secondary education with a nomination for awarding with the honorary title of "Professional of St. Petersburg ".

May 10, on the Independence Day of Israel, at the Vilnius Shalom Aleichemo School, the project "Trip to the cities of Israel" was presented. Students have been gathering information about various cities in Israel and made presentations.

Even in the January such cities as Haifa, Tel Aviv, Be'er Sheva, Ashdod, Eilat, Jerusalem were spread between senior classes.  On the all lessons of general and Jewish cycle students and teachers learned about their city. The aim was to broaden horizons and knowledge about Israel, to integrate knowledge about the state of Israel into the process of studying the general cycle, to promote students’ interest to study history, geography and traditions of the State of Israel.

May 10, at the Independence Day of Israel, the grand opening of the week "Trip to the cities of Israel" took place.
In the hall design work in which students showed the material collected in the city were put: what's new about the city they have learned on the Physics, Chemistry, Math and other lessons, how the city is connected with Lithuania and what sights are worth to be seeing for tourists. On the week of Israel, each class presents itself as a travel agency, the aims of which is to promote the city well, so that the tourists  should want to visit it first of all.
7^th grade students opened this week, for this year they celebrate the Bar-Bat Mitzvah, and so they have the honor to represent Jerusalem. Every day, our newly-made travel agencies touted tourists to their town, they were dressed as sailors and singing (8^th grade  represented Ashdod), they flew on an airplane (11^th  grade -Tel Aviv), they spoke 4 languages ​​- Russian, Hebrew, English and Lithuanian  and told the city's ancient history (Beer-Sheva – 6^th grade), and finally, 10^th grade was playing the lottery. May, 17, there was the closing ceremony of the project. In a warm atmosphere 10^th grade students played mock lottery for the right to visit Eilat.
Coincidentally, at the close of the project our school was visited by guests from the Embassy of the State of Israel who were touched by the warm atmosphere of Israel in the hall very much.
Honorable third place was delivered to the 7^th  grade in second place -  to 11^th grade and winner of the project were the 9^th grade students , for the most complete and accurate report on the work had been done.
7th grade was given a huge shakotis, winners, who won the 1^st and the 2^nd place got free movie tickets. Supervising teachers and those ones, who have worked hard to complete the project, were also handed with sweet prizes.

May 5, 2011, US-Israeli delegation «Peoplehood» visited the ORT Odessa School.
Guests attended the lessons of Hebrew and Traditions, taught according the Tal-Am program, and also visited the Physics lesson.
Special attention was paid to the open lesson of Technology, took place in the computer labs of ORT Technology Centre.
5^th grade students showed a model of simple mechanisms of Lego, which they constructed during the academic year, and 3-graders submitted drawings, prepared by them for Independence Day of Israel.
The guests also saw presentation of ORT in Odessa with interest.
After the concert, prepared by students, there was a time for informal conversation. Guests asked students about their plans for the future, their activities at school and about anti-Semitism in Odessa.
As the Director of ORT Technology Centre in Odessa Anna Michurina pointed out: "When the next morning I met Max Kleiman and Amir Shaam, it was evident that the visit to the Odessa school impressed them. Cooperation with schools "Tikva" opens up great possibilities for the future. And next academic year we will discuss the details of the pilot project "Tikva"”.

May, 1, Dance Ensemble "Shemesh" of Sunday school "Gesher" took part in the Spring and Labor Day, which was held in Samara Kuibyshev Square.

The best musical groups of the province greeted veterans of labor at the central square. In addition, 10 thematic areas, arranged by different departments of city government and community organizations were there.

Sunday School "Gesher" students - Lera Akulina, Masha Antipina, Lera Matveeva, Clara Leybgrad, Sasha Ivanova  and Julia Kornyuhova attended the ground, demonstrating the national musical art for the peoples of the city. City Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy Tarbut la Am entrusted dance ensemble "Shemesh" to represent the Jews of Samara at the celebration. The girls performed a dance with the mood of "Seven Forty" and was deservedly rewarded with applause of the audience.

In the period from March 28 to March 31, 2011, Moscow hosted the final round of the Fifth international competition of professional skill of teachers of ethnic and cultural subjects of Jewish education component of Jewish schools on topic "Great Women in the Jewish-Israeli Culture."

Teachers of Hebrew and Jewish literature, History and Traditions of the Jewish people, Art and Music competed with each other.

This year's competition brought together teachers from Jewish schools from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Israel, USA and Germany. Each participant presented a computer presentation of experience of training and educating children, not just in their classrooms and after school, but also gave a brief of their school system of ethno-cultural education.

Qualified jury consisting of scientists, educators, experts in the field of Jewish Studies from Israel and the winners of past years evaluated all the activities of teachers. Jury highlighted the four participants, selecting from them the Absolute winner and three winners. The Absolute winner was Reuben Kuravsky - the head teacher of Jewish subjects, a teacher of traditional Jewish School Mesivta (Moscow). Laureates: Asher Altshul - Traditions of Jewish people teacher of "Elite" High school (New-York, USA), Svetlana Deitch - music teacher of Secondary School "Or Avner" (Nizhny Novgorod) and Asya Maskel – Etno –culture cycle teacher  of "Or Avner" School (Samara).

Teachers of schools of ORT network were awarded diplomas of winners in the following categories:
 

• Inessa V. Gruzman, Minsk, Belarus, school # 132 named after H.-N. Bialik, teacher of Hebrew literature - for devotion to pedagogical work;
• Anna V.Pinzar, Chisinau, Moldova, Technology  ORT Lyceum named after BZ Herzl, teacher of tradition and literature - for creative approach to training;
• Marina O. Mager, Kazan, Russia, school # 12 (ORT Mishpahteynu "), a teacher of Hebrew - for the creative application of new educational technology;
• Akivaeva Julia Yagutilovna, Moscow, Russia, Center for Education #1311 "Techiya, teacher of Hebrew – for pedagogical inspiration;
• Julia E. Lartseva, Samara, Russia, school # 42 with in-depth study of several subjects,  a teacher of tradition and culture of the Jewish people - for teaching professionalism.

Students of Kazan school #12 (ORT “Mishpahteinu") tenth grade Alexandra Safina and ninth grade Kamil Galeev were awarded with the first degree diplomas of the 5th annual All-Russian Conference "National Treasure of Russia", held from March, 23-25, and March,30 - April 1, 2011.

The conference is organized within the Federal scientific and educational program of creative and technological development of children and youth "National Treasure of Russia". The founder of the program is the National System of scientific, creative and innovative activities of young people 2010-2011.

Students of the Kazan school # 12 (ORT Mishpahteynu ") presented the following works:

• "Catalysts for effective cleaning of gas emissions from nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons" by Alexandra Safina;
• "The role of individual autogipnosuggestive methods in process of self-improvement (psychotherapy research)"  by Kamil Galeev.

According to the testimony of teachers Alexandra and Kamil are interested in sciences, especially Chemistry, for a long time and planning to continue their education at the Chemistry Department of Kazan State University.

Students and School express their special thanks to the supervisor of both works, a Chemistry teacher, Valentina Grigoryeva.

April, 6, AIPAC - American Israel Public Affairs Committee -  visited "ORT-Career" Centre.

Director of the Center Marina Sorokina told the delegation about the history of ORT, and then offered to talk with the students the center and attend classes in classrooms ORT.

Marina Sorokina presented to visitors souvenirs - multimedia albums, "St. Petersburg Jewish Community. Three centuries of history " as well as booklets on ORT in St Petersburg in Russia.

Since March, 27, to April, 3, 2011 visit of delegation of French students-designer to Moscow took place.

As part of professional exchange program between educational institutions of ORT, a group of twelve students and two teachers of ORT Strasbourg Lycée visited Moscow. Students began their acquaintance with the Moscow ORT Technology College (# 14), operating under the auspices of World ORT since 1996, with its Design Faculty, located in campus on Dokukina street. Accompanied by the Deputy Director Olga Ivanova, they inspected the workshops of design and construction of clothing, laboratory of materials and talked with students and teachers, saw fashion show of new collections created by students. The teachers of the French group, in turn, showed presentation of Lycée and its educational process.

The next day the group had a meeting at the main building of the College where the Advertising Faculty is located, opened in cooperation with ORT in 1998

This day video conference with the ORT Strasbourg Lycée was arranged, which was also attended by the Deputy Directors of College Elena Simago and Tatyana Artyukhin, Olga Ivanova and ORT Russia Director on Development Mikhail Libkin. At the conference, teachers and students of the Advertising Faculty could simultaneously communicate with the guests from France and their colleagues and classmates to discuss prospects for further cooperation and ask questions about the similarities and differences in training programs and methods.

After a short presentation  made by the College’s and ORT representatives, visitors could learn more about the workshops and laboratories of the Department of Advertising and appreciate the opportunities that are created for learning the fundamentals of computer graphics, photography and video production, animation, modern publishing, etc.

During his visit to the main building there was a meeting with the College’s Director Yuriy Mironenko. He talked with members of the delegation and expressed hope for further fruitful cooperation, suggesting the prospects for Internet-competition on fashion design which could be the first stage of the competition between students-designers of Lycée and College.

Program of the trip also included a visit to the tissue museum of Moscow State Textile Academy named after Kosygin, Fashion House of Slava Zaitsev and show of famous Russian designers (Valentin Yudashkin, Slava Zaitsev, Sergey Sysoev, Alina Assi) at Volvo-Fashion Week in Moscow and Russian Fashion Week (Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia). At the opening of Moscow Fashion Week, students and teachers had the opportunity to speak with designer Alina Assi, who told about her career and depicted some stages of the creation of her fashion house. Delegation also visited Red Square, Christ the Savior Cathedral, Manezh Square, had an excursion to the "Kolomenskoye"  Museum and Memorial Synagogue on Poklonnaya Gora, Museum of Russian national costume at the Izmailovo Kremlin.

In conclusion, the delegation met with the ORT Russia Director Sergey Gorinskiy, who also discussed the possibility of developing joint programs in the field of distance education.

April 3 Director of "ORT-SPb" Centre Marina Sorokin took part in the City Forum of Jewish Education "BAMA". Participants of the forum in 2011 were the teachers of Jewish kindergartens, schools and Universities, representatives of Jewish organizations of formal and informal education.
Marina Sorokina told delegates about the last project of the ORT-SPb Centre - Russian version of the web-site "Music and the Holocaust." This site is intended for a wide range of users interested in this complex historical period. It is of particular importance for school teachers - creators of the site have developed detailed plans for several school lessons, dealing with different musicians associated with the period of the Holocaust for the convenience of the teachers.

April, 1, the last lesson for group "English with computer support" was held on.  Almost two years ago, these people came to ORT to learn entirely unknown English. Thanking teacher for the excellent training, Dmitry, a student, said: "It was interesting and met all my expectations. I can freely navigate in English grammar, I communicate with English-speaking people during the holidays and business trips, I read a special professional literature ... I do not want to stop these useful and fun lessons! I really like the warm, relaxed atmosphere that prevails in the classroom. Many thanks to the teacher Nina Mogileva for patience with which she treated us". Active classes were useful - the Director of the ORT-SPb Centre Marina Sorokina presented a certificate confirming proficiency Upper-Intermediate level. 

March 30, 2011, results of the third international competition in robotics among school network of ORT, which was held in Dnepropetrovsk in the period from 27 to 30 March 2011 on the basis of school № 144 and Dnepropetrovsk center ORT, were summed up.

This year's Olympiad was attended by 14 teams from Bishkek, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhye, Kazan, Kiev, Kishinev, Odessa, Samara and St. Petersburg.

At the inauguration participants and guests of the Olympiad were welcomed by the Principal of Ohr Avner Chabad-Lubavitch Levi Yitzchak Schneerson school № 144 Michael Gugel, Head of Information and Analysis of Department of Education and Science of Dnipropetrovsk City Council Nicholay Kuzichev, President and School Rabbi Meir Ostrovsky and Head of the Information Department and a Member of Board of the Community Oleg Rostovtsev.

From ORT side ORT Russia Director Sergey Gorinskiy greeted the guests and participants.

On the first day of competition a separate creative competition, for that children should prepare in advance under the guidance of their teachers, traditionally held. This year's theme of the contest was to create a robot being an assistant for disabled people.

And the first winner of the International Olympiad on Robotics, was a 6th year student of  school # 12 in Kazan (ORT "Mishpahteynu”) Kapitalina Starikova, who proposed a robot that can cook and serve food for a dog if the owner does not able to do so due to limited abilities of health.

Kapitolina Starikova’s Robot impressed the jury and was unanimously voted as the best.

In the following days have usual competitions to Olympic Games passed: “Tug of War"," Walking Robots "," Tanks-banks "," Labyrinth”, "Triathlon", "Soccer", "Robot-builder."

The winners in the junior league are:
1^st  place - Vladislav Dmitriev, Roman Privalenko (Odessa ORT School #94)
2^nd  place - Kapitalina Starikov, Babushkina Diana (secondary school #12 in Kazan, ORT “Mihspahteinu”)
3^rd  place - Simon Weinberg, Daniel Kochorbe-Kazazaev (Technology Lyceum named after Gerzel, Kihsinev)

The winners in the senior league are:
1^st  place - Leonid Shatunov,  Sergey Vlasov (secondary school #550 ORT de Gunzburg, St. Petersburg)
2^nd  place - Gregory Shubin, Alexey Margolin (secondary school # 550 ORT de Gunzburg, St. Petersburg)
3^rd  place - Vladislav Kozachkov, Dmitry Podolny (Odessa ORT School # 94)

During February – March 2011 students and teachers of Chernovtsy ORT Jewish school #41 participated in the project “Crimea – Bukovyna – Transit. Tolerance through the youth local research”. The project was developed by the Center of the Regional Development “Top-Kaya” to promote tolerance at the school environment.

Research groups, created from senior pupils and teachers, were aimed at different investigations and deep immersion into the ethnic features of the communities. The subject of the investigations was rather broad: from research national holidays’ traditions, children interrelations within the educational establishment up to the history and symbols of family tree research and other interesting subjects.

9^th and 11^th grade students together with History teacher Irina Chernetskaya investigated what Jewish communities and organizations are in their city, what influence they have on the history and modern life, and what is the attitude of Chernivtsi’ citizens to the ethnic minorities of the city. Children visited cultural identity communities and museums, attended annual culture F. Goethe Festival, investigated the main newspapers, got to know about born in Chernivtsi outstanding singer I.Shmidt and writer Roza Auslander, interviewed the representatives of the national communities and conducted a poll among the city’s citizens. (80% of people think well of the national minorities, 3% - think bad;  20%  - interested about their neighbors ethnic origin, for other 75% -  it is all the same, the main thing is, the people should be good).

Students concluded their investigation by the quotation of the famous German publicist G. Geuzen: “Chernovtsy was the city, where cabmen disputed about Karl Kraus, where footpaths were swept by bunches of roses and where were more bookshops then cafes. Here, in one society easily felt themselves a Ukrainian, a German, a Romanian and a Jew. Here one could speak Ukrainian, German, Polish and was understood…”

10^th  grade students of Samara school # 42 (ORT "Gesher")  Paulina Mogilevskaya and Michael Naida were trained in the 11^th Spring School on academic Jewish studies "Sambation" which was organized from 22 to 27 of March in Moscow region.

Marina Sorokina presented the books of ORT history

On March, 25, at the European University a presentation of the new archival guidebook "Documents on the history and culture of Jews in the archives of St. Petersburg" was held. Presentation was organized by the inter-faculty center "Petersburg Judaica", State Humanitarian University (Moscow), Jewish Theological Seminary (New York).

Attending at the presentation, Director of "ORT-SPb" presented to science and compiler editor Alexander Ivanov, a copy of all the new two-volume World ORT gude «The history of ORT. A Jewish movement for social change» and «ORT. Educating for Life », in the preparing of which Mr. Ivanov participated directly.

March 18, 2011, students and teachers of Odessa ORT school # 94 took part at the International exhibition-presentation of educational and training programs," Education and Development ", organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Odessa City Council and the City Department of Education and Science.

At the building of Odessa Morvokzal (Marine Passenger Terminal), a leading exhibition center in the region, the best secondary and higher educational institutions of the city, as well as members of foreign educational programs demonstrated their achievements.

And in such a representative environment students of the Odessa ORT School showed clearly how well they learned the innovative course "Fundamentals of Robotics”. Working models of robots provoked great interest among visitors of all ages.

"It was very interesting to see the visitors' reaction when they saw our robots. The adults were amazed and asked me" Is it difficult? ". I explained that we teach it in class at school and everything is very simple, if you want to learn. My peers were jealous that we have such interesting subjects are taught. They asked whether it is possible for them to come to learn robotics, "- 7^th grade student Vlad Dmitriev describes his experiences.

Odessa ORT School teachers acquainted visitors with the methods and the development of ORT in the introduction of the "Technology" course in secondary school, shared their experience of school teams’ participation at the Ukrainian and international competitions in Robotics.

As noted by the Director of ORT Resource Center of Odessa School Anna Michurina: "Participation in such exhibitions is very important for our school. We can not only show the methodology of teaching innovative courses developed by the ORT school teachers, that we often do during the training workshops, but to show our results to parents of potential students and professionals from other fields of education. We chose to present only one section of the "Technology” course - Robotics, because this direction is developing intensively in our school. The students involved in the various competitions have many deserved victories, and it draws children’s and parents’ attention to the course".

March 23, next group on the course "Vector Graphics. Program CorelDRAW Implementation" held its first class.It was nice to see familiar faces among the 12 new students of our center.

Elizaveta Makarova is one of the most ardent supporters of the Centre. Since opening Training Center Elizaveta not only participated at almost all educational projects, courses and seminars but involved numerous acquaintances and even parents: Tatyana Makarova learns English from the very beginning and Vladimir Makarov systematically improves his skills in design programs which is necessary for his work.

ORT-SPb Director Marina Sorokina and manager of educational projects Anna Hodorovskaya told the guests about ORT educational and multimedia projects. In particular, the visitors were interested to know about the implementation of grant projects within the frames of Jewish community - virtual tour of the Jewish Petersburg, created through an open tender projects "Grassroots-2010" and a children's game "Velimir in the promised land," which was created within the open tender projects "Grassroots-2011" by initiative group acting under the auspices of ORT.

Also, guests were offered to participate in the Skype-conferences in English - one of the options of a new ORT project of, an English club "Jewish Saint Petersburg".

In memory of the visiting guests were given with computer  albums "The Jews of St. Petersburg. Three centuries of history" and "The Hope and the Illusion. A Search for a Russian Jewish homeland. A remarkable period of the history of ORT”.

March 13^th, 2011 at the Synagogue of the Progressive Jewish Community Bar and Bat Mizva ceremony for the students of Minsk ORT-Bialik School #132 took place.

However the official opening of the Synagogue is planned to be this summer, varous events are already held there since November 2010.

For the first time Bar-Mizva ceremony was held at the Synagogue premises. Previous years it was held in some other places (not religious).

Students were congratulated by form-masters, teachers and parents.

The ceremony also was attended by:

• First secretary of the Embassy of Israel – Genadiy Polishchuk,
• ICC Director – Olga Polishchuk,
• JAFI Head – Ilona Hilkovskaya,  
• Deputy Head of the Byelorussian Jewish Public Communities’ Council – Vladimir Chernitskiy,
• Deputy Principal (senior classes) – Elena Pugach,
• Israeli teacher – Anat Lifshitz,
• ORT Representative in Byelosussia – Franz Korsiuk.

The ceremony was guided by Progressive Jewish Community Rabbi – Grigoriy Abramovich, under whose guidance all actions, required by the tradition, were performed.

Greetings, wishes and congratulations were delivered by G. Polishchuk, I. Hilkovskaya, E. Pugach, A. Lifshitz, V. Chernitskiy.

After the official part of the ceremony, children were dancing, singing, guitar and piano playing.

In conclusion, all guests and participants had sweets, cooked by the parents of heroes of the day.

"Is it boring to learn Hebrew? We do not believe "- 5^th grade students at school number 550, the ORT de Gunzburg cried after classic director of national Russian theater and staged "Carrot in the garden" in Hebrew.

5^th grade student Sonya Hasueva  initiated and directed modern interpretation of the famous Russian fairy tale "The Turnip". Having decided that pulling out carrot of the ground is much more fun and brighter than a turnip, she involved classmates, teachers and even parents to performance.

 
Teacher-envoy and Hebrew teacher of school # 550 "ORT de Gunzburg" Natalie Sidorevski helped in translation of the text and in the performance. Mother of one of the students, being a professional makeup artist of famous BDT Tovstonogov theater,  should be thanked for professional make-up of young artists.

On March, 10th on site LIFE CITY (http://city.becomelife.org/#/ru/home) training game Blossom (Flowers) Became accessible in Russian.

In the game, Chico, the owner of Blossom Flowers farm, has to leave unexpectedly. He leaves you, (his cousin), in charge of running the farm while he is away.

Now you need to take care of plowing, seeding, and harvesting. But you are also confronted with decisions about budgets, investing in new technology, creating marketing flyers, as well as a whole series of unexpected situations. Basic technological solutions help you solve these well-known business challenges. Don’t let your customers wait!

HP-LIFE/GET-IT TOT (Training of trainers) has finished in Tula, Russia.  Nine representatives of ORT-KesherNet Training Centers for women have become certified GET-IT Trainers. Now thousands of women in Russia and Belarus have possibility to study how to use new technologies in small business.

It is interesting that TOT organized by two NGO’s ORT and Kesher was held at the same time when representatives of these organizations participated at the 55th Meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations Headquarters in New York. (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw55/statements/NGOs.pdf).

The program carried out by ORT within the frames of program HP LIFE in particular aimed for overcoming digital divide. Now, after the seminar, there are more women (as, however, representatives of other layers of socially unprotected population in Russia and Belarus) will have an opportunity to get acquainted with examples of use of information technology in small business.

In Tula on the basis of the Training center “ORT-KesherNet” the future teachers of program HP LIFE was trained. The seminar was organized in a computer class which has been presented in 2009 by HP Company to our colleagues from Tula within the frames of HP GET-IT program.

Training was conducted by trainers Violetta Berestova (teacher, “ORT-KesherNet” Centre, Tula) and Sergey Gorinskiy (ORT Russia Director), certificated as Masters.

Participants of the seminar were not passive listeners only, but prepared fragments of classes independently and show the skills they had got.

9 representatives of the training centers of ORT-KesherNet from Russia and Belarus in some days become the certificated trainers of the program, intended to help people who want to open their own business. The technique and instructional materials of the program of training are developed by MEA-I by HP application.

The main goal of the given training course is to promote listeners’ attention of to interrelation of actual problems of business and technological decisions.

In the course of the analysis of the received information listeners can estimate close connection of application of certain technology for their business and to calculate their costs and benefits.

The teacher of the Tambov center of information technology "ORT-KesherNet" Dina Bruske has participated in II Annual Conference "Your Course: Development of Information Society", taken place on February, 10-11^th, 2011, in Moscow. “Your Course” is the initiative aimed on increasing of computer literacy of population, realized in Russia by Microsoft® in cooperation with PH International. Tambov center "ORT-KesherNet" has joined the project in 2010.

In the first day participants of the Conference have considered comprehensively a role of information and communication technologies in modern society development, in sphere of employment; also reviewed software products of Microsoft® had been presented to them. In conclusion of the first day of the Conference results of the first year of realization of the project “Your course” were summed up. Project realization in the Tambov center "ORT-KesherNet" has been recognized as the most successful in NGO category. Also the center received prizes for the second place in photo competition "Term Paper" (reflection of the high points and results of the process of training) and for "the sharpest" questions addressed to project management during the 2010.

The second day of conference was devoted to discussion of experience of the centers of the project and sections’ work. D.Bruske took part in “Professional development and support” section (instructional work of the centers) where she presented the report “Motivation of training and remote training of adults”.

Conference’s results included development of directions of realization of the project in 2011 on World Café technology by all participants of conference and their certification.

On February, 22nd at the Kazan school № 12 "ORT-Mishpahteinu" of schools’ principals and their deputies on national education: “Traditions and Customs of National Cultures as the Resources of the International Consent” has passed.

School "ORT-Mishpahteinu" for some years is an experimental platform of the Municipal Department of Education on approbation of various techniques of studying of native language and culture. 26 visitors and 8 employees of school have taken part in seminar. Except reports, fragments of lessons of initial school, showing various kinds of individual and group work of children aimed on study native language, traditions, culture also have been presented to participants’ attention.

Seminar work has come to the end with a round table. All acting pointed out the actuality of this theme for such multinational city as Kazan, and stated a number of new ideas on improving of techniques of teaching of similar disciplines at schools. Also they underlined unusually friendly atmosphere of school reigning both among children and pedagogic staff as well.

World ORT's goal to raise the standard of Israeli education has received a major boost with the Government's commitment to help it expand its pioneering roll-out of 'smart classrooms' into a NIS 100 million ($27.5 million) project to bring 1,000 of the interactive classes to schools in peripheral communities.

A further NIS 21.5 million ($5.9 million) has been set aside for World ORT's programme to create six Centres of Excellence – three in the Galilee and three in the Negev – to provide enrichment activities for high-achieving students and help for other students to improve their results and broaden their skills.

On February, 13, final lesson for the next group of charitable and education projects for young people "School of Career" took place. Young people - final year students of Universities of St. Petersburg received professional advice on building their career and got more knowledge and skills needed for each job seeker.

Pre-crisis time, when employers had taken on the work of young professionals with no experience of professional activity, sunk into oblivion. Today the companies changed their attitudes to the prospect of hiring professionals without previous experience. The employer sees potential employee as high professional with a broad range of skills, including practical work on the computer.

In this situation, the young professionals who are just beginning their professional development are in most difficult circumstances.

Almost every employee expects proficiency in office software and knowledge of graphic editors. After finishing “School of Career” courses young people not only have right to write in their CV the phrase "Advanced PC user”, but also demonstrate to employers Hewlett-Packard Corporation and ORT certificates, confirming their passing of training.

Used within the “School of Career” GET-IT program, developed with the support of Hewlett-Packard Corporation, introduced students to the ICT-solutions for the applying of daily business tasks, which they will face working in such areas as finance, management , marketing and technology management.

On February 13, next group of students have already begun training of  "School of Career". The next set will be held after March 20.

February, 17, 2011, in one of schools of World ORT net, at the Moscow Center of Education #1311 "Tehiya", the video-conference Moscow-Jerusalem devoted to the problems of modern education and organized jointly by World ORT and the Ministry of Affairs of Diaspora of Israel has taken place.

The video-conference was opened by the Vice-speaker of the Knesseth, the chairman of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee Mr. Alex Miller. After words of greeting addressed to students and teachers of Moscow school, Mr. Miller has depicted his short biography, having underlined a key role of education in personality’s growth in the modern world.

Mrs. Dorit Golender, Ambassador of the State of Israel in Russian Federation in her answering speech thanked Mr. Miller for his attention to Jewish education in Diaspora and has wished a success to videoconference. 

Principal of the Moscow Center of Education #1311 Mr. Grigory Lipman pointed out the importance of contacts with Israeli schools for successful work of the Center of Education and has underlined that he would be glad, if delegations of students from Israel attended his school more often and participate in development of joint educational projects.

Students of the Center have set some questions to Mr. Miller about his life in Israel, about distinctive features of education in Israel and about overcoming of those problems which the young people who have made Alija face.

On February, 6, 2011, students of 9-10 grades of the Gymnasia #1540 (Moscow ORT Technology School) visited the Museum of Jewish History and Holocaust in the Memorial Synagogue on  Poklonnaya Gora.

Here the meeting with the veteran of the Great Patriotic War, having taking part in camp Oswiecim releasing, has taken place.

Children have heard memoirs of this wonderful person who has told terrible stories, but such important for each of us. He “has given us his witness” with belief that the Shoa’s terror has never repeated any more.

The supervisor of studies of the Museum I.A.Altman has expressed gratitude to pedagogical staff of Gymnasia “for education of students in the spirit of humanism, respect for history, for the heroic and tragic past of the Jewish people”.

On January, 25th at St Petersburg school # 550 “ORT de Gunzburg” the round table “School Transformation: foreign experience of creation “new” organizations of educational work at school” devoted to questions of informatizaton of school formal education was taken place.

Microsoft and school # 550 “ORT de Gunzburg” which in 2010 has been recognized as innovative school and became a participant of the international program of Microsoft, were organizers of this. 

The round table has gathered high qualified persons: principals and employees of schools of St.-Petersburg, representatives of the Department of Education, independent experts. As one of participants of discussion, the chief specialist of the Department of Education Konstantin Shapiro has told: “Microsoft and school # 550 are two names in education which speak for themselves”.

The leader of a round table, the Senior Research Assistant of Federal institute of Development of Education Alexander Uvarov has told about foreign experience of implementing of the modern technologies in the advanced schools of the world, and also about similar developments and their application in actual educational process of the Russian schools. According to Alexander Uvarov “In the 21^st century the teacher ceases to be a unique source of true for the student, it becomes the partner in the course of training”.

The Deputy Principal of school # 550 “ORT de Gunzburg” Grigory Vodopjan has shared the accumulated experience on creation of experimental model of individual training on the basis of school. Speech performed by the 10^th grade student of school # 550 “ORT де Gunzburg” within the frames of the round table had especial popularity. Children – participants of experiment - have told about their relation to situation, stressed the positive and negative sides of innovative educational process which they had time to understand and have answered questions of participants of a round table. According to Michael: “When we work in our own rhythm, we don't have problems with studying. We study that is necessary for us and when it is convenient to us. We represent the future, we prepare for it and nobody forces us to do it”.

In the final part of discussion so-called "reflection" have been arranged - experts have expressed their opinion on the educational initiative of school # 550 “ORT де of Gunzburg” and made brain storm, stated some advices about improvement of model of individual training.

On January, 31^st, 2011, at the Training Center of ORT-SPb the first Skype-dialogue between listeners of a language course and employees of ORT in New York has passed.

The basic feature of a language course of ORT is an orientation of training on colloquial practice development: on each lesson, in groups, with the teacher, in language laboratory. But dialogue with native speakers has especial value. Modern technologies come to the aid of ORT – videoconference service of Skype programs allowed establishing a contact with three employees of New York office of World ORT in a few minutes.

For short half an hour our students and colleagues from America had time to discuss work and home life, hobby and training conditions in ORT. Our American colleagues were especially interested by the reasons on which listeners have chosen ORT language course.

On January, 22nd in Zaporozhye meeting devoted to International Holocaust Remembrance Day has taken place near a memorial monument of the to victims of Shoa. Students of the 8th grade of Grammar School “ORT – the Aleph” taking part in the meeting read verses: “Allies Bombed Cities”, "Buchenwald", “Men Agonized Children”. 

Veterans of the II World War had been invited to ceremony told school students their memories about that terrible time.

The Regional Administration Officials has addressed to youth with words about inadmissibility of oblivion of the past.

Photos are made by the student of 9th grades Andrey Nastaskin and students of 7th grade Albina Gezalova.

January 25, 2011 a webinar "Robotics in ORT schools” was conducted by ORT CIS jointly with HP Russia. 16 participants and 6 lectors participated in it.

The General Director of HP Russia Alexander Mikoyan greeted the participants. He told about the current projects, company’s developments and webinar schedule at HP Virtual Rooms platform.

Sergey Gorinskiy, ORT Russia Regional Director told about Technology and Enterprise principles study program (STEP) at ORT Schools.

Anna Michurina, Senior expert at ORT CIS R&D department, told about Robotics project realization at schools, about methodology and instructional materials developed by ORT teachers and also about the experience of conducting training seminars on Robotics for school teachers and Olympiads for students.

Moscow Gymnasia  #1540 teacher – Yulia Korovina spoke about forms of trainings and possibility of including them into educational process using as example the way how it is Moscow Gymansia  done.

Igor Kot from ORT Odessa school  gave detailed information on Robotics competition’ tasks and rules. Odessa Robotics team’s participant, Vladislav Kosachkov demonstrated acting robots’ models.

Projects realized by students from Dnepropetrovsk School #144 at Robotics lessons were shown by Natalia Goshkador, a Dnepropetrovsk teacher.

Haim Dribin, a teacher from Israeli Misgav High School told about Robotics course teaching system in Israeli schools and also about annual Robotraffic International Robotics Competition & Fire Fighting Competition where his students participate.

The participants assessed content and level of the webinar during the questionnaire with the score 9.4 from 10.

In December 2010, final results of the 33rd tournament named after MV Lomonosov were published the - the annual multi-disciplinary competition of Math, Mathematical games, Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences, Chemistry, Biology, History, Linguistics and Literature.

This academic year the Tournament named after MV Lomonosov was held on September 26, 2010.

We are pleased to announce that 24 students of our Gymansia #1540 won honorary awards. 7^th grade student Alexander Dychko won three subjects: Mathematical games, Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences.

Our congratulations to the winners! GOOD FELLOWS!

On December, 23rd, 2010 Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum carried out ceremony devoted to its 10^th Anniversary.

Field day began by a lesson of history of ORT Technology Lyceum. Thanks to the parents’ support all students received memorable gifts and souvenirs: calendars, notepads, T-shirts, badges and pens. 

Among the guests the Head of Department of Education of Dneprovskiy districtl in Kiev City Administration Ivanna Kovalenko, the Second Secretary of Embassy of the State of Israel in Ukraine and Moldova, Director of the Israeli Cultural Center Yulia Dor, Head of Representative World ORT Representative Office for CIS, Central Asia, Caucasian States & Baltic States David Benish, the Director General of Representative Office of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Ukraine Bilan Shahar, Chief Executive of the Kiev City Jewish Community Anatoly Shengajt, the Regional Director of "Gilel" Iosif Akselrud, Academic Program Manager of Microsoft Ukraine Yana Kurchenko, representatives of the American Jewish Distribution Committee and the Principals of Kiev schools were presented.

The Assembly hall was crowded by students, parents and graduates of Lyceum who had come to participate at the celebration. There were more than 150 students and graduates who were involved in the program.

Dancing groups of Kiev came to wish happy birthday to Lyceum: choreographic ensemble "New-ance" and art group "Kalinka".

At the end of evening 11^th grade students brought the birthday cake decorated with the sweet laptop and figure "10".

On December, 21, 2010 solemn ceremony of  celebrating of the 10 anniversary from the date of ORT Technology Centre opening at the 'Levi Yitzchak Schneerson' Ohr Avner School № 144 of Dnepropetrovsk has passed.

The holiday took place at the Assembly hall of school and it has begun with the performance of young leaders welcoming visitors in four languages: Ukrainian, Hebrew, English and Russian.

‎On behalf of city authorities Deputy Head of City Department of Education Lubov Bashkatova greeted ORT Technology Centre and gave official gratitude from City Methodological Control Centre of Science and Education of Dnepropetrovsk to ORT Technology Centre Director Syuzanna Khachatryan. Then Oleg Rostovtsev, the Trustee of the Jewish Community and Elena Zbarzhevski, Head of Jewish Agency for Israel in Dnepropetrovsk spoke.

David Benish, Head of Representative WO Representative Office for CIS, Central Asia, Caucasian States & Baltic States thanked for warm congratulations and underlined that ORT is proud very much to be successful of its work in Dnepropetrovsk, especially considering uniqueness of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community, and the sky is the limit.

Then awarding ceremony of school students, achieved successes in various competitions and Olympiads and also shown special successes in studying of courses «Technologies and Computer science» was taken place.  

In honor of the 10^th anniversary of work of ORT Centre in Dnepropetrovsk 6^th grade students prepared performance “ORT is our helper and friend”. The culmination of the holiday became the robot created by children which accompanied by the applauses of guests wrote on the big sheet of paper number 10 – a symbol of anniversary.

At the end of a celebration a pie made from LEGO with "burning" candles has been presented, and after that a real pie with ten Roman candles has been brought.

3 Russian Centers will be awarded by the HP grant for micro entrepreneurs’ training.

The following criteria were used in evaluating HP LIFE proposals:

• Profile and need of groups targeted by the applying organization
• Number of people potentially impacted
• Details of how technology and curriculum will benefit trainers and students
• Effectiveness of existing reporting processes
• Willingness to participate in networking opportunities
• List of additional stakeholders and supporters involved with the organization
• Potential for HP LIFE to augment existing programs
• Evidence of positive social impact (e.g., success stories, data, details) by programs, active in previous HP entrepreneurship initiatives such as GET-IT, HELP or MAP
• Innovative plans to sustain and grow existing programs

Worldwide 40 successful Training Centers will be awarded grants, among them there were 3 Russian ones.   

• St. Petersburg Foundation for SME Development
• Tambov ORT-KesherNet ICT Centre
• Vocational Training Centre ORT Career, Yekaterinburg

In 2010, HP LIFE center grant winners in Russia will be awarded a grant package of cash, a professional train-the-trainer course, and access to the HP LIFE network.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

In Moscow State University auditorium: Valeria Bokman 9th grade, Marina Moiseeva - Moscow ORT School principal, Alexandr Moiseev 9th grade, Mariya Vasilkova 10th grade, Darya Sheina 9th grade, Alexey Shtern 11th grade

Alexey Shtern 11th grade, Marina Moiseeva - Moscow ORT School principal, Valeria Bokman 9th grade, Darya Sheina 9th grade

Marina Moiseeva, Principal of Gymnasia #1540, Stanislav Shevchenko, Head of Education Department of Kaspersky Antivirus laboratory, Pavel Yakushkin, Director of ORT Center at Gymnasia #1540 as well as school graduates at the beginning of a new academic year                                                                                                                         

Beginning of new academic year at Moscow Education Center #1311: welcoming guests in the new educational building. Among the guests were Minister of Moscow Government M. Vyshegorodzev, prefect of Jugo-Zapadnyi Moscow district A. Chelyshev, deputy Director General of "Mospromstroy" O. Lyang, Ambassador of Israel to Russia Anna Azari

Sergey Gorinskiy, Director of ORT Russia, giving Olga Troupp, Principal of School #12 (Kazan), a memory plaque "World ORT School Network". As a present for a new school year students got new school bus which was bought by ORT and parents

David Benish, Head of Representative of World ORT for CIS and Baltic States at the beginning of a new school year in Technology Lyceum, Kishinev (Moldova)

New school year at School #550 (St. Petersburg) was held in a close family-like atmosphere, for Rosh A Shana students got ORT calender for next year

      

New school year at School #274 (St. Petersburg): school Principal Janna Kuzmina gives a boy symbolic key of the school doors
 

School #42 in Samara celebrated the holiday in a restored building with new frontal wall, new computer labs: students seemed very satisfied

Among the guests at the beginning of a new school year in Dnepropetrovsk Jewish School "Or Avner" were Rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk Shmuel Kaminezki, Head of Jewish Community Grigoriy Korol, Second Secretary of Ambassy of Israel to Ukraine, Director of Center of Israeli Culture in Dnepropetrovsk Elena Karol and Head of Representative of Jewish Agency in the region Elena Zbarzhevski

At Gymnasia "ORT-Alef" (Zaporozhe) students got from their parents new equipped sport place for lessons of physical culture

On March, 7, 2010 students from Minsk school # 132 (ORT “Bialik”) took part in celebration of Bar and Bat Mitzvah in Jewish Community Centre.  At the ceremony 13 students of 7^th grade “became Bar and Bat Mitzvah”; among the guests were their parents and relatives, friends, classmates, and school teachers. 

The ceremony was prepared and enacted by:

• Rabbi Grisha Abramovich, World Union for Progressive Judaism
• Lilia Einbinder, Hebrew teacher from Minsk school # 132 (ORT “Bialik”)
• Anat Livshitz, Envoy of Israeli Ministry of Education

Among other guests of honour were:

• Leonid Levin, Chairman of the Belarus Jewish Community,
• Joni Leifer, Head of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Office in Belarus;
• Olga Politschuk, Director of Israeli Cultural Center, Minsk;
• Ilona Khilkovskaya, Director of Jewish Agency in Belarus;
• Anatoly Grinberg, Director of ORT’s Representative Office in Belarus;
• Alla Garus, Principal of Minsk school # 132 (ORT “Bialik”).

ORT Samara Technology Centre Director Alexander Fradkov presented the training project implemented at his school.

The integration of information technology in the education provided by the ORT Russia schools which last year won Hewlett-Packard’s Innovation in Education Grants has impressed participants at an international summit hosted by the multi-billion-dollar company in San Francisco.

Dr Alexander Fradkov, from ORT Gesher in Samara, and Dr Marina Moiseeva and Dr Pavel Yakushkin from the Moscow ORT Technology School, attended the HP Innovations in Education Worldwide Summit together with Tatyana Prokhorenko from the ORT de Gunzburg School in St Petersburg. They were among more than 100 higher education faculty and secondary education teachers from 23 countries at the Summit, which was hosted by the HP Office for Global Social Innovation in collaboration with the International Society for Technology in Education. The ORT schools represented one-third of Russia’s recipients of the grant, which comprised high-tech equipment, cash and a seat at the Summit.

Through a comprehensive schedule of inspiring keynote speakers, expert panels, interactive workshops, poster sessions and professional networking opportunities, the participants – all of whom had received funding to attend as part of their respective institutions’ Innovation in Education Grants – learned about developmental trends in technology and shared how technology was being used to re-imagine the classroom.

The aim, said an HP spokesman, was to accelerate the success of key projects and build a global community of educators who are using technology to provide innovative learning experiences for students.

“Attending the summit has helped us to understand our place in the world,” said ORT Russia National Director Dr Sergey Gorinskiy. “An HP innovation grant places a recipient institution in an educational elite. At the summit it became clear to us that ORT Russia’s schools were among the best of the best.”

Dr Moiseeva, the Principal of the Moscow ORT Technology School, added: “Comparing our level of technological integration with the 70 or so schools and universities represented at the summit we were the strongest team. We use IT in the teaching of English, literature, science and mathematics, not only computer science.

“The very good level of blended learning which we have achieved by combining face-to-face and distance learning technologies using different types of software was noticed by many other summit participants and they were asking us questions about how we did it. We were also leaders in providing sustainable teacher training systems, from individual consultations to long-term in-service training to upgrade our staff’s knowledge parallel to their work in the classroom.”

During the Summit, physical participants in California and ‘virtual’ participants around the world voted on projects being implemented in different countries as described in posters produced by the organisations running them. The posters provided a starting point for more detailed discussion of the projects. ORT Gesher’s High Way to High Tech: School, University, Career project was placed in the top three out of some 70 entries with more than 700 votes.

It is the latest in a long list of ORT successes in contests staged by HP. Two years ago in Brussels it won $10,000 for the excellence with which it had implemented the Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through Information Technology (GET-IT) concept into its training programmes. Last year, the ORT Mishpateinu High School in Kazan and the HP-ORT Digital Community Centre in Slavutich, Ukraine won contests for the best project report at HP Digital Forums in Suzdal and Moscow. Days later the ORT-KesherNet Centre in Tambov won the HP GET-IT Impact Award at the HP GET-IT Annual Conference in Cairo for the success of its students in setting up their own businesses.

The High Way to High Tech project teaches students to use high technology to enhance maths, science, computer science and engineering courses as well as in everyday life and it increases awareness of, and interest in, high tech degrees and careers among teachers, administrators and students.

“I was confident that our project was among the best but it was very satisfying that people around the world shared my opinion,” said Dr Fradkov, Director of the ORT Technology Centre at the Samara school, who was presented with a photo printer as a prize.

He shared Dr Moiseeva’s opinion that the ORT schools were among the best.

“It is not just a function of our having a lot of computers and other equipment,” Mr Fradkov said. “Computers by themselves cannot improve learning. The critical factor is that we have the necessary modern pedagogical techniques to be able to use the equipment we have effectively.”

Dr Moiseeva said the Summit provided a useful departure from the routine of work and academic isolation to intensive communication and sharing of ideas, concerns, hopes and challenges.

“The integration of new technologies into teaching and learning places considerable responsibility on the shoulders of those who decide upon innovative projects,” she said. “Participating in the Summit meant joining a community of professionals and getting answers for thousands of questions which challenge us every day. I enjoyed learning more about the future of distance learning and the ways of integrating Web 2.0 technologies to increase communication between teachers and learners.”

Dr Fradkov said he also appreciated the opportunity the Summit provided to examine further the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) which had been explored in January’s Wingate Seminar at ORT House, London.

“I am interested in the use of web-based connections between students, teachers and parents,” he said. “We have done a lot of work to make these virtual environments a reality. The Wingate Seminar was very helpful but it was nice to be able to discuss it further at the Summit.”

World ORT’s collaboration with HP began in 2001 with the ‘Digital Village’ programme in Dikhatole, near Johannesburg. In 2004, HP and ORT again joined forces to open Digital Community Centres in Slavutych, Ukraine and Tula, Russia, and within a year the Micro Enterprise Acceleration Centre was opened in Samara. In 2007, HP initiated GET-IT which seeds entrepreneurial energy and develops business and IT skills in young people and recent graduates. ORT Russia has established 16 GET-IT centres in Russia and Ukraine.

Students not only listened with interest, but asked Mr. Vexler many questions

On February, 8^th, senior students of Gymnasia # 1540 (Moscow ORT Technology School) had a lecture-meeting of well-known political scientist and observer, Adviser of the Minister of Internal Security of Israel Mr. Alex Vexler on the topic “Internal and international situation of Israel” at the School’s assembly hall.

Throughout his political career Mr. Vexler was an Adviser of the Minister of Internal Security, Mayor of Kirjat-Gat, Head of Tel-Aviv District of the Ministry of Absorption, Consul and Member of Israel diplomatic representatives in Moscow, and also worked as the sociologist and the coordinator in the field of social adaptation.

During his lecture Mr. Vexler told about the most actual events of modern Israel in a very alive manner. Thanks to Mr.Veksler’s profound knowledge about the country’s history and its present internal and international situation as well, lecture has turned into an exciting narration with set of bright examples and references to realities of political situation, elections, Arab-Israeli conflict, etc.

President of ORT of Moldova Mr. Ilan Shor and Director of ORT Technology Centre Mr. Vitaly Kirillov

As President of ORT of Moldova Mr. Ilan Shor repeatedly underlines in his interviews: “ORT-Moldova’s doors are opened for realisation of various innovative projects”. And ORT does its best for  implementing the programs of t state educational institutions, and various ministries and departments as well.

Already from the beginning of the new, 2010 year, there were 2 seminars of retraining  of educational workers of Moldova taking place on the basis of ORT Moldova and ORT technology Lyceum named by Herzel.

On January, 28^th,   the seminar for young experts “Information technology on Math lesson”, organised by ORT Moldova in cooperation with the Municipal Government of Education of Kishinev was held in the ORT Technology Centre. The tutor for the group of young Math teachers of 12 lyceums of Kishinev was Director of ORT Technology Centre Mr. Vitaly Kirillov.

In a week, during the period from February, 3^rd, till February, 5^th, republican instructional seminar devoted to the issues of organisation of examinations on bachelor degree (bachelors in Moldova are graduates of lyceums) on the basis of ORT Technology Centre was conducted.

The seminar was prepared by the Agency on Testing and Examinations of the Ministry of Education of Moldova Republic. 50 representatives of regional managements of education, colleges and universities were participating in the seminar.

Since 2008 World ORT realizes the international project directed, first of all to increase students’ interest to Math studies. Club sessions pass in the form of videoconference in which at least 3 countries are taking part. Each session has separate topic. One is devoted to developing strategy with ordinary matches, during the other chessboards could be involved in solving some mathematical problems, etc. "Math Club” leader is World ORT Research and Development Coordinator Dr Yakov Ronkin.

On January, 21, 2010 the "Math Club” the session of with participation of Dnepropetrovsk, Kishinev and London took place.

In Dnepropetrovsk the session was organized in the conference hall of the Central Synagogue of Dnepropetrovsk “Golden Rose” with participation of the 5th grade students of 'Levi Yitzchak Schneerson' Ohr Avner School # 144 and students of the “Chaia Mushka” mahon. On the other side of videoconference the 5th grade students of the Kishinev ORT Technology Lyceum named by B.Z.Herzel were solving mathematical problems on chessboards. For them it was the second session in this academic year. In total it is planned about 5-6 sessions for this academic year. First three videoconferences are to be held between the following cities: London, Kishinev and Dnepropetrovsk, the next ones will be organised with the participation of Dnepropetrovsk, Moscow and Odessa.

Tatyana Ivashkova, Deputy Director of 'Levi Yitzchak Schneerson' Ohr Avner School # 144, underlines that she enjoys the first results of videoconferences: “Students’ motivation for Math studies has increased, considerably; children wait for the next videoconference with impatience and prepare for each forthcoming session carefully during the optional school lessons of Math hobby group. If the first lesson had been a little bit unusual for them and children had tried not to miss every particular word of the leader of the videoconference, students had made their best to solve interesting and difficult for them logic strategic problems, already on the second session they were “armed fully” and everybody suggested variants of decision”.

On February, 2nd, joint session of “Math Club” from Moscow, Odessa and London took place. 8th -9th grades students of Moscow Gymnasia # 1540 (Moscow ORT Technology School) and Odessa Secondary School # 94, ORT were participating there. The session was devoted to the introduction into the graph theory. Teachers noted that participation in club work allows children developing logic and spatial thinking, imagination, imparts their interest to math: children were active and sometimes they found even several various decisions of the problem.

Dnepropetrovsk

Moscow

Odessa

On January, 21, 2010 teachers and students of Minsk school # 132 ORT "Bialik" took part in the action devoted to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the organised by the United Nations Representative Office in Byelorussia and Republican "Holocaust" Foundation.

There were in ceremony of mourning candles’ ignition participating:

• United Nations Representative in Byelorussia Mr. Antonius Brook;
• Ambassador of the State of Israel Mr. Eddi Shapira:
• Ambassador of Ukraine in Byelorussia Mr. Igor Likhovoy;
• Councellor-minister of the Embassy of the Lithuanian Republic in Belarus Republic Mr. Darius Vitkauskas;
• Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of Moldova Republic in Belarus Republic Mr. Grigore Sadovitch;
• representatives of the public Jewish organisations of the city.

On January, 27 there was the action devoted to memory of victims of the Holocaust also taken place at the school assembly hall. There were verses and words by 10th grade students performed which should remind the audience about those terrible days and candles in memory of six millions victims of Catastrophe were lighted.

A high-powered delegation from South Africa has toured ORT institutions in Paris and Moscow, its members seeing them as models of the quality vocational education they want to develop in their own country.

Senior representatives of government and business joined representatives of ORT South Africa on the four-day fact-finding mission, which took in the stunningly refurbished ORT Montreuil school in Paris and the ORT Technology College and ORT Technology School in Moscow.

Frank, professional discussions with local business people, educationalists and staff provided insights into the benefits of the ORT model as well as the challenges which must be overcome in order to attain the high standards on display.

In Moscow, the delegation were shown how ORT can provide a full range of vocational education services, from pre-vocational school level up to adult education and on-going career development, said ORT Russia National Director Dr Sergey Gorinskiy.

And during their visit to the ORT Technology College, the delegation participated in a round table discussion on the theme, “Training Programs: Cooperation with State and Business.” Also there were Dr Gorinskiy, the College’s Director and Deputy Director, Dr Yuri Mironenko and Igor Pavlov, the First Deputy Director of the Federal Institute of Educational Development and General Director of the National Agency for Qualifications Development, Professor Alexander Leibovich, the Director of the SKOLKOVO Infrastructure Research Centre, Professor Alan Kantrow, the Vice President of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers, Igor Karapetyan, and Vice President of the Moscow Union of Designers, Antonina Rudnitskaya taking part.

“We enjoyed very professional discussions,” Dr Gorinskiy said. “It was very interesting for us that the delegates asked us some questions about the challenges we face that we had not asked ourselves. So having their observations from the outside has helped us to see things in a new way.”

Moldova’s Education Minister, Leonid Bujor, and the Minister of Pre-University Education, Valentin Crudu, have become the highest-ranking dignitaries to visit the ORT Herzl Technology Lyceum in Kishinev.

The ministers visited several classes and paid particular attention to the superb facilities at the ORT Moldova Technology Centre, where there is one computer for every three students compared with a national average of more than 22 students per computer. And they discussed education issues with teaching staff and senior students in the school auditorium.

And the Director of the Lyceum, Svetlana Klimina, added: “These facilities are used not only for computer lessons, but as a way of incorporating the latest technology in the teaching of subjects such as history, biology and mathematics. Lessons become more interesting and the children learn more.”

Mr Shor and David Benish, World ORT Representative to the Countries of the Former Soviet Union, invited the Minister to the school earlier this month and it is testament to the warm relations between the government and ORT Moldova that he made time to take up the offer so quickly.

Such warm, high level contacts were established since 2003 when the Moldovan Government passed a resolution renaming the high school in Kishinev the ORT Herzl Technology Lyceum.

Since then, ORT Moldova has led the way in applying information technologies in education, said Mr Shor.

“We support many initiatives including a number of training programmes in conjunction with the Moldovan Ministry of Education,” he said. “I believe that ORT should be involved in many social programmes of the state - in precisely those areas in which our expertise can contribute to finding the best forms and methods of teaching not only high school pupils but also mature students of all religions and ethnicities.”

One such programme is the provision of training in the use of IT in education management for the heads of the regional educational departments. Others include vocational training for vulnerable women (a joint project with World Jewish Relief), and a research and analysis project to identify the most sought after skills in Moldova so that appropriate training can be made available.

Photo: ORT Moldova President Ilan Shor (centre) with the republic’s Education Minister, Leonid Bujor, and Svetlana Klimina, the Principal of ORT Herzl Technology Lyceum.

On January, 18, the Day of anti-virus safety, organised together with Anti-Virus School of Kaspersky, took place at the Moscow ORT Technology School (Gymnasia # 1540).

Leaders of Anti-virus school of Kaspersky Mr. Stanislav Shevchenko and Mrs. Margarita Bakina told students of 8^th -11^th grades about Anti-Virus School’s activity and discussed some complex issues concerned information safety. They also congratulated two teams of Moscow ORT Schools on including into the first ten of autumn Computer Biathlon. More than 100 commands from different cities of Russia took part in this competition.

Especially interesting was the presentation of Maxim Dorofeyev's, School’s graduate, former teacher of school and specialist of ORT Technology Centre, the co-author of “Digital Electronics” for 8th class course who is one of leading experts of Kaspersky’s Laboratory now.

Active participants of Day of anti-virus safety received prizes and everybody, both adults and children has been handed over free three-monthly license on Kaspersky Internet Security 2010.

On December, 11-13^th, 2009 at the Art Centre "Theatrical" the fourth, final seminar for school students and parents of the Jewish schools of St.-Petersburg, organised within the frames of the program «Jewish communities», financed by CAF, passed.  

Nearby 100 persons - students, their parents and teachers of three Jewish schools of St.-Petersburg (two schools of ORT network: Secondary School # 550, ORT de Gunzburg “Shorashim” and Secondary School # 274, ORT “Yerushalaim” and School "Adain Lo" # 374) took part in  three-day out-door seminar near Zelenogorsk.

Hanukah celebration became a theme of the seminar. Traditional Kaballat Shabat under the supervision of Mitya Fainerman and Mira Vitman was held on Friday evening. They lighted Hannukah and Saturday candles with the help of students of ORT de Gunzburg School who also sang some songs devoted to the holiday.

Having traditional entertainments old acquaintances shared impressions about lectures and thought out their suits for forthcoming performance.

All participants of the seminar are creative people and that is why they took part with a pleasure in the dramatized performance, staged under the direction of Evgeniya Sinelnik; painted and decorated plates and made traditional Hannukah tops-savivons.

Sunday has been devoted for Makkabiada. The light frost and the snow which had fallen out for night, frightened nobody - young sportsmen only ran on a football ground faster and participated in various competitions more actively.

Last joint Hanukah work was the hand-made newspaper in which each participant placed the responses, wishes and drawings. Before departure this newspaper was cut for some parts and was taken away for memory for each of the schools participated.

On December, 11th there was a celebratory concert devoted to a Hannukah holiday organized at the Moscow ORT Technology School (Gymnasia # 1540) for students and their parents. By tradition the concert began with the candles lightening.

The basis of the first act was the classical and variety music performed by students of ORT School, and in final the winner of the international competitions, the art director of chamber theatre "Ganzel-opera" singer Beata Ganzel (mezzo-soprano) acted.

On December, 4-6th, 2009 ORT St. Petersburg specialists took part in work of the third international youth forum the “Youth Wave”.

The forum annually passes in Lenexpo exhibition centre under aegis of St.-Petersburg Administration. In 2009 it became the central event of the Year of Youth.

It is already the second case of cooperation of ORT-St.-Petersburg and Lenexpo: in March, 2009 teachers of ORT gave master class on work with the computer for aged people, participants of the “Senior Generation” forum. 

Exhibition area – the biggest stand of pavilion – was provided to ORT free of charge as the Lenexpo administration had all bases to believe that a mobile computer class and performances of highly professional teachers will draw attention of visitors of the Forum.

ORT stand really became one of the most active the participant of the business program – for 3 days experts of ORT have spent 13 various trainings and master classes. 

Master classes on work with the computer which were conducted by teachers of the Centre, psychological trainings and recommendations of the career adviser about resume drawing up caused a great interest of visitors and participants of the Forum. All planned educational actions were devoted to really actual questions for youth: how to make resume correctly; how to answer the artful questions of the employer during the interview; how to create the make business-cards and to advance a site in the Internet; how to conduct the budget by Excel program and to organise working hours by time-management technologies.

Some participants visited all master classes throughout three exhibition days, coming to visit lessons specially.

The special attention of participants of the Forum was paid to the with the project “ The School of Career”, developed by experts of the Center specially for the young person doing the first steps in professional career.

Each visitor of the ORT stand could estimate advantages of participation in this educational program, after all master classes and trainings conducted there had been developed on materials of "Schools of Career”.

Organizers of the “Youth wave” forum handed over to  ORT-St.-Petersburg Director Marina Sorokina the Diploma.

On December, 10th, 2009 the results  of the open tender of projects «Grassroots - 2010», carried out within the frames of the “Jewish communities” program  under the initiative and with financial support of UJA Federation of New York and Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPGhave been summed up).

On the basis of experts’ recommendations and  according the results of meetings  and interviews 20 winners, including  the  Board of Trustees of the Kazan Secondary School # 12 (ORT-Mishpahteinu) and the Centre "ORT-St. -Petersburg".

The project «Mishpahteinu – Club»  of the Board of Trustees of the Kazan Secondary School # 12 (ORT-Mishpahteinu) is aimed for attracting graduates of different ages for  cooperation with school; for investigating the fundraising possibilities among the graduates  and parents; and for using  their professional possibilities for solving the problems facing to school.

Centre "ORT-SPb" project urged to stimulate youth’s interest to history of the Jewish community of Petersburg and its contemporary activity. Within the frames of that project not less than 40 persons – senior school and universities students will familiarize and comprehend creatively all the accessible historical material and will receive new knowledge in the field of information technology for presentation and distribution of the information about the life of Jewish community of Petersburg. As a result participants should create the Internet resource and provide thematic tours for 200 school and universities students of the city on the routes developed by them.

On November, 25th, 2009 in HP-ORT GET-IT Centre on the basis of Youth Business Centre which operates at Moscow Business School "MIRBIS"  the training “Own business establishing and what is  is necessary to know for beginning business owner” (with the elements of GET-IT program) for students of two Moscow schools: Gymnaisa #1540 (the Moscow ORT Technology School) and the Secondary School # 2017 - began.

The centre was opened in September, 2009 within the frames of expansion of the joint program of YP and the World ORT "GET-IT" (Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT) in Russia and Ukraine. The purpose of the programme is to help potential entrepreneurs acquire IT skills with the aim of becoming better placed to create and run their own businesses

On December, 10th, 2009 the first videoconference of two leading ORT colleges – ORT Strasbourg Lycée and Moscow ORT Technology College has taken place.

From Strasbourg side there were present: Mr Claude Sabbah, ORT Strasbourg Director, Design teachers and students. From Moscow side Mr Igor Pavlov, Deputy Director of Moscow ORT Technology College, teachers and students took part in videoconference/        

Technical support was provided by Vasily Meshcherjakov (Moscow) and Katya Skripnikova (Strasbourg). Katya Skripnikova also became the forum moderator and Franco-Russian interpreter.

After the general introduction, the sides told in detail about the colleges and answered the questions.

During conversation the particular interest was provoked by the fact that there are  “Fashion Design” specialty is taught in both colleges.

Considering that 2010 is declared by year of the French-Russian friendship, the sides decided to organize number of actions next year for strengthening the contacts between colleges.

The Strasbourg  Lycée  suggested to accept  a group of 10 persons, teachers and students of the Moscow Technology College. It is planned that Moscow students would present small fashion show, and teachers would conducted some thematic master classes of design.

 The sides also come to the agreement of a regular exchange of student's and teaching delegations, including these one in the form of interning.

Besides, the sides decided to carry out video conferences regularly and to devote the next such meeting to demonstrations of design works of teachers and students.

In the conclusion Mr Sabbah expressed gratitude to Moscow ORT Technology College for this initiative.

On November, 23rd on the web-site of “The Bronx Times” news agency the article devoted to World ORT 130^th Anniversary has been published.

The Bronx Times started and continues to deliver information as an online newspaper. It has been reaching locals and guests online through its flagstaff website Bronx.com since 2005. Bronx.com is up and running 24/7 and more than 80,000 unique visitors came to it last year, viewing 5 pages on average.

At the end of the article the link for World ORT web-site is given.

We are pleased to enclose a recorded clip from Bloomberg Radio, featuring our President, Dr. Jean de Gunzburg who was  interviewed by "Taking Stock" host Pimm Fox.

Bloomberg Radio provides live updates on world and national news as well as the latest in business news 24 hours a day. The network distributes news and information throughout North America. Bloomberg provides syndicated reports to more than 750 radio stations around the nation. Outside of the United States, the outlet delivers news in the local languages of the countries where it broadcasts.

 In order to listen to the interview, please click here.

On November 19th, 2009 ORT had an inspiring and sentimental reception at the United Nations building to celebrate its 130th Anniversary.

Please see United Nations Secretary General Message.

We invite all to take part in on-line voting on a People's Choice Award within the frames of annual competition of animation which is devoted this year to the Hanukah celebration.

All the works are placed here.

Here you can see and vote for work which will win a special prize then!

And our jury will estimate all  the works and will award the best of them in each nomination.

Results of competition will be published on December, 10th.

On October, 30th the Moscow Gymnasia # 1540 (Moscow ORT Technology School) was visited by delegation of British teachers.

During visit which proceeded more than 3 hours, the delegation of 9 teachers could not only have a tour on school, but communicate to teachers and students as well.

The meeting included presentation of the school, open lessons. During free dialogue of visitors with students and teachers the general and particular issues of various aspects of educational systems of two countries, elements of pedagogical technologies, using of ICT facilities at lessons etc. were discussed.  

During the story about school World ORT participation in school functioning at modern level was mentioned especially.

All participants of action had the most favorable impression about the meeting.

In a display that would have been all but impossible before World ORT brought Interactive Whiteboards and videoconferencing technology to Israeli schools on a significant scale, some of the Jewish State’s top decision makers were treated to a glimpse of the future of Jewish education at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem.

In less than 20 minutes, World ORT showed more than 120 politicians, industrialists, Jewish communal leaders and academics at a panel discussion on Judaism in the Internet Age the power of educational technology to transcend geographical and cultural barriers

“Ours was very different from the other presentations which relied on PowerPoint; ours was interactive, it was like something from another world,” said Kadima Mada Pedagogical Manager Dr Osnat Dagan. “They gave us 15 minutes and it felt like only one minute because there was so much happening. After the session people were coming up to me asking me how we did it. They were fascinated.

On October, 23rd, 2009 НР together with World ORT opened GET-IT (Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT) Сentre on the basis of the Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum.

The purpose the developed by HP Company "GET-IT" program is supporting of graduates and active youth strived for opening their business. Training course specially developed for the program includes not only an information technology, but also business dealing bases, increasing, thus, efficiency of professional work of beginning businessmen.

As a result of "GET-IT" Centre opening one of Lyceum’s classes will be completely equipped by laptops and other equipment necessary for providing students with knowledge and skills which should allow them opening their own business after graduating.

At the opening ceremony there were:

• Slobodan Radic, Regional Manager, Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I);
• Karel Vavruska, HP Business Development Director; 
• Sergey Savenko, Director HP Ukraine;
• Igor Belousov, НР Manager on working with official bodies in Ukraine, CIS and the countries Central and the Eastern Europe;
• Svetlana Levchuk, the Chief of Department of Education of Dneprovsky District of Kiev;
• Sergey Gorinsky, the Head of development of programs of association "World ORT" in the CIS and Baltic countries;
• Jury Vinogradov, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Computer Science and Computer Facilities, Head of the HР Centre at the National Technical University of Ukraine “KPI”.
• And also principals, teachers and student of Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum, the directors of HP-ORT GET-IT Centres in Ukraine participated at the ceremony.

Besides the centre in the Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum, also within the frames of GЕТ-IT program joint HP-ORT Centres will work in Ukraine territory in Slavutych and Lviv.

During the period from October, 12 till October, 13th, 2009 in Suzdal (Russia) the HP Digital Forum took place. Within the frames of the Forum the contest on the best reports under НР corporate social responsibility programs was declared. More than 40 persons were present at the forum: representatives of the partner organisations and educational institutions – participants of HP charitable programs.

According the organizers’ plan the report made under the special form of Power Point presentation, was to be added with video, photos, success stories. All materials were put on the blog of HP Digital Community for the voting.

Following the results of the voting which were declared on October, 14th, the best report was recognised this one of the school # 12 of Kazan, ORT "Mishpahteinu", where in February, 2009 the new multimedia class has been opened within the frames of educational program of  HP company for school students and teachers.

The award for the victory in contest of the best report was handed over to the Deputy Principal Viatcheslav Fiyalo.

"During certificate delivery I gave to representative of Hewlett Packard Company Mrs Gabriele Zedlmayer (VP Global Citizenship, HP) a brick with НР abbreviation, made bythe firm of Vadim Umanskiy, graduate of GET-IT program in Tambov".

Dina Brjuske, Director of "ORT-KesherNet" Centre in Tambov

On October, 8th in at the "ORT-Career” Centre the Open Day passed. More than 70 persons participated in free seminars and the master classes conducted by teachers of the Centre.

The particular interest was provoked by master classes on photos processing by means of Adobe Photoshop program. The topic – “Family Album” had been chosen specially, after all the teacher of the Centre Alexandra Kovaleva showed to participants of training how it is possible to correct flaws of old family pictures by means of the computer program. Such useful skills appeared to be interesting as for children so as for elderly - the age of fans of photos fluctuated from 11 till 70.

On October, 6th and 7 the opening ceremonies of two ORT-KesherNet Centres in Tbilisi and in Gori were taking place. 

Project Kesher activists in Georgia, representatives of the various Jewish organizations and of local authorities who were present at opening ceremony, underlined the importance of the given project time and again: thanks to these centres’ establishing wider opportunities for receiving new knowledge and skills are opened for women of Georgia.

Among guests of honour there were the Representative of American "Joint" Committee in Georgia Mrs. Irina Lipski, Deputy Director of the Tbilisi Jewish Community Centre Mrs. Zaira Davarashvili, Director of Jewish Culture and Educational Foundation Mrs. Lena Berkovich, the Chairman of the Independent Society of Kurds-Ezid Women of Georgia Mrs. Lily Safarova, President of International Foundation LEA Mrs. Marina Solomonishvili in action at Tbilisi. Especially for participation in the opening ceremony delegation of Board of Directors of Project Kesher arrived from the USA to Georgia.

Besides representatives of the Jewish community and the heads of public organisations in opening ceremony of the ORT-KesherNet Centre in Gori there was a Representative of Department of Inter-Nationality Relations of Gori Municipality Mrs. Maja Surameli participated. There was the agreement with the city administration about the training on computer literacy for women-refugees signed.

Heads of 'Levi Yitzchak Schneerson' Ohr Avner School # 144  and specialists of ORT Technology Centre prepared the project for participation in ' Intel ' corporation program "1 student - 1 computer" for secondary schools. The manager of the project Director of Studies of school Tatyana Ivashkova appointed.

On October, 3rd on the site http://1to1.iteach.com.ua/ the first results were published. Among the 102 projects of different schools of Ukraine the project  of school # 144 of Dnepropetrovsk was included into ten finalists of contest.

The school project "The Future in us - we in the future" is placed on site of contest. 

Moscow, September 18,  2009  –  Today HP together with World ORT announced the opening of the HP-ORT GET-IT Centre at the Moscow Business School “MIRBIS” and expansion of the HP Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT programme (GET-IT) and the opening of six more training centres in Russia and three centres in Ukraine.

The opening ceremony of the educational centre and presentation of the new phase of the “GET-IT” program took place in the Moscow Business School “MIRBIS”. A lot of honoured guests participated in the ceremony, among them there were Savin Stanislav Leonidovich, rector of “MIRBIS”, Owen Kemp, HP Vice-president and HP Russia managing director, Asmolov Alexander Grigorievich, President of ORT Russia, professor, academician of Russian Academy of Education.

HP-ORT GET-IT Training Centre has been opened on the basis of the Youth Business Centre which operates in Moscow Business School "MIRBIS" since May, 2008.

The main objective of the Center Youth Entrepreneurship is creation of practical component of the system training of entrepreneurs who will possess a set of personal qualities needed for work in modern business. The Center provides assistance to young people in starting a business and development of business-thinking skills. The center is also involved in creating an infrastructure to support youth entrepreneurship in Moscow; it realizes its own business projects, the social significance to the objectives of the preparation of the MBA and Executive MBA.

On conclusion of the opening ceremony Mr. Owen Kemp provided master-class for “MIRBIS” students on the topic “The Future of IT”, telling about technologies, devices and services that will be part of our everyday life in a few years or even decades as these projects are already being developed in HP today.

Photo: Asmolov Alexander Grigorievich, President of ORT Russia, professor, academician of Russian Academy of Education; Savin Stanislav Leonidovich, rector of “MIRBIS”; Owen Kemp, HP Vice-president and HP Russia managing director.

September, 13, families of Petersburgers sang and danced, participated in competitions and were treated with apples and fresh honey in “Divo-Ostrov” ("Miracle-island") park because of New Year according the Jewish calendar – Rosh-A-Shana.

The actions devoted to this holiday are traditionally organised in the city by the Jewish community, and so great holiday of this year became possible thanks to active participation of all Jewish organisations of the city and financial support of American "Joint" Committee and the Jewish Agency.

Among other organisations presented on a holiday, ORT-SPb played one of the key roles.

Competition of children's drawings on the asphalt, thought up and conducted by ORT specialists, had involved big interest and spontaneously continued after the official conclusion of the competition so by the evening the main square of "Divo-Ostrov" was painted by all the colours of rainbow. Someone of children tried to paint a logo of ORT and it is necessary to tell, it was made not so bad.

This day was full of surprises. Two master classes thought up by ORT specialists: on computer drawing and origami – was aimed for children of primary school age. But the holiday made the amendments:  nice origami baskets were concealed as by kids (with the help of the parents and ORT specialists), so be the more senior children and adult visitors of the action. And computer drawing provoked not only children’s interest.

Besides the direct participation in master classes’ carrying out, ORT represented itself as one of sponsors of the celebration: CDs "Jews of Petersburg. Three Centuries of History" were handed over to finalists of "Hidon-Peterburg" lottery devoted to history of the Petersburg Jewish community, and the certificate on free visiting of English language courses became the main prize.

On September, 9 the one-day seminar for nine accountants of the companies of St.-Petersburg was taken place in the St.-Petersburg "ORT-Career" Centre. Excel is daily used in accontant’s work, but there is no time to understand all subtleties independently. And any innovation becomes simple and accessible after teacher’s explanations.

The subjects of training were not a novelty for specialists and teachers of the Centre – courses on work in Excel are conducted in the Center constantly. The pleasant surprise was an audience consisted of practically working accountants and economists who aspired to receive answers to absolutely concrete questions during the training. Working examples and cases from practice which were assorted by participants of training under the supervising of the Centre’s teacher Tatyana Vlasova have helped to approach such themes in details, for example how to use templates, to work with formulas, with sheets, tools of the analysis of the data, diagrams, macros and many other things.

By listeners’ reviews, such seminar became the convenient tool for improvement of professional skill for practically working accountants. Even those from them who considered themselves as assured and experienced users of the program could open some ways to simplify and accelerate work with this convenient program during training.

Listeners have highly appreciated the skill of the teacher. By words of Anastasiya Malekova: “Tatyana Vlasova is a remarkable teacher who perfectly knows the program and is able to submit a material perfectly. I will attend the courses of profound studying of Excel under her tution”.

American media delegation and World ORT Director General Mr Robert Singer at the Kishinev ORT Technology Lyceum named by Herzel 

During the period from August, 31st till September, 4^th the visit of group of the American journalists to educational institutions of ORT network in Ukraine and Moldova took place.

For these five days Walter Ruby, Debra Rubin, Alan Goch and Laura Stampler could see a solemn ceremony of September, 1st at the Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum, visit ORT school in Odessa and ORT Technology Lycum named by Herzel in Kishinev, meet President of ORT Ukraine, the first pro-rector of National Technical University “Kiev Polytechnical Institute”, Professor Jury Yakimenko; the ORT Moldova President, public leader, President of Moldavian-Israeli Centre of  external economic relations, medicine and training, President of "ShorHolding", Mr. Ilan Shor, and well-known representatives of Jewish community and  Israeli diplomats.

Within the frames of visit on September, 3rd 2009 the meeting of journalists’ delegation, the World ORT Director General Mr. Robert Singer, ORT Moldova President Mr. Ilan Shor, World ORT Representative in the CIS and Baltic states Mr. David Benish with the President of Moldova Republic Mr. Vladimir Voronin in which the successful activity of ORT on training the population of Republic in knowledge and the skills necessary for overcoming of difficulties of a modern life was considered; for encouragement of their economic independence, professional and social mobility and the further prospects of ORT work in Republic were discussed also was taking place.

Following the results of delegation of the American press visit  on September, 8th, 2009 in “The Jewish Week” the article of Walter Ruby “ORT Schools In FSU In Danger Of Collapse” was published.

There was a video conference organized for students of ORT Schools with the new-elected Head of the Jewish Agency for Israel Mr. Natan Sharanskiy at the Moscow Centre of Education no. 1311 (ORT “Techiya”).  

Born on 20 January 1948 Mr. Sharanskiy is a former Soviet dissident, human rights activist, former prisoner of Zion, Israeli politician and author. Had been a Israel's Minister, a member of Knesset of the Likud Party, a Chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies  and Chairman of the Board of Beit Hatefutsot, since June 25,  2009 he was unanimously elected as a  Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Undoubtedly it was very interesting and exciting for students of four ORT schools: Moscow Centre of Education no. 1311 (ORT “Techiya”), Moscow Gymnasia no. 1540 (Moscow ORT Technology School), St Petersbrug School no. 550 (ORT de Gunzburg “Shorashim”) and Vilnius ORT Shalom Aleichemo Jewish School – to have a conversation with such an unordinary person.

Mr. Sharanskiy told about his life and his participation in fighting for human rights during the Soviet era. His speech was devoted to those not numerous activists who had organized actions for leaving for Israel at the Moscow streets, about their striving for freedom, and about abusing and victimization they had suffered from. And, of course, Mr. Sharanskiy said many important things about modern life in Israel and about the future and prospects of Israeli youth.

Students were immersed in conversation very much and asked many questions.

In conclusion Mr. Sharanskiy said that he is very glad that now ORT schools provided their students with an opportunity to study Hebrew, Jewish Culture and Traditions and Israeli history and political structure so that they could make successful “aliya”, continue their education in Israel and have a good professional and life prospects. 

Open lesson at the Vilnius Jewish ORT School

A survey published in Lithuania’s equivalent of Newsweek magazine has placed the Vilnius ORT Shalom Aleichem School among the Baltic state’s top 10 high schools.

But the school’s increasing popularity means it is now operating at maximum capacity and an increasing number of Jewish children face having to be educated elsewhere unless the money is found for a new building.

The school was ranked ninth in the survey of Lithuania’s top 500 schools by Veidas magazine and was ranked third amongst the capital’s schools.

Since then, World ORT’s continued support, culminating in last year’s introduction of Nova5000 date loggers and sensors to create “intelligent laboratories” – together with teacher training to ensure the equipment’s effective use – had contributed to Shalom Aleichem’s steady rise up the ranks. Shalom Aleichem is the only school in Lithuania to have such state-of-the-art teaching tools.

In 2004, the school was placed 108th in the magazine’s national rankings but by 2007 it was 46th and up to 27th last year. The fact that Shalom Aleichem qualified for the survey is in itself a sign of the school’s superior standards given that almost all the other schools listed are gymnasia – the education system’s top band of high schools.

Adult students at the Moscow ORT Technology College

In its first participation in an open public government tender to supply design training courses for small and medium businesses, the Moscow ORT Technology College applied to run two courses – one on application programmes of industrial design, the other on application programmes on design development, computer, interior and landscape design – and won the rights for both.

It  confirms the College’s reputation as one of Russia’s leading centres for vocational training in design, advertising, economy and technology.

The College’s success rested significantly on its recent certification by the Commercial and Industrial Chamber of Commerce of the Russian Federation. Until now, such certification has only been granted to Russia’s leading universities and is seen as the first step on the College’s journey to be recognised officially as a university.

The courses fall under the aegis of the Moscow Training Foundation’s City Programme for Small Business Development and Support, which has seen more than 30,000 specialists raise their professional skills over the past two years.

A group of 11 ICT teachers has undergone training in World ORT’s award-winning Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT (GET-IT) programme, the first such seminar since World ORT and Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced a massive increase in their GET-IT partnership.

The teachers from Kiev, Lvov, Murmansk, Rybinsk, St Petersburg, Slavutych and Tula were brought together at the ORT-KesherNet ICT training centre for women in Tula, which has a new computer class thanks to HP’s increased investment.

The GET-IT programme focuses on the need to encourage job creation and entrepreneurship among people below the age of 25. Its training courses deal with practical IT solutions for daily business challenges faced in areas such as finance, human resources, marketing, communications and technology management.

The four-day seminar raised the teachers’ skills in the use of ICT for business; another seminar is due to be held next month. The training, which was provided in this instance by Ana Barfield and Munir Ahmad of the Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute, is required by HP for all teachers at its GET-IT centres in 25 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Hebrew and Jewish Traditions Teachers’ Seminar started on the 28th of June 2008 in Kishinev (Chisinau) capital of Moldova on the site of the ORT Technology Lyceum named after B. Herzel.

Forty one teachers from Moldova (15 pers), Russia (11 pers), Ukraine (10 pers), Estonia (1 pers), Latvia (2 pers), Belarus (2 pers) arrived to Kishinev on the 28 of June (Sunday) to start the seminar on the Monday, 29th of June 2009.

The topic of the seminar was: “Modern Teaching Tools and Educational Technologies in Teaching

Hebrew and Jewish History and Traditions”.

The preparation for the seminar started two months before the opening day. A special Internet forum was initiated where participants introduced themselves to their colleagues, suggested and discussed the topics and themes for the Agenda of the seminar, offered and got advice and consultation on logistics.

During their first class the participants were greeted by the Director of ORT-Technology center Vitaly Kirrilov, the Princiapl of the ORT Lyceum Svetlana Klimina and World ORT President

 Jean de Gunzburg in his video greeting from London, UK. Dr.Gunzburg pointed out that similar

 seminars were taking place at the same time in Rome (Italy) and Rio (de) Janeiro (Brazil).

The 11^th grade student of Samara school #42 ORT "Gesher" Ivan Voronovsky  won the special diploma at the 7^th  International Contest “Future ACes of COMputer 3D-modelling 2009” (Ascon KOMPAS 3-D Best Models Contest for Educational Institutions). 

The project’s supervisor Irina Pogodina, ICT and Computer science teacher of  school #42, underlines: “This year we for the first time participated in the International Contest “Future ACes of COMputer 3D-modelling 2009”, declared by ASCON company. It was a great honor and huge responsibility for us. Students of our school study computer three-dimensional designing and manufacturing of products (3D modelling and manufacturing of products) within the frames of an elective course for 10^th -11^th grades. We already had an experience of participation in the Russian competition “Kompas-2004” where the team of our school had won the 3^rd place. But we for the first time participated in the International competition on computer 3D-modelling and in spite of the fact that we had not won the 1^st place (competition is declared mostly for the Universities’ and Colleges’ students and works were very serious), we are very glad that the Contest’s Jury had estimated our work by the special diploma”.

There were 147 projects had submitted for contest, and only 23, among with was the project of the student of Samara ORT school, were awarded by diplomas.

Using KOMPAS program Ivan Voronovsky created assembled three-dimensional model of an ancient iron which was an exhibit of the virtual technical museum. Besides this he made a parts of this model using CNC machine. Among all works presented for contest, only Ivan's one was not only designed, but also made. That is, the whole cycle of computer designing and product manufacturing process (CAD/CAM technologies) had been run.

.

HP facilities' delivering in Tula

World ORT together with HP announced the expansion of the HP GET-IT (Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT) programme with the opening of ten new training centres in Russia and Ukraine.

The following ten institutions have most recently joined the network of GET-IT centres in Russia and Ukraine:

Russia

·   Moscow International Higher Business School MIRBIS (Institute)

·   Moscow, Secondary School #1257

·   Tula, ORT-KesherNet Training Centre For Women

·   Kineshma, ORT- KesherNet Training Centre For Women

·   Rybinsk, ORT- KesherNet Training Centre For Women

·   Saransk, Vocational Lyceum #36, ORT Technology Centre

·   Murmansk, Murmansk Regional Small & Medium Support Business Agency

Ukraine

·   Slavutich, HP-ORT Digital Community Centre

·   Kiev, ORT-Technology Lyceum

·   Lviv, ORT-Career Centre

Students working at School's Video Studio 

At once 3 films of students of the Samara school # 42 ORT “Gesher” won Regional Contest of Cinema-Photo-Video Creativity “Volshebnyi Lutch” (“Magic beam”).

The founder of this contest is Ministry of Science and Education of Samara region and its organizer is Regional Centre of Aesthetical Education at the Centre of Youth Socialization.

Students of Samara school # 42 ORT “Gesher” suggested three films at the 2^nd age category (14-17 years old) and received 3 diplomas in different nomination.

These projects were made by 11^th grade students (graduates of the previous two years) with the participation of the other school students of different age.

1st Degree Diploma in video-clip nomination was delivered to Valeria Pogodina for the comic video about school on the soundtrack “The Song of the Underachiever Student”

2nd Degree Diploma in social advertisement nomination – to Vladimir Sysoev for the advertising video “The Last Day in Your Life” aimed to promote licensing software purchasing.

3rd Degree Diploma in documentary nomination – to Vladislav Koryagin for the video “That is Our School” in which the school viewed by newcomer primary school student was presented.  

Supervisor of the projects suggested by Samara school # 42 ORT “Gesher”   is Computer Science and ICT teacher Irina Pogodina.

Films have been made within the frames of school optional course "Video Technology" which is also conducted by Irina Pogodina.

Irina said: “This victory means a prestige for our school. And a possibility of sharing experience with other schools’ studios as well. It is also an independent high estimation of our activity. We are always trying to present our students’ works for various contests. And our victories are stimulated other students for better work. They ask:"Would you suggest our works for this contest or that? Would they be demonstrated in some school’s action?” It is a great thing for students’ motivation".  

Ruslan Aiginin is a graduate of

Kazan secondary school # 12

ORT "Mishpahteinu"

Vladislav Kaganov is a graduate of

Moscow Gymnasia # 1540

Moscow ORT Technology School

An ORT student has his home town of Kazan abuzz with news that he scored a perfect 100 in his computer science high school graduation examination.

ORT Mishpahteinu student Ruslan Aiginin’s stunning achievement as Tatarstan’s only perfect scorer in the exam prompted the republic’s Deputy Minister of Science and Education, Ludmila Nugumanova, to congratulate the school’s teachers on television for their commitment and skill in nurturing such a fine student.

Ruslan,18, is one of only 61 of the 67,504 students who passed the Russia-wide computer science exam to do so without a single mistake. In the predominantly Muslim autonomous Republic of Tatarstan, 1,252 people passed the exam with an average mark of 57 per cent. But Ruslan’s result is just the tip of the iceberg of ORT’s achievement in teaching technology to teenagers.

Most ORT Russia students scored more than 80 per cent in the computer science exam, placing them in the top seven per cent of graduates; among them was Vladislav Kaganov, a student at Moscow ORT Technology School, who was one of only 197 students across the country to score 99 per cent.

Just the fourteenth year international contest of family trees is conducted at the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora (Beit a-tfutsot) and under the aegis of "NADAV" foundation. It is aimed to support the initiative of students to study history of their families more deeply and gives the chance to include their genealogical trees into the database of the Jewish genealogical centre and to guarantee by that that this important information will be kept for the next generations and will facilitate the communications with other families.

This year more than 20,000 students took part in the contest.

Among participants from the CIS countries the students of the Samara school # 42 ORT Gesher” Yana Levitan became the winner of competition "History of my family". Her supervisor is a teacher of the Jewish history and tradition Simona Fleisher.

Introduction of Yana’s presentation is: “My name is Yana Levitan. I am the student of the 7th grade of the Jewish school of Samara. I decided to take part in this project because it is important for me and my family to continue the work of my grandfather Pavel Finkelstein. Many years ago he had become interested in history of our big amicable family and had written and published the book “And keeping treasured light …”. Having read this book I understood, that it’s me who should study our family tree further. And I decided to investigate my branch of our big family tree”.

Simona Fleisher said:“Contest organizers let participants choose the form of suggesting materials by themselves. We decided to make computer presentation that allows us to present the great amount of materials, documents, photos and memoirs, in aesthetical and at the same time readable form, to trace internal connection between the history of country, history of Jewish people and defined family history. The problem is that child at the age as Yana is, usually does not interested in family history very much, and doesn’t understand precisely the great value of possibility to see grandma and grandpa and to speak with them. Such projects motivate children to know the history of their families, to be proud of their ancestors and their roots.

Great events of human history, for example as II World War, are rather far past for contemporary children. But through the studying of family history they understand the history as a whole and the history of Jewish people especially more deeply.

Victory is always stimulated. Last year we received the encouragement prize but this year it was a victory. To win in the international contest is a great prestige for our school. And besides this it is an experience of international cooperation. I am as a teacher interested in such work very much. Such projects motivate students for independent researches and investigations. And supervising these projects teacher learns to motivate students for independent thinking.

It is a great pity that because of economic crisis and lack of money Yana and her parents could not go to Israel and to receive the prize personally. Of course it disappointed Yana very much.

We are going to prepare another student to participate in this contest next year but we do not know what to do with the out of possibility to get prize in Israel as a motivation.

I also should say that during the last 5 years we realizing the project “My family” for the 4^th grade students at our school. At the end of the academic year they have a great holiday with their parents and defend there their projects. When Yana was primary student she participated in this project”.

Three schools of ORT Russia have been selected for funding of the 2009 HP Innovation in Education Grant award.  Among the several proposals submitted from the secondary schools of the Russian Federation there were 9 schools selected including those ORT ones as Gymnasia # 1540 (former Secondary School # 1299), School # 550 in St Petersburg  and Samara Secondary School # 42.

On behalf of the Managing Director HP Russia, VP HP, Mr Owen Kemp the congratulation letters were sent for the administration of ORT Schools in Moscow, St Petersburg and Samara, in which he said: “With only 50 selected proposals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, your educational institution is part of an elite cohort dedicated to enhancing degree programs in engineering, computer science, information systems, and information technology the innovations that are possible at the intersection of teaching, learning, and technology. We are very excited to have the opportunity to partner with you and your institution as you implement your project and develop your institution's technology capacity for the benefit of your students. Congratulations again. Thank you for your commitment to education and for seeking new ways to transform the learning environment in ways that positively affect student achievement”.

At the beginning of June the results of ORT CIS photo competition was summarized.  The main objectives of this action were integration of the Jewish and Technology education in ORT Schools and Centres; developing of students’ creative ability; increasing their motivation, especially those who had been the participants of educational programs "The March of the Living" and "Masa Shorashim".

This year students of the following schools and lyceums took part in competition: the Moscow Gymnasia # 1540 (Moscow ORT Technology School), the Samara school # 42 (ORT “Gesher”),  ORT Technology Centre at the 'Levi Yitzchak Schneerson' Ohr Avner School # 144,  Kiev ORT technology Lyceum, Odessa ORT school # 94 and St.-Petersburg school # 274 (ORT “Yerushalaim”) and Zaporoije Jewish Gymnasium ORT "Aleph".

On May, 27th the Expert Council of the third open tender of social projects within the frames of the program “The World That Is Opened For All” of charity organisation CAF (“Charities Aid Foundation”) included the educational project of ORT-SPb “The Dialogue without Borders” in the list of grant winners in direction of the social aid for aged people.

The project “The Dialogue without Borders”, offered by ORT-Spb will allow 120 aged Petersburgers being trained on work with PC.

Timeline of the project realisation is from September 2009 till May, 2010. During this time in computer classes of ORT St Petersburg 12 groups of pensioners will be trained. They should get acquainted with computer techniques and get skills of using modern computer technologies and of working in Internet and Skype program and other communication programs.

The project aim is not simply to train pensioners in working with PC. New knowledge should help aged people to communicate with relatives, to realize their creative ideas and may be for someone to find new job.

Alexander Leonidovich Ioffe communicates with his friend with the help of Skype program

On May, 8th the aged people, trained on ORT computer courses, had an opportunity to congratulate their messmates and friends by means of Skype program.

Alexander Leonidovich Ioffe (the knight of the Award of Patriotic War of the 1st degree) made the first call to Chelyabinsk, to his messmate on Academy of Communication. “With him we had started to study together, in 1938. Then war began and we did not communicate with each other for a long time …”. The possibility to see the friend, to congratulate with a holiday so sacred for them by means of the Internet was not “a novelty” for Alexander Leonidovich– he is already “the advanced user”, within an inch of becoming the graduate of ORT computer courses. “I speak with you on the Internet. On Skype! And don’t you have such program? It is a pity, so it is so convenient to communicate …” 

Almost free calls to different cities of Russia, in far and near abroad give huge pleasure to pensioners. “And is it possible to call to America? Yes but not just now, it is night there, I don’t want awake them”. One of the student has shown the successes to her grandson living in other city proudly– there are no secrets for her in the Internet web and  it will be possible to communicate more often.

Animation films of "Jonah" and “The Flood", made by students of the Samara school №42, ORT "Geser",  won the 1st degree Diploma of winners of  the All-Russia Open Contest of Research, Design and Creative Works of Students "First Steps" 2008-2009.

On May, 8th on the threshold of Victory Day celebrating students of the School no 550, ORT Gunzburg "Shorashim invited members of the Society of the Great Patriotic War Veterans, School’s administration and parents for a concert. 

School students prepared 19 numbers which touched souls of all who was sitting in the Assembly Hall deeply. The concert was unordinary, and what is the most important thing, it was unforgettable. Students of the senior classes had thought up the small musical-literary sketches on a theme of the Great Patriotic War, and teachers had helped children to make the suits. Younger children were awarded with applauses for the song «Let a sun will be always there». With special enthusiasm and with active support of auditorium children sang a hymn of Jewish guerrilla in 3 languages – Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew. Teachers of the Branch of Jewish subjects had helped students to learn it.

Teacher of Computer Science and ICT of the Samara School no 42, ORT "Gesher", Natalia Fomenko is awarded by the Diploma of the All-Russia Festival of Pedagogical Ideas “Open Lesson” 2008/2009. Natalia has presented at the festival her development “Training Materials Pack on Computer Science on the Theme “Symbolical variables””.

During the several months the staff and audience of the Moscow ORT Technology School strived for passing the licensing process for getting the status of Grammar School.

The experts of Board of accreditation were working at the School and there was the Meeting of the City Committee of the Schools’ Accreditation.

All was successful and on April, 17^th, 2009 the Moscow Department of Education issued the order about the accreditation of the Secondary School no 1299 with profound study of Technology (Moscow ORT Technology School) as a Gymnasia no 1540.

As the School’s Principal Dr Marina Moiseeva stated that is a sign of a high estimation given by the government educational authorities for the quality of work of the School’s staff.

It means the increasing of the number of hours for additional and optional courses and hobby circles  within the School’s official curriculum; very high official status of the Hebrew and subjects of Jewish cycle  as a leading subjects of Liberal Arts; changing  the rates of teachers’ salary. 

Model of Gymnasia that is to be realized in Moscow ORT Technology School supposed the providing students with the profound academic knowledge by the means of up-to-date ICT environment and using all the possible technology facilities for developing creative abilities and academic level of students. 

Dr Moiseeva said: "We will start to change the school curriculum and settle new terms with staff. However, because of the economic crisis, we may not receive the additional funds before the start of the next school year so we have adopted a slower, step-by-step approach than we would otherwise have done".

The teacher of the Primary grades of  Samara school no 42, ORT "Гешер", Marina Strygina and the graduate of the  2008 Roman Meerson were included into the number of medal winners of the All-Russia Open Contest of Research, Design and Creative Works of Students "FIRST STEPS" 2008-2009 in nominations "History of times and people" with animation "Chocolate bar" (stories about the Holocaust). Work was conducted together with the 6^th grade during the classes of the History of  Jewish people.

In total 2442 works had been presented for contest, in the given nomination - 306 ones. 

“To help students of the primary and middle school to feel and understand theme of Catastrophe of the European Jewry in the days of the II World war,” - Marina Alekseevna considers, - “it is necessary to create at the lessons the spiritual atmosphere causing their condolence and sympathy to victims. It is promoted also by the method of projects. Using it at cartoon film creation, students become the subjects of informative activity. This project allows not only to learn history of the Jewish people better, but also helps each student to generate the personal feeling to the Holocaust».

 Evariste Galois Medal - the main award of the contest

On April, 21st, the first graduation of the course «English language with a computer support» was taking place. It is the new project of the Vocational Training Centre "ORT-Career" in St Petersburg, and the group which had finished its training is the first graduates.

The 9th year Day of Projects was conducted at the School successively. On April, 9th since the early morning the work was humming in school’s recreations and classes. Having forgotten about lessons, students of School no. 550 and their companions from one more ORT school in St Petersburg, School no. 274 "Yerushalaim”, presented, compared and discussed results of their creative and scientific activity.

Certainly, such interesting day could not pass without mass-media support. Young reporters interviewed developers of projects, found out the most interesting details of work on new projects and recollected interesting stories of already last years, photographers clicked cameras non-stop, trying to embody interesting shots. Under the supervision of ORT-St Petersburg PR Manager they have thought up the names for nominations in which awarded winners.

“The most innovative project”, “the best scientific exhibition of year”, “the best application of the theory in practice”, “the most useful project for health”, the most independent, patriotic, resourceful, tolerant projects – these and many other names sounded in assembly hall of the School during the rewarding of participants of Day of the Project by medals and the memorable prizes made in School’s Technology Lab.

And a finishing chord of the day became the photo-presentations prepared by young reporters and shown to all interested person on Conclusion of the 9th school Day of Projects of the School no. 550, ORT-Gunzburg “Shorashim”.

“Virtual museum creation: designing and manufacturing of three-dimensional computer model of an ancient iron”

Students and teachers of the Samara school no. 42 ORT "Geser" became the winners of Regional Open Contest “Engineering Graphics and Its Application for Manufacturing.”

Internal round of this contest was on April, 16th 2009 in Tolyatti (it near to Samara).

Contest was though "regional", but "opened". Therefore as schools, and institutions of vocational training, and Universities not only from Samara and the Samara region, but so from the other regions of Russia participated in it.

Students and teachers of the Samara school no. 42 ORT "Geser" presented their works in the following nominations:

• “Modelling of three-dimensional objects in CAD and CAD/CAM systems”;
• “Modelling and designing in CAD/CAM systems and manufacturing of products on machine tools with CNC”.

All works provoked a great interest, as of external jury, so of the other participants of the contest.

Natalia Fomenko, the teacher of the Samara school № 42, ORT "Geser", became the winner of the President of the Russian Federation award.

Contest was organized within the frames of the National Priority Project "Education" and as a result of the competitive selection Natalia Fomenko was included into the number of the best teachers of the Samara region in 2009.

Natalia Fomenko became the third teacher of the Samara school № 42, ORT "Geser" who will receive this award.

In 2007, 2008 as one of the best teachers of the Samara region the following teachers were recognised:

•             Irina Pogodina, the teacher of Computer Science and Information Technology, 2007;
•             Simona Fleisher – the teacher of the Jewish Culture and Traditions of the Jewish people, 2008.

On GET-IT Website the article about HP-ORT GET-IT  Centre activity in the Tula Boarding School for Deaf People was posted.

On April, 7th, 2009 the meeting of students and teachers of Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Cultural Science of Faculty of Foreign Affairs of BSU with the Public Affairs Officer of the Embassy of USA in Belarus Republic Mrs. Caroline Savage who presented the report on “Higher Education System in USA” was taking place.

Presentation provoked a great interest of audience and caused many questions answered by Mrs. Savage in details.

Mrs. Savage visited ORT Chagall Technology Centre in BSU and was amazed by the facilities of the centre and its work.

On the photo from left to right:Frants Korzjuk – ORT Chagall Technology Centre in BSU Director; Lydia Zhuk – the Teacher of Computer Science who conducted the training with the group during the visit; Caroline Savage - the Public Affairs Officer of the Embassy of USA in Belarus Republic; Igor Markhasev – Head of the Chair of Foreign Languages of Department of Modern Foreign Languages  and Cultural Science of the Faculty of Foreign Affairs of BSU; Zelik Pinhasik – Head  of Department of Cultural Science and Modern Foreign Languages of Faculty of Foreign Affairs of BSU ; Igor Zjablitsev – the employee of Embassy of the USA in Belarus Republic.

The Vocational Training Centre "ORT-Career" in Yekaterinburg has taken part in carrying out of First City Championship on Computer Business Game "Maximum" within the frames of the project «Startap – A Small Business Forum».

On April, 4^th-5^th 9 teams of various business structures of Yekaterinburg on the laptops given by the ORT Center, simulated development of the virtual business. The business game, developed by experts of the Moscow State University by M.V.Lomonosov, represents a step-by-step business stimulator in which a team (or individual participant) manage the virtual enterprise working in the competitive environment.

Thus the computer gives the detailed information on results of enterprise’s activity of the each step of game, as data of book keeping, financial and tax reporting, a great number of administrative reports, including the rating report of teams-competitors. Distinctive feature of the program is that book keeping and taxation questions are strictly corresponding to the Russian legislation.

On March 30, 2009 Minister of Education of Lithuania, Mr. Gintaras Steponavichius visited ORT Vilnius school named after Sholom-Aleichem.

He got to know school, it’s history, activities and future plans, he also had a tour over facility, classes an laboratories. In Physics class students demonstrated him how do they work with the system NOVA 5000 and train for the last tour of contest “Young scientists of European Union”.

Teachers and students told Minister about IT using for educational process and the multimedia boards were shown to Minister. At ORT Center Minister met with all school staff, discussed with teachers school problems, such as lack of facilities and Gym, also slides about school work days have been shown to Minister.

Mr. Steponavicjius was deeply impressed and didn’t scrimp on compliments to the school and its teachers. The meeting was at warm and friendly atmosphere.

On April, 1, 2009, ORT Photo Contest begins its work.  It has the following nominations: the photo, the slide show and the poster.

Preparatory stage of the contest is to be conducted by teachers of ORT Centre from April, 1, till May, 22, 2009.

At this time participants are offered to prepare photowork based on the materials collected during the trips till 2009, and also to collect and to process the new material on the trip to Belarus on April, 19-27, 2009.

All works of participants should be presented for Jury till May, 22, 2009 and be sent to rd@ort.ru (with a subject "photo contest").

Contest’s results will be published till June, 1, 2009. Winners and the teachers supervising their work, will be awarded by the diplomas and the gifts from ORT in the CIS and Baltic States. The best works will be presented on a site of ORT in CIS.

Article devoted to activity of ORT Moldova has been published in leading Russian-speaking mass-media of Moldova Republic on March, 24th, 2009.

There the positive assessment of ORT work on promotion and popularisation of technology education not only in ORT educational institutions, but also in in educational system of Moldova as a whole and positive responses from the side the Head of Central Administrative Board of Education, Youth and Sports of Kishinev and the Adviser of the Kishinev Municipal Council are given.

As a subject caused the publication was the Kishinev City Olympic Games of Computer Science "INFO_OFIS" which is traditionally takes place at the ORT Lyceum named by B.Z.Gertzel.

The Olympic Games are organised by the Public Institution "Educational Resources and Technology Training" in Мoldova Republic (ORT Moldova) and passes under the aegis and with the financial support of Miron Shor Foundation.

On the photo: President of ORT Moldova Mr Ilan Shor, Director of ORT Technology Centre in Kishinev Mr Vitaly Kirillov,  Chief Expert in Computer Science of Central Department of Education of Kishinev Mrs Svetlana Golubeva and  Director General  of of Central Department of Education of Kishinev Mrs Tatyana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb hand over the Olympic Games diplomas

Links for publications:

"Nezavisimaya Moldova" newspaper ("Independent Moldova")

RIA "Novosti"

Article was also published in the printed version of "Nezavisimaya Moldova" (Circulation 11 200 )

During the period March, 19-22, 2009, ORT-St.-Petersburg participated at the International Forum «The Senior Generation» which annually took place in “Lenexpo” under support of St.-Petersburg Administration.

ORT participated in such event for the first time. The training course « Personal Computer for Aged People» which is the authorial development of "ORT-St.-Petersburg» experts, was submitted to consideration of visitors of an exhibition.

Actuality of this course was estimated by organisers of the forum  in the full extent: despite high prices of exhibition places at a forum, the biggest and the most convenient stand in the whole pavilion had been provided for ORT Computer Lab free of charge.

Workshop at the ORT Computer Class

Certainly, it is impossible to train the person being incompetent with the personal computer before during the one hour workshop. ORT experts put before themselves simpler, but no less important task: to show aged people that they can master their computer skills and use PC in their everyday life.

Really, diffidence stopped many of them just before the beginning of workshops: whether it will be possible to keep a mouse in the hands; whether they would be able to remember how to turn on the computer; whether they could understand what the teacher would say - all these questions often sounded near the ORT mount. Besides, many of those coming to the exhibition had a negative experience of explanations of bases of computer literacy by children, grandchildren and younger friends.

In interview given to correspondents of several TV channels and the radio stations accredited at the forum participants of workshops underlined with gratitude professional skills of ORT teachers, their ability to make simple and clear the facilities so difficult for pensioners, their willingness to inspire the audience self-assurance. The plot about what had happened at the ORT mount was shown on air of “Vesti” news program on "Russia" TV channel. 

Thus the pensioners who had come these days to ORT mount, really need computer: for working with memoirs, mailing with children living apart, for grandchildren’s breeding, scientific and literary works’ formatting.

Vice-governor of St.-Petersburg Mrs Ludmila Kostkina at the ORT mount (ORT-St.-Petersburg Director Marina Sorokina on the right)

Workshops provoked interest not only by ordinary visitors of the exhibition, but by representatives of the official delegation participating in solemn opening ceremony of the forums well.

In her speech at ceremony of official opening of the Forum the Vice-governor of St.-Petersburg Mrs Ludmila Kostkina underlined that «There is a new direction of work in the City: training programs for pensioners... The focus on the computer with all the possibilities which it gives could become one of new forms of leisure of aged persons...»

During visiting of ORT mount Mrs Kostkina especially noted educational initiatives of experts of ORT-St.-Petersburg. Also she accepted with pleasure a computer album «Jews of Petersburg. Three centuries of history» as a gift from the ORT-St. –Petersburg Director Mrs Marina Sorokina.

Forum organisers delivered to Marina Sorokina the Diploma of Participation and expressed the hope that ORT again will take part in the Forum next year. But the best award for ORT employees were the happy faces of pensioners who had understood that they can be successful with a difficult from their opinion facilities and hastened to register for the further training on ORT courses.

«It is early to dismiss us», - one of the participants has told after the workshop.

The team of students of Odessa ORT School no. 94 won the 1^st  place on the regional ICT Olympic Games  

On March, 13 on the basis of the Odessa  ORT Technology Centre the annual ICT Olympic Games already become traditional among School students of Odessa and the Odessa region passed. This year there 12 teams arrived on the Olympic Games. Each of them had become the winner of the preliminary stage and had passed selection round before these competitions.

The best students of the senior grades  entered into a line-up of  ORT School no. 94: Bella Engonga (11 grade), Pavel Gelebjan (10 grade) and Sasha Brodsky (8 grade).

There was a challenge children faced on working out the documents of the certain travel company which employees they became for the period of the Olympic Games, including site creation, search of the ciphered information in the Internet, working out of logo and documentation preparation. It took 3 hours for students to make all tasks and to present and defence the work brightly.

We congratulate the students and their supervisor Mr Igor Kot with a victory!

On March, 7, 2009 in the Centre of Education of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Belarus Republic celebrating Bath-Mitzvah and the Bar-Mitzvah celebration for 21 students of  7 «Е» grade of  Secondary School no.132 in Minsk (ORT School named by Bialik) took place.

Director of ORT Russia presented CD-ROMs to children

There were present at the ceremony: Consul of the State Israel in Belarus Republic Mr Asaf Bracha; ORT Russia National Director Mr Viatcheslav Leshchiner; the Head of Representative of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Belarus Republic Mr. Igor Gitelman; the Israeli Envoy at ORT School named by Bialik Mrs. Miriam Milstein; Principal Mrs. Alla Garus; teachers, parents and relatives of students.

Also there were 6 representatives of the Jewish Community of Atlanta. The teacher of Atlanta’s Jewish school delivered a salutatory speech and gave to children the best respects from Atlanta’s students and presented the gifts, made by their hands.

Mr. Leshchiner also congratulated children with this significant day and has handed over them CD-ROMs «Aleph-Beth about Israel», produced by the team of «ORT-St.-Petersburg".

Visitors and parents said words of severance to children entering the adult life, wished them a health, success and good luck and lighted candles. Then the carrying out of a roll of a Torah followed and the Rabbi Grigory Abramowitz ran the ceremony. Students went to a roll of a Torah and read it under the supervision of Rabbi who finished his part of ceremony by blessing.

Children demonstrated the songs, dances and the small Purimspiel performance.

The atmosphere was solemn and easy at the same time. At the nearby room parents prepared sweet refreshments for children and visitors. The holiday provoked genuine interest and active participation of parents, relatives, teachers and guests.

Flyer of the VTC "ORT-Career" in St.-Petersburg

On March, 3, 2009 ORT-St.-Petersburg took part in annual Fair of Vacancies of the enterprises of Petrogradskiy District of St.-Petersburg.

More than two hundred people visited the fair organised by the Centre of Employment for the population of Petrogradskiy District under support of Committee of Labour and Employment for the population of St.-Petersburg.

The presentation of syllabuses of ORT-St.-Petersburg was conducted during the fair operating time: courses of Computer Literacy, Web-design and English language. At the ORT mount specialists of the Centres acquainted visitors of fair with training conditions, carried out consultations under the programs’ content, schedule and prices.

Also new ORT projects were supposed to attention of fair’s visitors such as «School of Career» for students and graduates of Universities and the program «Information Technology for Beginning Entrepreneurs» (GET-IT) carried out in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard corporation.

Besides this, ORT specialists discussed the possibility of joint projects with other fair’s participants: representatives of the large enterprises of the District, Colleges and Universities of St.-Petersburg.

In  Vocational Training Centre "ORT-Career" in St.-Petersburg practical seminar within the frames of the program on information technology for beginning entrepreneurs realised jointly with Hewlett-Packard (GET-IT) took place on February, 22, 2009.

The seminar was devoted to such actual issues for entrepreneurs like these: what is necessary for a successful site creation; how to raise its citation and rating; how to involve visitors and to analyse a site overall performance; how to create own site with the minimum financial expenses and span time.

The primary task which organizers set was to show the simple and accessible technologies, allowing creating web sites without special knowledge in the field of programming.

Despite the day off the theme, being interesting and demanded, and possibility to receive advices of experts and skilled specialists involved more than 20 persons to the Centre’s laboratory.

The audience was inhomogeneous both on age, and on an operational experience, also base knowledge of the seminar’s participants differed essentially: students and business persons, housewives and representatives of mass-media, beginners-users and skilled programmers. But during training each listener could find something new, interesting and useful.

The interactive mode of study when listeners were constantly involved in discussions, work in groups became one of distinctive features of the seminar. Practical tasks, joint discussion of their performance and results allowed participants exchanging experience, expressing opinions and finding independent solving of the problems set before them. That is the uniqueness of the program developed by Hewlett-Packard that students do not receive ready answers but independently pass their way of knowing and as a result find that decision that is appropriate to them in the their individual circumstances.

The first part of the seminar was devoted not only to fast and effective web sites’ building, but to the issues of branding and promotion as well. This theme appeared to be the most interesting to audience and caused many questions. Participants got acquainted with the basic tools of optimisation and site promotion, have learnt the principles of working of the basic search systems. Lecture on topic «Ways of an Estimation of Efficiency of Sites by Means of the Analytical Program and Processing of the Statistical Data Received» became a pleasant bonus.

At the end of training participants were handed over with the certificates.

Atmosphere of creativity, active interest which was promoted by tutors helped listeners to lick a problem and to take pleasure of interesting and fruitful work.

The next seminar of the program is to be at the end of March.

From February, 24 till February, 27 on the basis of Vocational Training Centre "ORT-Career" in Yekaterinburg a design team “Gallery of masters” which had been organised by the Professionally Oriented Resource Centre of Development of Vocational Training of Sverdlovsk area in sphere of art producing (PRC AP) was trained.

During 4 days managers and teachers of educational institutions of initial and secondary vocational training developed business ideas of creation of units of professionally oriented business incubator on the basis of the educational institutions.

Nowadays when the number of students is reduced sharply, material resources of institutions became outdated, creation and development of business structures on the basis of initial and secondary vocational training will allow providing additional financial flows, organising business practice for students and preparing the future young experts for the organisation of their own business.

For training of design team the materials of the course «Information Technology for Beginning Entrepreneurs» (HP-MEA-I) been added with materials on business to planning and discussion of the purposes and content of “Gallery of masters” project were used.

Representatives of initial and secondary vocational training institutions and experts of PRC AP were trained by the specialists of Vocational Training Centre "ORT-Career" and advisers of Regional Foundation of Support of Women Business. According the results of courses the «on-line» questioning had been organised which demonstrated the high efficiency and actuality of the trainings.

Educational seminar “Studying the Bases of  Robotics at ORT Schools” for teachers of ORT schools and centres has begun its work on February, 23, 2009 on the basis of ORT Technology Centre in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine). Twenty two teachers from eleven cities of Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Estonia take part in  the seminar.

Main objectives of the seminar are: studying and practical using of NXT construction sets (Lego MindStorms); development of the base technique of teaching Robotics; creation of preconditions for improvement of teaching of a course on bases of Robotics or its initial introduction into the training program (on the basis of using Lego Education); studying of experience of organisation and functioning of optional courses of Robotics; introduction of Olympic Games system on Robotics.

The seminar was opened by the Director of ORT Russia Dr Viatcheslav Leshchiner. Then within the limits of a round table participants of the seminar discussed the issues connected with teaching of the given course at  ORT schools. Among the topic for discussion the following should be underlined: deterioration and obsolescence of the available equipment ("Robolab", RCX); a lack of hours in curriculum; taking into account the age and gender features of students at the training organisation.

Seminar was visited by the representatives of the press centre of the site of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community who have told about seminar in their news.

Prefect of North-Eastern Administrative District Mrs. raber wrote at Guestbook (on the left side - College's Director Dr. Mironenko)

The great interest of visitors and participants of Board was provoked by tour on a new building. Students with pleasure and pride demonstrated possibilities of audiences, laboratories, studios and the halls of college equipped wiht advanced interactive, multimedia and technology facilities were the real hosts of this holiday. Photosession has been made in photographic studios and visitors with pleasure received a photocollage for memory of this significant event. The greatest impression has been made by visiting of a multipurpose hall of the College created within the frames of the Program "Personnel" in which «The City of Masters» has been demonstrated. Students of Faculty of Restaurant business created surprising compositions from vegetables and fruit, chocolate and caramel just in visitors’ presence. Creation process was displayed on the demonstration screens. Young designers demonstrated the work  of  digital embroider device, and representatives of faculty of Commerce demonstrated the art of celebratory packing. There is a great work ahead:  start of all educational laboratories, connection the Internet and the Intranet, an accomplishment of premises  and, of course, the main hope is for extension building in which the necessary workshops and studios, laboratories and offices should take places.

are pilot colleges of the future was stated by many participants of the Board.

The first records in the new Guest Book were congratulation and wishes of good luck from representatives of three social spheres — the government, education and business. Mrs Raber has written with satisfaction: “Hurrah, we were building, building and, at last, have constructed our HOUSE!!! Let the love and pleasure of creativity always reign in it”.  Mr Ivanov, in his turn, addressed: “My congratulations! With time and patience the leaf of mulberry becomes satin! Good luck!” The Head of Building Company no 212 Mr V.Pozdnyakov has written with warmth: “I transfer you this vessel which you should fill with soul and sense. Good luck and successes for many years! ".

During the period February, 12-13 at the “Atlas-Park” hotel in Moscow the Hp Digital Forum was organised where were 50 participants of the realised by Hewlett-Packard Corporation (HP) invited. Among them there were 10 managers and teachers of joint projects of HP and World ORT.

There were Vice-President of HP, Managing Director of HP Russia Mr Owen Kemp; HP Business Development Mr Karel Vavruska; HP Labs Open Innovation Office Mr Igor Belousov; Head of HP Learning Centre Mr Vladimir Overchenko and HP Corporate Marketing Mrs Irina Efremova presented. 

Within the frames of separate meetings Deputy Director of ORT in the CIS and Baltic States Mr Sergey Gorinskiy supervised the section devoted to the GET-IT program realisation.

Training at the HP-ORT DCC Centre in Slavutych 

Within the frames of the Forum preparing HP Corporation organised the contest of projects. According the reviewing of the reports for the 2008 Mrs Larisa Saliy, Director of the HP-ORT DCC Centre in Slavutych (Ukraine) was recognised as The Best Manager.  

Mrs Saliy described her impressions of the Forum: “This meeting has gathered the considerable quantity of participants, among whom representatives of schools, hospitals, universities, charitable foundations from Yakutsk up to a small Ukrainian Slavutych. Participation in such action gives wonderful opportunity to meet colleagues and partners, to exchange news and to work in creative and inspiring atmosphere effectively again. My award is an appreciation of work of all the staff of the Centre. For 5 years of work much was completed, much of that even was completed very well. Our centre plays the important role in ordinary life of small Slavutych. And this award is a serious case for our townspeople - visitors and students of Digital Community Centre – to be proud. Unfortunately, the project DCC HP-ORT is finished. All obligations are carried out by the participants of the project. But the Centre, I hope, will not stop its functioning. We will participate in other projects, in particular, in НР projects connected with a business education for youth. And, certainly, we will continue our nowadays educational activity, to solve the problems put before us and to aspire to new achievements!”

Seminar on Transfer of Technology at the MAP HP-ORT Centre in Samara

The high appreciation from the side of the Ministry of Economic Development, Investment and Trade of the Samara region was received by activity of the HP-ORT MAP Centre. On February, 6th, 2009 on behalf of the Minister of Economic Development, Investment and Trade of the Samara region Mr. G.R.Hasaev to Managing Director НР Russia Mr Owen Kemp,  Director of ORT Russia  Mr. Viatcheslav Leshchiner and the Director of the ORT Centre in Samara Mr. Alexander Fradkov the official letter was sent in which it is told: “Two-year experience of functioning of the НР-ORT MAP Centre on the basis of the Regional Centre of Innovations and Transfer of Technologies in Samara region has shown the efficiency of the chosen way. There were more than 500 students according the programs “Commercialization of results of scientific and technical activity”, “Participant of youth innovative competition (“CLEVER PERSON”)”,”Creation and development of the  Centres of Transfer of Technologies and Competence Points”,"START",”Training and retraining of the faculty in the field of innovative business” and others trained there. The experience accumulated there was reflected in articles and theses stated in Russian and the foreign mass media, was represented at the Russian and foreign exhibitions, has been marked by diplomas and awards. On the basis of the above-stated, and considering the modern tendencies of economic development as well, I look forward for the further expansion of your cooperation with the Samara region in the field of preparation of entrepreneurs, increasing Centre’s activity on the basis of modern innovative technologies”.

In December 2008 the new Mobile Multimedia Computer Lab was provided to ORT School “Mishpahteinu” in Kazan, which has won the Hewlett-Packard grant in terms of the program «Transforming teaching and learning through technology». The cooperation of ORT and HP made this event happened.

In Bulletin of HP Global Citizenship (January-February 2009) the interview with the Deputy Director of ORT in the CIS and Baltic States was published  (Discovering the success of GET-IT technology, through first hand experience)