22 May 2007 8th Annual Wingate Seminar looks at e learning and e teaching strategies World ORTs eighth annual Wingate Seminar for leading IT educators ended in London last Friday. Seventeen participants from ORT schools, centres and affiliated institutions in Argentina, Bulgaria, France, Israel, Mexico, Moldova, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, Uruguay and the USA met to share their knowledge and to explore new frontiers in the development of strategies for e learning and e teaching. The week-long seminar was sponsored by long-time supporters of ORT, the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation. At the opening session, the seminar participants were welcomed to ORT House by World ORT Director General Robert Singer and Head of Education and Technology Vlad Lerner along with other members of the World ORT senior management team. Robert Singer told the group that e-learning is an important and relevant topic in todays fast-moving education arena enabling us at ORT to widen the access to knowledge, helping us to engage with more students as well as to enlarge the breadth and depth of the subjects that we teach. Professor David Wingate representing the Wingate family described the inspirational story of his fathers life and how much he believed in the power of education. As always, the seminar content included high level presentations by the participants themselves as well as lectures and workshops by guest experts. Participants at the 8th annual Wingate Seminar. The participant presentations were given by Eran Waxman of ORT Operations USA; Tali Beeri, from Emek HaHula High School, Israel; J. V ctor Paul s Greco of ORT University of Uruguay; Cinthia Plotkin and Marcelo Dal Molin from ORT Argentina; Shem Gulst, a teacher at Shaar HaNegev High School, Israel; Marina Bukharkina, Igor Pavlov, Ann Pakhomova and Ann Teper-Baidina. of ORT CIS and Baltic States; Tiphaine Lalonde, ORT France; and Kevin Valensky of ORT South Africa. Specially invited guest presenters were Miky Ronen, Head of the Instructional Systems Technologies Department at the Holon Institute of Technology, Israel; Liz Masterman of Learning Technologies Group, Oxford University Computing Services; Anthony Basiel, lecturer at Middlesex University; Philip Barker, University of Teesside; Neal Sumner of Londons City University, Stuart Jones who is Assistant Director: Knowledge Systems at theBritish Educational Communications and Technology Agency; and Terry Freedman, an ITC Consultant specializing in e-learning. James Dalziel, Professor of Learning Technology at the Macquarie University e-learning Centre of Excellence, Sydney, Australia delivered an enlightening presentation by computer link directly from Australia on LAMS Learning Activity Management System a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. Marcello Dal Mollin, Argentina, Marina Bukharkina, Russia, Victor Paulo, Uruguay and Cinthia Plotkin, Argentina at the e-tutoring workshop in the University of Greenwich. The group visited the University of Greenwich, where they attended a workshop on e-Tutoring given by specialists Malcolm Ryan and Simon Walker. While at Greenwich, the participants were given the opportunity to visit the nearby famous observatory and museum and to enjoy an excursion on Londons River Thames. Cinthia Plotkin of ORT Argentina welcomed the opportunity to meet colleagues from ORT schools from other countries in an environment where they could share professional experiences The Seminar opened my mind to know whats happening across the world, in Mexico and Russia for instance, and to learn so much from the experts, she said. Marina Bukharkina, from Moscow, herself an e-learning specialist and author of several books on the subject, was enthusiastic about both the organisation and the content of the seminar, saying that many of the items that were presented were of particular interest and gave her a number of new ideas to implement back home in Moscow.