Introducing Information Technology to Palestinian Schools

Abstract

The paper presents the two perspectives of IT in the Palestinian schools. The basic IT literacy - based courses have been introduced in most of private schools since 1985, and formally started in all public as well private schools in 1999. This covers eight grades from the fifth up to the twelfth. An additional two classes per week have been introduced to the weekly school program. The main objective is to create a new technological-mentality generation that understand, use, explore, and involve in the highly demanded field. Students will be facilitated with the basic IT skills to understand, use, and promote their studies in effectively understanding, searching, reporting, and documenting. Teachers badly need IT paradigms to boost their instructional materials and teaching aids. In addition to the workshops, an Arabic language-based web site will be constructed to assist schoolteachers, administrators, and students etc. in learning technology online an offline. Further more, a collaborative Palestinian School Teachers