shORT news briefs

Spring 2001
Winter 2000
Fall 2000
Summer 2000
Spring 2000

1999 issues

Spring 2001

SPOTLIGHT ON EUROPE

Russia

Traditional tunes harmonize with latest technology

Young Jewish musicians in Ekaterinburg, Russia, will have the opportunity to learn about their heritage at the new Jewish Music Resource Center housed in the Ekaterinburg Conservatoire, where 5,000 students study all forms of music. Students at the resource center will use information technology for composing, and collecting Jewish and Israeli music and digitally transferring it to a computer database. The facilities are open to students’ families and local community members after school hours.

The city’s year-old ORT Vocational Training Center, a joint venture with the Jewish Agency, offers courses to potential olim (emigres) to Israel. Making aliyah has become desirable among Ekaterinburg’s 20,000 Jews.


Britain

Renewed presence in Britain

For the first time since the late 1940s when ORT was assisting war refugees, there will be an ORT training institution in Britain. A technology center will be established in the King Solomon High School in northeast London. The center will provide students with the facilities to acquire technical skills in information technology that wouldn’t be available to them through a standard academic curriculum. After school, the center will serve as a cybercafé for the general Web-surfing public.

Tzedakah starts at an early age

With a puska (charity box) and magnet depicting the Jewish festivals, 1,500 students at Jewish schools are participating in a fund-raising initiative for the ORT school in Kazan, Russia.


France

Celebrating its 80th anniversary, ORT France, with seven schools and centers in Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon, Toulouse and Marseilles, is the largest network of schools and colleges in Western Europe. A two-year work-study program for post-graduate students was introduced in Marseilles, Lyon and Montreuil. Students work three days a week and attend classes the other two days. The school in Paris has launched computer classes specifically geared to the needs of companies wanting to retrain and upgrade new employees.


Italy

A new computer lab will be established in the Jewish school in Milan, serving 550 students and a local community of 7,000. And in Rome, an ORT Technology Center will be housed in the new Jewish secondary school currently under construction and scheduled to open next fall.


Spain

ORT-installed multimedia workstations at the Estella Toledano School in Madrid and the Colegio Sefardi in Barcelona link students to ORTnet, and Jewish schools and databases worldwide. The curriculum includes science, math, information technology, Judaic studies and Hebrew. Adult courses are offered in computer literacy, word processing, spreadsheets and computer-aided design.

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Winter 2000

SPOTLIGHT ON LATIN AMERICA

Argentina

In order to accommodate a record 1,400 graduates and their guests, ORT Argentina held two separate commencement ceremonies on Nov. 29. More than 9,000 friends, family, and guests including government and education officials, the Israeli Ambassador and community leaders filled the Luna Park Stadium in Buenos Aires.

Each ceremony included a live musical performance and laser light show. As the students approached the stage, which was decorated with Argentine and Israeli flags, they each received their diploma, a medal and a Jewish National Fund certificate for a tree planted in their honor in ORT Argentina's "Grove of Graduates" in Karmiel, Israel.

ORT Argentina's two technical high schools offer courses in fields including studio training in recording for the music industry, mass media, industrial design and architecture. There are also two post-secondary Institutes of Technology and a Teacher Training College. Together, the schools enroll some 7,000 students, serving a Jewish community of more than 250,000.

biotech students get real-world experience

ORT Argentina students studying biotechnology will have the opportunity to apply their academic training to helping a university hospital design and develop clinical instruments. The Jose de San Martin Hospital, at the University of Buenos Aires, has launched a program to produce high-tech instruments for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.


Uruguay

A full Internet-based postgraduate diploma in education in conjunction with the Harvard Graduate School of Education was introduced last spring. Thirty-five teachers from ten different areas of the country have enrolled in the course.

students benefit from ORT's global presence

An accreditation agreement signed by ORT Uruguay University in Montevideo and Bramson ORT College in New York will allow students to receive credit for courses taken at both institutions. The goal of the agreement is to increase cooperation among schools affiliated with the ORT network. "I strongly believe this is the first step towards true academic mobility for ORT students worldwide," said World ORT Deputy Director General Dr. Gideon Meyer.


Chile

With the financial backing of Telefonica, the national telecommunications company, ORT Chile has designed a course to train blind and physically disabled students in using the Windows operating system and the Internet. Tiflowin, the software designed by an institution for the disabled in Spain, converts everything into sound, enabling visually impaired students to surf the Internet.

ORT Chile takes to the airwaves

ORT Chile has introduced a weekly radio program broadcast on Sunday mornings. ORT Chile President Marcelo Lewkow hosts the show and invites teachers and representatives of government agencies and foundations to discuss topics including psychology, human rights, art and technology.


Brazil

Under an agreement with the Roberto Marinho Foundation, ORT Brazil will assist in developing educational programs and act as a technical consultant. The Foundation, a leading advocate for education, Brazilian culture and heritage, works with the government, private industry and the community to develop and deliver educational material using a variety of media. The foundation will develop the programs and distribute the material. Some of the programs will be broadcast on Futura, a national educational television channel owned by the foundation.


South African students gain job and
life skills

Residents of the Alexandra Township, near Johannesburg, have had the opportunity to enroll in a course that combines technology training with life skills. The course, run by ORT South Africa, combines training in computer science and tourism with bolstering self-esteem, problem-solving techniques, resumé-writing and public speaking.

Vivian Petja, who completed the course last June and was nominated as the top student, said at graduation, "I gained a lot from the course, and now I am equipped with the necessary tools to go out and find a job."


developing self-sufficiency in Senegal

Through World ORT's International Cooperation, a Mother and Child Care project has been operating in Dakar, Senegal, since January 1996. More than 2,500 children between the ages of three and six benefit from the pre-school program, and more than 600 women receive training as classroom assistants, health promoters and nutritionists.

Program participants are involved from the planning stage through implementation and evaluation. In addition to providing these services, ORT trains residents of the local community to take over administering the project when ORT completes its involvement.

"We ensure that the people we help will be able to sustain the tools we have provided and pass them onto the next generation," said Jean-Claude Nedjar, Director of World ORT's London International Cooperation office.


ORT further solidifies ties with FSU

In an agreement signed last August by World ORT Director General Robert Singer and Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Education Yaroslav Yatzkiv, ORT and the Ukrainian Ministry of Education will collaborate on upgrading the technology and computer literacy skills of teachers and developing curricula in these areas. A similar accord was signed in May 1999 by Robert Singer and Alexander Kondakov, Deputy Minister of General and Professional Education of the Russian Federation, to upgrade technological education within the Federation.

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Fall 2000

FOCUS ON ORT ISRAEL

student ‘safecrackers’
win physics contest

• For the third year, 11th-grade-students from the ORT Braude College Enrichment Center in Karmiel have won the Weizmann Institute’s annual physics tournament.

Students were required to build an uncrackable code for a safe, based on physics principles, and attempt to crack as many of their competitors’ codes as possible.

The five winning students, Igor Chatsik, Itemar Ginnegar, Elaz Raz, Yoav Weizmann and Omer Rak, have been attending classes at the Enrichment Center for three years. Their prize was a grade of 100 on their practical physics matriculation exam.

Headed by Dr. Eli Raz from the Technion, the ORT Braude Enrichment Center is renowned for its achievements in a number of different competitions. It attracts hundreds of high school students from the surrounding area who attend extra-curricular afternoon classes in the sciences given by members of the Technion. In addition to physics, course offerings include genetics, chemistry, aeronautics and geology.


students win olympics
design competition

• Na’ama Shachar, an 11th-grader at ORT Horowitz Comprehensive High School in Karmiel, won first place in a worldwide poster design competition sponsored by the Olympics Organizing Committee in Sydney. Five of the nine posters submitted by ORT Horowitz under the direction of graphic arts teacher Ami Ravid reached the finals.


‘sunflowers’ expands to
summer program

• As part of its “Sunflowers” project (“Chamaniot” in Hebrew), ORT Israel organized short summer camps for children suffering from cancer. Eighty children, ages 8 to 13, and their families enjoyed summer activities, living in the dormitories and using the facilities on the campus of ORT Braude. They were accompanied by ORT Israel high school students from across the country who have volunteered to work with the children.

More than 300 10th-grade-students from nine schools participate in “Sunflowers” during the school year, visiting young patients in eight pediatric oncology wards to teach them computer and Internet skills while establishing friendships.

Netvision, Israel’s leading Internet provider, has partnered with ORT, supplying the hardware and developing an Internet-based learning system for the oncology departments. ORT Israel provides teaching materials in Hebrew, Russian and Arabic.


Jewish and Arab students in
virtual cultural connection

• After several months of virtual discussions on the Internet, Jewish students from ORT Guttman in Netanya recently met their counterparts from the Arab-Israeli village of Musheirafa. During the past school year, both groups participated in a multicultural project aimed at bringing together different groups in Israeli society and narrowing the rifts between them. The project, supported by the Ministry of Education, included building a database on Jewish and Arabic cultures featuring folk tales, holidays and customs. The database will eventually be available to the general Web-surfing public.


Ethiopian-born students prepare for software development career

• Before performing their military service, 18 young Ethiopian-born women are attending a special course organized by ORT Israel in cooperation with the Ministries of Education and Labor. Some of the participants are studying to become practical software engineers while others are first completing a preparatory course before enrolling in the same program. ORT Israel Deputy Director-General and Director of Administration of Colleges Dr. Moshe Fass views the project “as part of a continuous Zionist vision and as a vanguard for Ethiopian integration within the community.”


ORT URUGUAY HIGHLIGHTS

academic performance recognized

• Members of the Uruguayan Parliament awarded a National Recognition for Merit, the first of its kind, to ORT Uruguay University for “outstanding academic achievements” during 1999. ORT Uruguay was selected from all public and private academic institutions in the country.


new joint doctoral program

• To enhance the school’s research and development in computer sciences and related fields, ORT Uruguay has established a joint doctoral program in software engineering with Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, one of the leading engineering universities in the Spanish-speaking world. The program has three areas of concentration: software engineering, database and knowledge management, and language paradigms and environments for computer programming.

Since its launch in July, students from Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia have enrolled. All courses are offered at ORT Uruguay’s campus in Montevideo, and most of the research is expected to be conducted there as well.


computer lab inaugurated in
Czech Jewish museum

• World ORT established a computer lab at the Education and Culture Center in The Jewish Museum in Prague. The museum, the only one of its kind in the Czech Republic, has recently released a CD-ROM which is the first multimedia basic overview of Jewish history in Bohemia and Moravia. It is aimed mainly at secondary school students in the Czech Republic and includes a brief introduction to Jewish religion, laws and customs.

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Summer 2000

ORT gets space happy

The first Israeli astronaut will travel into space next year, and one of his assignments will be to test an experiment on the formation of fibers in outer space developed by students at the Yonatan Netanyahu ORT High School in Israel.

Israel Space Agency, established in 1983, has been collaborating with NASA for the past 15 years on space research.


ORT meets Santa – sort of

Under the premise that a milestone event deserves more than a pedestrian commemoration, an ORT flag was planted on the North Pole in honor of ORT's 120th birthday. Ten people, led by the governor of the Kranoyarsk region in Russia and accompanied by Dr. Evgeny Gontmakher, a member of the ORT Russia Committee, embarked on the journey April 10, the date on which ORT was founded in St. Petersburg. They first flew to Russia's northernmost aerodrome and then completed the last leg of the excursion with an 18-hour helicopter flight.


educate or evaporate

With more than a million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, most having been deprived for generations of an identity, there's a great need for Jewish education and renewal of community life. ORT, under the banner of Regeneration 2000, recently completed funding for eight technology centers located in existing Jewish schools in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Tatarstan.

"It's educate or evaporate. If we don't educate the upcoming generation of Russian Jews, we will have lost them forever," says Milton Gralla, lead Regeneration 2000 funder, with his wife Shirley.

The cities were chosen by ORT in partnership with Israel's Ministry of Education on the basis of significant Jewish population and substantial need. The Ministry of Education will provide the Jewish studies curriculum and teachers. The goal is to attract large numbers of previously neglected Jewish youth to Jewish education by combining Jewish studies with the latest in computer and Internet programs.

Yossi Sarid, Israeli Minister of Education, says ORT's emphasis on educational technology positions ORT to help Jews reclaim their Jewish identity.

"ORT's unrivaled knowledge of delivering high-tech education, particularly in the former Soviet Union, will enable us to develop schools that will lead to young people's greater involvement in the Jewish community."

Chairman of the Russian Jewish Congress in Moscow Evgeny Satanovsky praises ORT's funding efforts.

"Regeneration 2000 is the latest chapter in the fruitful partnership between ORT and local municipalities in the former Soviet Union," he says. "These eight new training centers respond to the needs of the communities by helping to build Jewish identity through technology."

Regeneration 2000 will provide technology centers containing networked multimedia computer labs to enrich the entire curriculum including Jewish education, math and history, plus engineering labs to train students in electronics, robotics, electronic control systems and other areas of expertise for the high-tech job market. The computer labs' high-speed access to the Internet, via ORTnet (www.ort.org), will link staff and students to other Jewish communities as well as to ORT's global resources.

Gideon Meyer, Deputy Director General and Director of Operations for World ORT Union, says that by offering the right curriculum, ORT schools will continue to draw an increasing number of Jewish students.

"By installing advanced technologies, we immediately raise the schools' quality of education and prestige, making them more attractive to Jewish students who otherwise would not attend a Jewish school." Meyer played a major role in ORT's return to Russia in 1993 after it was ousted by the Communists in 1938.

The technology center in Samara, Russia, was inaugurated last fall and the remaining seven centers will open next September and in April 2001.


ORT fosters electronic cultural exchange

Through a program initiated by British ORT, fourth- and fifth-grade Jewish school students in England have become "e-pals" with their peers attending ORT Odessa in Ukraine Linda Bayfield, headmistress of the Akiva School, Finchley, praises ORT for helping teachers make their lessons innovative and exciting.

"Watching the faces of our year-five children as they communicated with children in Odessa, astounded as much by what they had in common as by their differences, was very moving."

The following is an excerpt from an e-mail written by Jana Zorenko, a student at ORT Odessa:

"My own family had to hide from being Jewish. My great-grandfather changed his name to stay safe during World War II. For many, many years, my family has not been able to celebrate Jewish holidays – we were not allowed to. And so, when Ukraine started to be independent, my mother didn't know the customs and the traditions. But when I was 8, I came to the ORT school and started to learn about the Jewish holidays, and now I teach my mother. ... We don't have to hide from being Jewish anymore."

Next semester the British students will have an exchange with a school in Bombay.


ORT, JDC expand Kosovar training

There are now five computer labs open in Kosovo, three in the city of Pristina and two in Prizren. A program in computer training is being offered to local teachers. The first three-month course for textile machinists was completed in May and a second for 25 students began this month. Training in welding for local school custodians began in late May.


ORT Israel offers lifetime Internet access
to all students

As part of its effort to encourage computer literacy and interactive learning, ORT Israel has decided to offer free Internet access and e-mail accounts to all its students. The free account is active for four years after the students graduate from high school and during their military service. The account is re-opened if the student continues academic studies in one of ORT's institutes or colleges. ORTNET, as the system is called, currently has 11,000 active accounts.

In a recent major policy speech in Florence, Italy, last December, President Clinton urged Internet access as broad and "as complete as telephone access." This, he says, would dramatically reduce income inequality. At a gathering of world leaders who adhere to "third way" politics, Clinton said one of the greatest domestic problems facing developed countries is the "digital divide" that gives those who have computers an enormous advantage over those who don't. Developed nations, he says, should view Internet access as part of an overall strategy to close "the skills gap" to ensure that their citizens remain employable as long as possible.

He also says that developed countries should strive to "get more cell phones and computer hook-ups" into poorer nations.

"The people in Africa are no different from the people in America," Clinton says. "If you give people access to technology, a lot of smart people will figure out how to make a lot of money."


homework help – online

A first-of-its-kind Web site that offers homework assistance was launched recently by ORT Israel. The new site provides online help and tutoring for ORT students. It's also open to students from other educational facilities.

Three times a week, ORT teachers staff the site, prepared to help students in specialized forums in mathematics and English and Hebrew grammar. Hadas Matas, ORT Israel's Internet Editor, says that additional teachers and subjects will be added to the Web site if necessary. The site includes links to information bases in those specific fields. Frequently asked questions will be recorded and presented to future users.

You can check the new Web site (in Hebrew) at www.ort.org.il/homework.


ORT women to the 21st century:
a success story

Recent research indicates that the ORT initiative, "Women Towards the 21st Century," has been highly successful in changing the female student attitude toward math. According to the new findings, the program, now in its third year in 18 junior and senior high schools throughout the country, has raised the percentage of girls choosing high-level math classes from 65 to 90 percent.

The program is designed to encourage young women to choose technology and science courses. It identified students with a high potential for science studies, fosters their study skills and provides extracurricular hours in mathematics.


MKs study in ORT's virtual school

"Israel lacks a law that will formally recognize virtual schools, utilizing the Internet for the benefit of the students,"says Yonatan Kaplan, Director of ORT Aviv-Snunit, Israel's only virtual school. He made this comment during a special Internet and information technology day, organized in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Forty-five ORT students presented the Aviv concept to the Knesset members and discussed its potential with members of the House Committee on Education. Several members tried out the virtual school for themselves, discussed students' study habits and explored possible future developments of the medium.

ORT Aviv-Snunit serves 5,000 students from 20 high schools. It offers a wide variety of courses ranging from science and technology to Hebrew literature.

For more information check the virtual school at www.aviv.k12.il.

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Spring 2000

students to visit Poland and Israel

Following the success of last year's International ORT Mission for students from Israel, Argentina and Russia, ORT Israel, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, is once again organizing a two-week mission to Poland and Israel commemorating the Holocaust and the birth of Israel.

The mission to Poland, beginning on April 30, is designed to broaden student awareness of the mass-slaughter of Jews by the Nazis during World War II. The students, ages 17 and up, will learn about 1,500 years of Jewish life in Poland, visit the Warsaw Ghetto and concentration camp sites and attend Poland's annual Holocaust Memorial Day observances.

Arriving in Israel on May 7, mission participants will stay with ORT Israel students and teachers, attend Memorial (Yom Hazikaron) and Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) ceremonies, embark on excursions throughout the country and participate in seminars.

joint ventures expand ORT Chile's programs

The Coca-Cola Foundation has increased its funding of ORT Chile's Tavec project (Science Education Program), enabling it to serve an additional 25 public schools throughout the country.

Since 1996, Coca-Cola has been funding the program, which uses computers to teach science and aims to improve education in that discipline in Chile's public school system.

Each school is fully equipped with a computer and science laboratory, permitting students to measure scientific variables. ORT operates a two-year training program with each school and then continues to support the schools via distance learning using the Internet.

Through an agreement with the national phone company, ORT Chile ran an access-free Internet Plaza and conducted courses in the use of the Internet, reaching some 60,000 people.

In collaboration with the Municipality of Cerro Navia, ORT will manage a technology center housing multimedia and robotics laboratories and an audiovisual workshop for approximately 500 at-risk children.

Uruguayan school admitted to
university group

The Latin America Association of Universities, the oldest and largest association of its kind on the continent, has accepted ORT Uruguay University as a full member.

In 1999 three new ORT Uruguay University degrees were recognized by the Ministry of Education: a bachelor's of science in architecture and electrical engineering and a CPA professional degree. A one-year training program in digital video and computerized special effects was also launched.

ORT to provide aid in Venezuela

Following last December's devastating floods in Caracas, hundreds of thousands of people were relocated to the southern part of the country. Venezuelan government agencies approached ORT to establish training centers to serve those who have been displaced. An ORT specialist from Argentina traveled to Caracas to assess training needs, and an agreement has been reached to implement a variety of vocational training programs this year.

The Youth Training project, an existing program in Caracas, provides informal vocational training to underprivileged young people living in the city's most depressed areas.

ORT and JDC training Kosovars

The World ORT Union, in cooperation with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, has launched a program to train local workers in Prizren, Kosovo, as textile machinists to work in the clothing and textile manufacturing industry.

The three-month course, open to 25 students, will be offered three times a year. Training will be conducted with the help of local professionals. Facilities for the vocational training center have been provided by the owner of a textile factory in the city. And new parts were acquired to repair equipment on the premises that had not been in working condition.

Computer laboratories have been established in two Pristina schools and plans are in place to upgrade an existing lab in a third school, allowing more than 1,600 students to enroll.

To meet the demand for English instruction, ORT has been asked to add more classes to the six courses it is currently conducting in two Pristina schools. Each course enrolls 25 students. About 2,000 people have registered. Local English teachers are being sought to staff the program.

A course using basic bookkeeping and accounting software has been introduced in Prizren. Programs to retrain unemployed adults in much-needed skills to repair the country's infrastructure – carpentry, metal work, welding, roof repair, glazing and construction – will soon be offered.

new school planned in India

On the site of the old Sassoon School in Bombay, ORT India will establish a new school offering a high-tech and academic curriculum including a department for media studies for the city's Jewish community.

ORT programs praised in U.K.

Wishing to learn more about ORT and ORTnet's projects, Great Britain's Secretary of State at the Department for Trade and Industry requested a visit to ORT House. A member of the department's Competitiveness Unit was interested in ORT's multimedia business and manufacturing education package, Enterprise (www.ort.org/edu/enterprise/index), and Do I.T., the foundation course in information technology (http://doit.ort.org). The British government is seeking to promote entrepreneurial skills and vocational training for high school students and those already in the workforce.

EnglishSpace, ORT's online interactive course for teachers and students of English as a Second Language (www.englishspace.ort.org), has been featured as "Site of the Day" by The Guardian, one of Britain's leading national dailies.

Technology 2000

The World ORT Union will be one of the hosts of Technology 2000 – Sixth International Conference on the Problems of Technology Education at School, to be held May 16 to 19 in Samara, Russia.

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