15 January 2013- The USAID-funded Structuring Partnership for Innovative Communication Environment (SPICE) program implemented by the Open Institute is delighted to be one of the main supporters of BarCamp events for the coming two years. We are proud to bring USAID as one of the main partners for the events and to also support participants from other provinces/cities to attend the camp. Starting this year in BarCamp Angkor, on February 23-24, 2013, the program will support the expansion of the camps to 5 events in 2013 and 5 in 2014. We at SPICE love BarCamp because we believe in the power of volunteering and sharing. SPICE aims to promote this culture for the benefit of our society and those who aprticipate. Supporting this camp, SPICE also aim to promoting innovation among young entrepreneurs, professionals, investors, innovators and students to benefit from state-of-the-art of technology.

Activities of the River of Knowledge Project 

The River of Knowledge project plan to do and has completed until now (May 2011) the following materials:

For upper secondary school teacher training

A total of 50 videos on science experiments for upper secondary schools are planned. The videos are made using as content the work of the National Institute of Education. They will be recorded and post-processed by the Open Institute under funding from EEQP (ADB). They are subject to approval by the Teacher Training Department.

By 6 October 2011, 50 videos on science experiments (Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science) were recorded.

32 videos are postprocessed and approved by NIE (all Chemistry, all Earth Science and some in Physics).

One Chemistry video had incorrect content and must be re-recorded. 

The remaining 17 videos (some in Physics and all of Biology) are postprocessed, but not yet reviewed by NIE.

For lower secondary school teacher training

A total of 200 videos on science experiments for lower secondary schools are planned. The videos are made using as content the work of the Kandal Regional Teacher training center and the NGO VVOB. They are recorded and post-processed by the Open Institute and funded by Spanish Cooperation and EEQP (ADB). They are subject to approval by the Teacher Training Department.

By 6 October 2011 100 videos have already been fully developed and have been approved by the Ministry. 

65 more videos have been recorded and postprocessed, and now await Ministry approval. The manuals prepared by VVOB have not yet been aproved by the Ministry). 

The recording of the remaining 35 experiments will be recorded in two session between 11 and 14 October 2011 and from 18 to 21 October 2011. They will be postprocessed by the mid of December 2011.

In 2008, the Open Schools Program had trained and re-trained the following teachers and staff of MoEYS on the use of Khmer language application and computer maintenance:

On 24 - 28 November 08 - Training of 68 non-ICT upper secondary school teachers by their ICT teacher colleagues (Wat Phnom and Youkunthor high schools in Phnom Penh).

On 20 - 22 October 08 / 23 - 25 October 08 - Training basic Khmer software to 96 staff members of MoEYS from PoE (provicial of education department) of Banteay Mean Chey, Battambang, Kampong Chnang, Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Pursat, Preah Vihea, Sihanoukville, Siem Reap, Kah Kong, Pailin, Oddor Mean Chey, Phnom Penh, Kandal, Takeo, Kampot, Keb, Prey Veng, Svay Reang, Kampong Cham, Kratie, Stung Treng, Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri.

A part of the work of the KhmerOS project, the Open Institute has been developing - for the last two years - Free and Open Source translation and localization tools that are used all over the world to facilitate the localization of computer programs. These tools facilitate the translation of sofware and content from English to other languages. The WordForge Localization Editor, fully developed in Cambodia, uses the latest standards (XLIFF) and Computer Assisted Translation techniques -some of them defined here - to produce the most advanced free tool for localization that can be found.

The Open Schools Program is seeking a qualified, creative and dynamic volunteer to work part time on the River of Knowledge Project. The projects long term goals are to produce high quality training materials in all subjects – demonstration classes in video format – to improve the quality of teaching and learning for general education and for teacher professional development, especially in rural schools.

For the last year and half, the Open Institute has been collaborating with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport on the use of ICT in Education. Through the joint Open Schools Program, we have been working together on the training of ICT teachers in all upper secondary schools that have computers for education, on writing the ICT textbooks, and on research to define sustainable computer facilities for schools. Now we are writing a four-year Master Plan for ICT in Education.

4 ICT teachers of the Endratevy high school started to conduct training of OpenOffice in Khmer language to 44 none-ICT teachers. On the first week of September 2008, there are many none-ICT teachers registered for this course. The course organized by the Endratevy high school with the support of the Open Institute to only the ICT teachers that have to teach those none-ICT teachers and also the training materials provided by the Open Institute.

This week, Intel has launched the new Atom CPU. These low power CPU's come in five different flavours and are targeted for mobile internet devices. The biggest advantage of these CPUs is their low power consumption: The fastest Atom CPU has a TDP (thermal design power) of only 2.4 Watts. The Atom CPU's are the smallest Intel CPU's on the market today, as they measure only 13 by 14 mm. The cheapest one, the Z500, will have a clock speed of 800 MHz and a fsb of 400 Mhz. The price of this CPU will be around $45,- . The Z510 will run at 1.1 GHz, the Z520 at 1.33 GHz, the Z530 at 1.6 GHz and the Z540 at 1.86 GHz.

Intels commitment has added much to the low power market, which has been dominated by VIA the last few years. For schools that is very good news: More competition means that they will be able to have low cost computers, which are cheap in purchase and cheap in running them.

The Queen of Spain visits the Open Schools Program, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and the Open Institute to use ICT to improve the quality of Education in Cambodia.

Sofía, Queen of Spain, visited today the National Institute of Education (NIE), entity of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport in charge of training all the upper secondary school teachers in Cambodia.

At NIE the Queen visited the installations of the Open Schools Program, an initiative to integrate ICT in Khmer language in the education system.

A delegation from the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport visited Spain from the 2nd to the 7th of February to see first hand how Spain is integrating and using ICT in its Education system.