Jamaica's Educators Technology
Conference (JETC-2012)
April 25 – 27, 2012
Campion College

Introduction

It is now universally accepted that educating our people is the most effective way to equip with the ability to provide for ourselves. The product that is education, faces many challenges, not the least, how to satisfy an impatient constituency in the form of parents, students and the teaching institutions themselves. In fact, it is true to say that the harbingers of change are not some nebulous force, but teachers themselves, and the basic challenge today is how to deliver quality education in an efficient and consistent manner. With this in mind we would like to introduce you to RenWeb and their Caribbean partner Zed Jamaica Limited.

About RenWeb

The RenWeb School Management System (RenWeb SMS) has been in use for over twelve years in over forty countries including Jamaica. Consistently in all those countries, it is touted as the most comprehensive system ever viewed locally. In Jamaica the RenWeb SMS is implemented in all the participating schools listed below. The System has also been demonstrated to other schools and to key persons and organizations in the Education fraternity including:

•	Two Ministers of Education - Honorable Andrew Holness and Honorable Rev. Ronald Thwaites;
•	the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA);
•	principals of various schools;
•	the Association of Principals & Vice-Principals;
•	former Chief Education Officer and now Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Mrs. Grace Mclean;
•	the Director of Information Technology, Ministry of Education Mr. Debon Panton; and
•	the IT Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education.

In addition we have also introduced the RenWeb SMS to The Ministry of Education in Barbados, in Trinidad & Tobago, in Antigua, in St. Lucia and to the President of the Trinidad & Tobago Unified Teachers Association.

Capacity Building in Technology

In consulting with all our current RenWeb schools, the Ministry of Education and other educators, locally, regionally and internationally, we came to the conclusion that we need to have a cultural shift towards embracing technology in our schools and we need to include schools that are mainly in rural and urban areas with lacking resources. Whilst most of our schools are doing fine with the RenWeb SMS, we feel that they can do much more if technology is understood and fully embraced by all. With this idea in mind, we asked RenWeb to work with us in putting together a conference that would bring together all of our schools’ administrators and faculty in a forum, to train, teach and exchange ideas on best practices in technology and education. We want to create an atmosphere in which all our RenWeb users can collaborate, learn from each other and where local and overseas educators can have one on one discussion with each other.

Private Sector Partnership

We would like to invite the private sector to partner with us so that we can offer ten primary schools FREE licensing, training, implementation of the system and participating in the conference. This program is aimed to look at primary schools with 50 to 300 students, which are located in rural areas, with a limited number of administrators and without adequate resources, such as computers and internet access.
We know that the Ministry of Education is interested in seeing how the RenWeb SMS can operate under these circumstances and we are anxious to show the flexibility of the product and the advantages that it can offer to every school in the Jamaican educational system.