Selection of Schools for the Infovek Project

Support given by Infovek Project to schools is not automatic; the schools are being selected annually. They apply for the admission to the Infovek through the elaboration of a school project, which is being submitted to the Selection and Evaluation Committee working at the Council of the Minister of Education for the Infovek Project. The committee evaluates the submitted materials and produces a list of schools on the basis of the following selection criteria:

• Global and regional aspect – is one of the basic criteria. The Infovek project supports the schools despite the fact who established them: state schools, schools established by the churches, private schools, elementary schools with full number of classes as well as those with few classes, schools for children with special needs, schools with other language of instruction than Slovak, schools, which already own computers as well as those, which do not have a sufficient number of computers or computers with a sufficient hardware equipment etc. We want to make sure that the schools from all regions will participate in the project, with an emphasis on the less developed regions of Slovakia, regions with the high unemployment rate or schools with the high concentration of children from the disadvantageous environment from the point of view of the social situation and language (Roma children).
• Elaboration of the school project of the utilisation of the information and communication technologies (ICT in short) in the school life – the fact that the school participates in the project gives the school great opportunities to modernise its teaching process, to participate in the national and international projects, to communicate with the whole world without any problems as well as to open new perspectives both to the pupils and the teachers. In the school project, we are interested especially in the fact how ICT will be utilised and how many teachers utilise them, how do the teachers implement ICT in the particular subjects, in which subjects are ICT utilised at most, how does the school develop the cross-curricular relations, what multimedia programs are utilised by the school, whether the school does have a website and what kind of a website does it have, whether the pupils have the opportunity to utilise ICT aside of the framework of the process of teaching, and what is the number of the teachers who are being educated in the area of ICT.
• Achievement of pupils from the particular school – activity and ambitions of a school are also being reflected in the achievements, achieved by the school, not only in the area of ICT but also in other activities. Therefore, the schools describe their achievements in the field of competitions, various school Olympiads etc.
• Participation in the regional, national, and international projects – many schools, despite the insufficient software equipment, have achieved and are achieving big success in these activities.
• ICT coordinator - taking into account the experience from the particular stages of the project we consider important the fact that the ICT coordinator would not only have the pedagogic education but also a reasonable command of ICT.
• Plans of the utilisation of a multimedia classroom and the Internet at the school - each school should have a developed concept of the utilisation of the ICT in the framework of the process of teaching as well as aside of it. Four years of existence of the project gives the evidence that this part of the project is the most important one. In case the school sets the goals, which should be achieved with the help of the project, investments in the equipment of the school are not useless.
• Co-operation with the regional authorities, schools in the neighbourhood, companies and institutions - one of the main ideas of the project is that the school becomes a disseminator of the digital literacy in the region. Therefore it is very important that the school has an idea of how to spread the knowledge in its region and contribute to the transformation of our society into information society.
• Specific criteria - the specific criteria are being set annually, valid for the particular stage of the project.