SUMMARY

Oiada is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization www.oiadaintl.org that has been providing educational/cultural programs and services that compliment a schools’ or organizations' core curriculum/program since 1997. In 2009, through a generous donation from our premier sponsor, Polycom, we opened our 21st century videoconferencing centers where we connect schools around the world for students to engage in our distance learning programs. Our headquarters is Newark, NJ and we have a center located in Ghana, Africa. Since the opening of our centers, over 200,000 students in 49 states and several countries worldwide have engaged in "LIVE" face to face interaction via videoconference.

Some of the highlights of the 2015 year include being awarded the Pinnacle Award from CILC for the 4th year in a row. The Pinnacle Award is given an-nually to organizations that receive outstanding scores on program evalua-tions submitted by teachers/educators and end users. Receiving the award indicates remarkable quality of educational content and exceptional teach-ing skill at program delivery.

The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) is recognized nationally and internationally as the leader in content aggregation, consult-ing, and support services that assist organizations with the utilization of videoconferencing and other collaborative technologies.

This year has been the most exciting and innovative year yet. In the begin-ning of 2015, we received an additional donation of Polycom’s latest equip-ment and their next-gen technology cloud services. The equipment ena-bled us to enhance the quality of our offerings and the cloud services ena-bled us to offer our programs to a greater global audience. Also in 2015, through our partnership with Georama, we are excited to offer our LIVE video tour offering. We also introduced our latest teaching technique, Teaching through Theatre program for students of all ages.

GOALS/MISSION STATEMENT

The Global Digital Divide is a term that refers to the gap between differing coun-tries or regions of the world that have access to modern information and commu-nications technology, and those that don't or have restricted access. This technolo-gy can include computers, Internet and videoconferencing. The global digital di-vide also includes the lack of skills to make use of those technologies. The primary goal of Oiada is to bridge the global digital divide empowering all participants to become 21st century global citizens.

The need to create effective learning environments using innovative technology has now become a necessity, not a luxury, for all schools. Given the global nature of 21st century society, every child in the US needs to be exposed to and interact with other cultures around the world in order to succeed as global citizens, workers and leaders of tomorrow.

OPEN DOOR PROGRAM

The Open Door Program develops educational/cultural awareness and relation-ships and puts students’ knowledge to work by giving them the opportunity to in-teract with their international peers. This program will be the first step in students becoming lifelong 21st century global citizens. The program brings schools togeth-er from different countries and takes learning beyond the four walls of the school building. International students are afforded the opportunity to represent their country, their schools and themselves. This program enables students to connect on a very real “LIVE” face to face level and to discover for themselves their com-monality. This program literally opens up new worlds to them and what they often find is that despite the cultural and economic differences that may exist, at heart they share many of the same interests and passions.

By utilizing Polycom’s Cloud Services we are enabling school systems to partici-pate in our programs because videoconferencing equipment is cost prohibitive for many schools. All that is needed is a laptop computer and the internet. This year we have had sessions with several states and countries throughout the world that would not have been able to experience our Open Door program if not for Cloud Services.

We are also very excited this year to introduce LIVE tours to our offerings through our partnership with Georama. Through live tours anyone can travel anywhere in the world instantly. When people can’t go where they want to go, whether it be due to time, money, or physical limitations, our tours help them go there virtually, in real-time via guided interactive tours. Viewers can interact in real-time to ask questions and make suggestions for a more personalized experience. By using the split screen setting on our state of the art video conferencing equipment, a class of students is able to view the tour while the student giving the tour narrates. Not only are the students able to visit places that they have never seen, they are able to become tour guides and give live tours of landmarks and places of interest in their own country. The students are already in awe to be connected to students from different parts of the world but when we they are instantly connected to an-other location for the tour, they are truly amazed.

Click here for sample Tours

This distance learning exchange program has inspired students and teachers on all continents to see new and unique ways of learning and sharing. The program not only provides educational lessons on an international platform but develops cul-tural awareness, relationships and practical life experiences by knowledge to work in educating one’s peers abroad. Among the technology introduced to the students are basic computer skills, green screen, broadcasting and videoconfer-ence technology. For high school students, their involvement provides them with a competitive edge as they can add this international experience to their college and scholarship applications. Students find that their experiences with a

can help them answer many interview questions in regards to what ex-tracurricular activities they participated in that helped their community and oth-ers. This experience can also provide them with the theme for their admissions and scholarship essays. Students are provided with a unique opportunity for edu-cational and cultural growth, which gives them an edge in the classroom and a head start in life.

Three main points of focus of the Open Door program are:

Education- Our programs help to increase student test scores, decrease drop-out rates and to reduce the achievement gap of schools. Our videoconferencing equip-ment bring the classroom to life for the students while at the same time serving to increase their language arts, writing, public speaking, presentation, research, for-eign language and critical thinking skills. We empower students to take charge of their educational experiences, and assist in their preparation for college and the workforce.

Cultural Awareness- We dispel misconceptions and myths that still exist regard-ing Africa and other countries. Our videoconference programs give students the opportunity to learn about a different culture directly from residents of that coun-try via a "LIVE" conversation! Two things we witness during our programs are the students' increase in self-esteem and the change in the perception that students of different ethnicities have of their international peers.

Social Issues – In an Anti-Bully Campaign we initiated, we teach the youth to “Appreciate” someone who is different rather than to simply tolerant them. By be-ing able to appreciate someone from around the world, they learned how much more they could appreciate their peers who are in the same class and live in the same community.

TEACHING THROUGH THEATRE

In 2015, we initiated a new teaching technique, Teaching through Theatre utilizing a Griot. A Griot is a West African historian, storyteller, educator, poet and/or musi-cian whose function is to keep an oral history of the tribe or village and to teach with stories, poems, songs, dances, etc.

A main character that our Griot uses is Anansi. Anansi the Spider is one of the great folk heroes of the world. He is a wise, lovable creature who triumphs over larger foes. Anansi solves his predicaments in a touching and highly resourceful fashion. Through this teaching method, we are able to convey moral lessons that are easy to understand.

Our theatre activities are used to teach emotion recognition and expression, non-verbal behaviors and gestures, listening skills, eye contact, conversation skills, strategies to handle social situations, and critical social skills. and building friend-ships through performance projects. Theatre is fun, motivating, and highly struc-tured. The theatre is a safe place for individuals to try new things and to make mis-takes they can learn from.

The Griot’s stories imitate real life situations and prepares students to deal with life’s problems. The stories allow students the opportunity to rehearse roles, fur-ther giving form or shape to the individual and personal ideas and feelings they are naturally experiencing. Overall, this allows students to make sense out of their ‘real’ life problems.

Utilizing the Anansi character students increase their creative problem-solving and decision making skills. Instead of school just being a place where students are being taught and told what to think and feel, participating in our videoconference drama turns this into a deeper experience in thinking, further motivating students to question, respond, and explain what they are feeling and thinking.

Click here for a clip

THE FUTURE

Our outlook for 2016 is extremely bright as we expand our offerings to schools in regions where they were previously unable to connect due to technological limita-tions.

Our goal for 2016 is to increase the number of students worldwide and to contin-ue to showcase the benefits of videoconferencing in today’s educational world.

Enjoy the Video