What will the classroom of the future look like, what is the new role of the teacher in times when all the information is readily available to the students and how Intel’s Classmate PC solution can add value to the educational process? These are some of the questions which were discussed during the seminar „Intel – powered Classmate PC in the educational process”, organized Sirma Media, part of Sirma Group and publisher of multimedia knowledge. The event took place on June 8^th in Sofia’s 23^rd high school „Frédéric Joliot-Curie”.

Teachers from the six schools, already included in the pilot program for the introduction of Classmate PC, took part in the seminar. Their students are the first in the country having access to the new educational technologies. These schools are MHS „Acad. dr. Asen Zlatarov“, Botevgrad, MHS „Dr Petar Beron”, Varna, BS „St. Paisiy Hilendarski”, Zlatitsa, 30th HS „Bratia Miladinovi", Sofia, 41th ES „Patriarch Evtimiy”, Sofia, as well as 59^th kindergarten „Elhitsa”, Sofia.

The guests Mr. Adrian Choroyanu, Intel’s manager for business development for Bulgaria and Romania and Mr. David Varssegi, Classmate PC support specialist with vast experience in the introduction of the solution in schools in Macedonia, Hungary, Poland and other countries, together with the Sirma Media team helped the teachers to sense the new tendencies in the educational technologies and the capabilities of Classmate PC for increasing the effectiveness of teaching, acquiring of skills and work in class.

„In the 21^st century information is not a part of the school, the teacher or the textbooks. It’s available everywhere and the problem lies more in its filtration“ – said Alexander Angelov оof Sirma Media, describing the changing reality in the educational sphere and the teacher’s new role. According to him now the need for five fundamental skills in the sphere of technologies and media is arising; the effective communication, critical thinking, problem solving, as well as cooperation. Classmate PC is an instrument for the achievement of the grand goal – an adequate answer to the new needs of the education, through which the students already have access to information everywhere and the challenge is to select the relevant information.

Since 2009 Intel and Sirma Media are uniting their efforts for the improvement of the education in Bulgaria. Intel has the special Intel® Teach program, used to train more than 9 million teachers in more than 60 countries, including more than 4 million teachers from the region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). It offers professional development to the teachers of all subjects by helping them integrate technologies into their lessons and by developing skills for creative and critical thinking, cooperation, as well as the development of interdisciplinary links between the various subjects in the curriculum.

Classmate PC, the Intel-based laptop, is a part of the complete solution for the secondary education. It includes hardware, software, services and training. Intel supports a network of leading companies for educational technologies around the world, representing the elements of the complete solution which is especially suitable for introduction in the Bulgarian schools. Sirma Media is the organization introducing the complete solution in the Bulgarian schools.

Classmate PC’s design is based upon many years of research in the field of ethnographic and human factors, carried out by Intel in real-life educational environments around the world. In addition, Intel is working with experts in the field of education in universities and organizations around the world in order to obtain better understanding of the way the children learn and to optimize technologies for use in education.