BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 12
By Nargiz Ismayilova – Trend:
The relevance of 'Smart School' during the COVID-19 pandemic period has increased since introduction of distance learning system in Azerbaijan, Regional Sales Manager of the world famous CISCO company in the country Vladimir Orlov said in a video interview to Trend.
According to him, there are several important factors for such increase.
"The first factor is the availability of digital content, that is, digital materials, which is basis for digitalization of education. Therefore, education is transformed by itself through use of technologies,” he said.
According to him, use of such modern devices as tablets can give students much more knowledge than those simple educational means which have been used so far.
“Of course, no one belittles the work of teachers, but the mentioned system gives an excellent opportunity to organize remote lessons on topics missed by students, as well as participate in them from home,” he noted.
“The second factor is the opportunity to study at home with a teacher through technologies. The head of state notes several important tasks in the education sector of Azerbaijan. He sees the transformation of the education system as an opportunity to increase Azerbaijan’s competitiveness in the global market,” the manager said.
“For example, the better is education in Azerbaijan, the higher will be demand for our specialist students in other countries. Therefore, much attention is paid to innovations in this sector.”
As Orlov also noted, for such an interaction, the respective infrastructure at schools, tablets, smart phones, computers are absolutely necessary.
"The first stage of the Smart School system development in the country is the use of touch-sensitive e-terminals for broadcasting the lesson contents written on the board as part of distance learning. The second stage is to implement a project on installing appropriate network devices, video cameras, configuring access points, providing tablets under the support of the Ministry of Education," he pointed out.
“This system is controlled by a single dashboard (electronic info panel). Wi-Fi is needed not only for online access, but also to monitor the real situation from security cameras. We can also detect any connections occurring at a school, all traffic and its distribution, track users of the system and connected devices. At the same time, it’s possible to maintain a policy of controlling content and visits to different sites, which is important for ensuring cyber security," added the manager.
Cooperation in the sphere of education between Azerbaijan and CISCO is developing in several directions. One of them is CISCO network academies. It envisages the provision of CISCO educational and methodological materials for educating children in Azerbaijan.
'Connected Schools' is another project which allows to centrally manage the educational process in the widest way by ensuring cyber security at the proper level. Other sphere includes the participation in innovation centers related to the creation of educational platforms for the development of entrepreneurship skills.