MOSCOW, Russia, 2019-May-24 — /EPR  EDUCATION NEWS/ —  Any changes take time, and education reform all the more. This is a long and painstaking process with a lot of pitfalls. We are telling how the Moscow Department of Education managed to transform the educational system beyond recognition in a few years, turning it into one of the exemplary world models.

Just a few years ago, the backpack of an ordinary Russian school student was not easy to pick up — textbooks and additional materials in all subjects, exercise books, writing materials, and sports uniforms and shoes. Parents of pupils even in elementary school were perplexed how their children carry it to school every day.

Today the backpack of the Moscow school student has become twice as light. The fact is that now it’s not necessary for children to carry all paper textbooks with them. It is enough to have a tablet with you: all the training materials necessary for the lessons are digitized, stored in the cloud storage of the Moscow Electronic School and are always ready for use. The same is true of additional literature, works of art, and even tests: instead of leaflets or notebooks “for controls,” there are interactive tests on a tablet or in a laptop. In the same tablet or even on the phone, students can always see the lesson schedule, find out about new grades, or even do their homework.

But the most important thing that greatly facilitates the work of teachers is ready-made electronic scripts for lessons in all subjects. Work on creating a database of such multimedia scenarios has been going on for several years, since the launch of the MES program – the Moscow Electronic School. To date, the arsenal of Moscow teachers has more than 33,000 approved scenarios developed by professionals. These scenarios are in the electronic library of educational materials, and every Moscow teacher has access to it. Any teacher registered in the system can use these materials absolutely free of charge – it makes preparing for a lesson easier and more convenient. In this library you can find hundreds more textbooks prepared by other teachers, tens of thousands of comprehensive educational applications and even prototype laboratories on a number of subjects. So far, there are no analogues to such a resource anywhere in the world.

The work of Moscow teachers has also become much easier. First, all school teachers are provided with laptops or desktops. Each class has an interactive whiteboard and there are printers – if one of the students doesn’t have a tablet or laptop with him, all materials necessary for the lesson can be printed at any time.

Options such as an electronic diary and an electronic journal allow teachers to design a curriculum using various curricula, as well as create a class schedule, create their own author assignments, or use ready-made tests from an electronic library.

In general, thanks to the emergence of the Moscow e-school, parents, students and teachers received a unique system for all participants of the educational process. It is now convenient for teachers to communicate directly with parents of students through an electronic diary, so even parent meetings are now much faster and more fruitful. Parents from any device can always familiarize themselves with the success of the children, check what is set and warn the teacher that the child will miss classes on a given day.

School classes are another theme we want to dwell on. We have already said that all classes are equipped with interactive whiteboards – touch screen panels, which the teacher can use as traditional school blackboards, or show students selected photo and video materials, and even remotely visit the city’s museums! But this is not limited to this. Now classes of Moscow schools are becoming high-tech centers, workshops and laboratories. The project of introducing specialized and preprofessional classes has been implemented in the capital of Russia since 2015. Now students in Moscow schools can study in medical, engineering, natural science classes, fully immersed in the atmosphere of the profession already in grades 8-9.

All that we have listed – only the most impressive facts. In fact, the process is much broader and more interesting. The global goal of this Russian educational reform is to create a modern digital educational environment capable of quickly adapting to the ever-changing realities of life, ready for the emergence of new professions and specialties. You can learn more about the Moscow education reform at Bett Educar in Brazil. Virtual excursions in Moscow specialized classes and master classes devoted to the Moscow Electronic School project are waiting for visitors.

International Moscow Forum “City of Education” is one of the most significant events in the world of metropolitan education. The main objective of the forum is the exchange of experience in the development of various stages of the educational process, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate the latest educational technologies, resources and equipment. With all the latest innovations and advanced educational technologies will be available at the next forum “City of Education”, which will be held in Moscow from August 29 to September 1, 2019.

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