Mike Oleynik

edctn - application concept for blended learning.

Problem

2020 has showed, that the education system must be agile to change. There is a sense of confusion in many schools now related to an unexpected need to rebuild the educational process.

To understand the real pain and the needs of the participants of the process, I have interviewed kids, parents and teachers. The main problems were identified from the interview:

  • Overwork - irregular working hours, teachers' reports overload;
  • Communication - many different channel for interaction (there is confusion) and teachers don’t have visual contact;
  • Availability - low internet speed and high-load on the server at certain hours.

To make the situation change for the better, the current education system needs to improve the interaction between a student and a teacher and reduce the burden on the teachers. This system is designed to solve these problems.

Solution

The service that provides teachers with digital classrooms for teaching students and children online. The teacher can record classes, exchange teaching materials, track students' progress, keep a schedule and set up reminders about classes.

Children will be able to gain knowledge from different fields and immediately put it into practice.

Principles

I like to believe that a good learning system can be built on three principles:

  • Agile.

A sprint is a lesson with a teacher, after which you do the task yourself and communicate with the teacher as a mentor (a kind of Help desk).

Screencasts and tasks for them are divided into parts, the student gradually studies the material.

The training program can and should be constantly changing (you can add material to the course or change it).

Work can take place in pairs, in a team (for example, you can combine students into classes or take Olympiads together).

  • Open Source.

All tasks and solutions are open by default. Each student can and should check the tasks of another participant (in order to understand the essence of another solution).

I want each student to be able to tell their own story of solving the problem. To do this, he will be able to save different stages of the solution. Just as it is implemented here - codingstories.io

  • API

Now there is a large number of services (which schools use on different platforms), the possibilities of which it is a sin not to use. A good metaphor for the API, in this case, would be music. There are only 7 notes, and there is an infinite number of melodies. There may be only a few services, but there are many ways to combine them.

After the transfer to the remote format, all communication has moved to social networks (VKontakte) or messengers, so integration with them should be implemented.

In order to reduce the burden on teachers (completed assignments + automatic grading), there should be integration with other platforms. They will be able to take tasks from there.

Such a system allows:

  • Be flexible in the supply of material;
  • Accompany students throughout the entire educational process;
  • Improve the quality of educational materials through feedback;
  • Practice more.

It may seem that students who are proficient in technology can easily switch to a new learning format. But here, in my opinion, inflated expectations took place: it's one thing to use a computer and a smartphone for entertainment or additional classes, it's another to completely rebuild the educational process. Therefore, we can say that even for teenagers, total online turned out to be a challenge. Therefore, they also need to come up with elements that are familiar to them:

  • Stories - I like to adapt trends, so it would be a great idea to transfer stories into the learning process. For example, the teacher can explain the motivation or the progress of the exercise before the student starts it. This will especially appeal to Generation Y, who likes to get information from short videos;
  • Streaming - checking the task in real time. Something like live coding. The platform can serve as a model Meet2Code.

There should also be familiar formats for teachers:

  • Pinterest is an open visual online space where teachers can come up with and exchange new ideas.
  • Github - a space where teachers could share methodological materials and improve them.
  • TikTok - integration with a social network so that teachers can integrate their old and new videos into the learning process.
  • MoodBoard - an interactive collaboration space where you can use stickers, whiteboards, surveys, etc. A good example would be Miro or Popstage (Popspace)