Online Education

NEW RUSSIAN REFORMS PROPOSE DIGITAL SCHOOLS

By Stephen Wilson

 

 

MOSCOW -- While in the kitchen I hear a long-suffering teacher in the next room groan in

exasperation "It has become disconnected again". Her computer has

yet again broken down. She has a break until the computer goes on again

and the on-line lesson resumes only to be delayed again by a further

disconnection! Finally, she resolves to continue the lesson by mobile phone.

I have lost count of the times she has cursed her computer . But what is the

solution? Try to persuade the computer to behave itself? Buy a new one?

A new computer is often beyond the disposable income of your average

Russian teacher. Get it fixed? Well, often the cost of repairing it surpasses

the actual price of some laptops!

What some teachers find bewildering is how many people presume everyone

without exception owns a computer and that the introduction of computers

represents a progressive step. Yet many people just can't afford a computer

nor do they welcome an aching spine or stressful headache. The proposal

for that is to take eye ointment and even painkillers for a sore spine. And

pharmacies are everywhere in Moscow. There are about four or five in just

one small street where I live. I wonder why?

The latest proposal by the Russian government to introduce Digital schools

has aroused anxiety among many Russian teachers.

The government is seeking to establish 4,200 digital schools as well as

a special program to train teachers in on-line technology. The government

proposes to replace printed paper books by electronic books in a minimum

of 11 subjects as well as invest 507.3 billion rubles in the creation of Digital

schools by December 2020. School students tests and even homework will

be marked by digital means or automatically. The move would mean not so

seriously ill school students at home could do their homework. The state

argues that such technology will not only modernize schools but allow teachers

to deploy more interesting methodologies. When Olga Avgustan, a specialist

in information technology came to a school to give a talk on the merits of

technology she found teachers were unenthusiastic. "They told me that

such computers were just too expensive for schools. They thought they

would be inconvenient. I argued that the use of such technology might

make their lessons more interesting for the students. In general, I

found many school teachers conservative". 

However, the argument that such technology is too expensive seems to be perceptive and vindicated by some examples. Leonid Perlov, a geography teacher, stated such an

enormous amount of money was invested in such technology at his school

they could not even buy him a globe! An English First school went bust

because it invested too much of their budget in the latest electronic boards,

computers and video equipment. Maybe they should have just continued

using inexpensive white boards!

However, it is not the cost which is the main worry about this technology. It

is the adverse health impact which is rarely addressed by those proponents.

Vsevolod Lukhovileskii, the chairman of the Union Teacher stated:

"This idea is very dangerous. It can lead to several unpleasant consequences.

Firstly, research indicates that a child must not be left in front of a computer

for too long as their eye sight gets worse. ... It will also lead to massive teacher redundancies. This is economizing on people."

Parents of school children also express similar concerns. An English student named Vitali 

who has two children informed me, "I would be worried about the eyesight of my own children as they are already spending too much time in front of a computer." 

It is strange that while parents and teachers are attempting to protect children from overusing new gadgets, officials seek to promote them. This may well be an attempt by companies and officials to make a fast profit from selling gadgets as well as cutting the cost of education. It can be viewed as a crude commercial measure rather than a genuinely effective educational idea. As usual, the teachers and the Union Teacher have not

been consulted about this so-called 'modernization' or rather commercialization

of schools which we have witnessed in America with ill consequences concerning

not only education but in ruining physical and mental health.

Well, you can always kick your computer to see if it works again if it breaks down

during an on-line lesson. It might not do the trick, but you will feel a bit better.

Just don't take painkillers for your backache!